Assembly split on port land plan

PALMER — The Mat-Su Borough Assembly has decided to send the Port Commission an exemption for borough land use rules targeted at spurring development in the Port MacKenzie area.

The ordinance would allow land zoned for industrial uses — most of which is in area surrounding Port MacKenzie — to avoid a number of requirements that landowners have to meet in order to sub-divide land into smaller parcels. That process is usually used for selling pieces of a larger parcel. But it also applies when the intent is to lease smaller pieces of a larger parcel.

That’s the part that concerns the port. The borough has for sometime been looking at ways to make it easier for business owners to develop the port area. But, borough staff reports, the process now is too slow and costly.

“We just want the opportunity to have a different process for this,” said the borough’s planning chief, Eileen Probasco.

So the ordinance targeted industrial land. But a Tuesday assembly discussion around the ordinance also dealt with subdivision rules in general.

Local surveyor Pio Cottini said that since the borough adopted new subdivision rules in 2007 in a section of its code referred to as Title 27, his work has dropped off significantly. He said last year he worked on one subdivision, a 33-lot project on Palmer-Fishhook Road.

“I’d like to see you guys fix Title 27 so surveyors can get back to work,” he said.

Assemblyman Mark Ewing has said that exempting the port lands recognizes that Title 27 is too cumbersome to work with while — ironically — keeping the regulations in place for everyone else in the borough.

Probasco pointed out that the port area itself actually has a few parcels of industrial land, that the rules exemption is similar to one provided to the Palmer and Wasilla airports, and that there are other industrially zoned areas.

Marvin Yoder said that in his role working at the city of Wasilla he had talked to a number of private landowners with industrial land.

“I spoke to them. They were pleased with this particular action,” Yoder said. “They are interested in this ordinance going forward.”

Assemblyman Jim Colver proposed extending the exemption to all borough landowners. His idea found a lot of favor around the table, but eventually failed. Assemblyman Ron Arvin probably best summed up why that was.

“I like the direction of your amendment, I can’t get my head around really what that does yet,” Arvin said. “I would be a little reluctant to support your amendment because I don’t know the ultimate ramifications that will ensue.”

That’s what a lot of his colleagues seemed to think — that there needed to be more time and discussion on the issue. Cindy Bettine said that as far as she could tell, it would allow lease agreements with very little scrutiny.

“Let’s say your neighbor has 10 acres next to your home then he could lease two acres each to five different people,” Bettine said. “No subdivision code. No reason to have a public hearing. No additional impact study on the roads. No drainage plans. Nothing. So I can’t do that. I can’t vote for that for that reason.”

It was assemblyman Vern Halter who eventually proposed sending it to the Port Commission. His colleague Noel Woods agreed.

“I’m really surprised that the Port Commission wasn’t involved in this,” Woods said.

Eventually, the assembly approved Halter’s proposal and directed the commission to have comments on the plan back to them by the assembly’s April 19 meeting.