Borough delays ag land regs review

PALMER — The Mat-Su Borough has put off until April 2015 a controversial request to ease restrictions on a parcel of land in the Willow area, a move that would allow it to be converted into agriculture-only land into a gravel pit.

The proposal for the land near Mile 78 of the Parks Highway came from Colaska, a company that builds roads in the state and operates a subsidiary, QAP — formerly Quality Asphalt Paving.

The land in question hasn’t been farmed since 2011, when Ted and Jean Berry were forced to sell and move away, in part due to the gravel pit next door that had blanketed their hay crop in so much dust it was unusable.

Elsa Billingham lives nearby and says the land has already been converted for gravel pit use. She said the gravel pit already there is “excessive” and that it has given her trouble accessing the land she owns there.

“After 40 years of paying taxes, I have a view of a gravel pit,” Billingham said.

Agricultural land in the borough is a complicated issue. Lands sold for “agriculture use only” don’t necessarily have to look like farms. They can be wooded lands used for birch tapping or beekeeping.

But when a person buys that parcel, the person is buying only the agricultural rights. The borough holds onto the development rights. The Colaska proposal, then, often sounds like a sale, in this case a sale of development rights to land Colaska already bought.

Mat-Su Assemblyman Vern Hal ter, who represents the area, proposed an amendment to the ordinance that seemingly followed through on claims he made in media accounts prior to the meeting that he would like to see proceeds from a potential sale of those development rights go to save more critical farmland in greater danger of development.

The amendment set the purchase price for the development rights at $5,621 an acre. Multiplied by the area’s acreage of 213.05 acres, that would be $1,197,554.05.

Halter’s amendment says the money would, “only be used to purchase like agricultural land to promote agriculture.”

Mat-Su Borough staff in a memo attached to the proposed ordinance outlined its concerns that there are a lot of landowners currently asking questions, trying to get agriculture-only restrictions eased.

“Assembly approval of sale of the development rights on this property would set a new precedent and could result in a flood of applications to purchase development rights and/or remove (covenants, conditions and restrictions) that maintain agricultural use of property, leaving Borough residents with an even more vulnerable food supply if selling development rights became the new policy over maintaining Borough ownership of development rights,” the memo states.

Eventually, based in part on a request from Colaska, the assembly agreed to put the discussion and decision on the sale off until April 7.

Contact Andrew Wellner at 352-2270 or andrew.wellner@frontiersman.com.