Borough offering driveway permit fee waiver

MAT-SU — The Mat-Su Borough Planning Department caused a stir when a Facebook post about driveway permits gained significant traction after residents became concerned about if their driveways needed a permit.

“Borough code says all access encroachments onto borough roadways require a permit so in order to be in compliance you need to have a permit,” said borough Permit Technician Michelle Olsen.

The Mat-Su Borough Assembly moved last year to waive the fee for acquiring a driveway permit. Driveways that exit onto borough roads must be permitted, and the borough is offering waivers on the driveway permitting fee until March 18 for driveways paved prior to 2011. Driveway permits have existed since 1984 and are based in safety, said Olsen. Residents who have driveways on borough roads can contact permitcenter@matsugov.us or 861-7822 to get more information.

Olsen said that the borough has lidar imaging from 2011 to check if the driveways were paved prior to 2011 and can help residents through the process.

“If the driveway shows up, there’s no fee for it and that way they can get their application in and we can get more people brought into compliance that much faster and easier for them,” said Olsen. “We’ve been doing some pretty active public outreach but not everybody knows so we’re still trying to reach as many people as possible.”

Olsen said that prior to the start of construction in the summer, the permitting office has a lull in tasks during the winter. When the Planning Department posted about about the fee waiver three weeks ago, residents began flooding the department’s phone lines with calls to find out if they qualified for the fee waiver and acquire a driveway permit. Olsen said that nearly 450 applications have come in, roughly 150 of which were on city or state roads and did not require a borough permit and approximately another 60 people that had permits opened but never finalized.

“We’re just looking at line of sight, safety, it all comes down to safety for us. Can 911 find you quickly, are you damaging the roads that’s going to cost taxpayers money,” said Olsen.