Boundary commission recommends smaller Big Lake

BIG LAKE — Staff are recommending that a possible city of Big Lake be about 60 percent of what was requested, according to a Local Boundary Commission Staff report.

The Big Lake Community Council had sought to incorporate all of Mat-Su Borough Road Service Area 21, an area of about 113 square miles. The preliminary report, issued Wednesday, instead recommends about 68 square miles for incorporated, roughly the urban core of the Big Lake area, documents show.

Council president Bill Kramer was still reviewing the report Thursday morning, but said he generally didn’t object to the findings, so far.

“What’s left in the LBC’s scaled-down area is major portions of the city,” he said. “That certainly doesn’t surprise me.”

The incorporation would still include the majority of Road Service Area 21, a separate file containing a letter by Mat-Su Borough Administrator John Moosey says that in the event of a successful incorporation, RSA 21 would be disbanded.

“If the city of Big Lake forms, by law, the Big Lake Road Service Area ceases to exist,” he wrote.

The fund balance for that road service area could be refunded to the city, but would require consideration by the borough assembly.

That prospect worries Houston Planning commission chair Christian Hartley less than the effects on the Miller’s Reach neighborhood. About 50 lots with 30, full-time year-round residents face a potential future where they no longer receive road service from the borough, Hartley said.

The state report said the area could affect the bottom line of a potential city of Big Lake because of the distance a Big Lake road crew would have to travel to provide those services.

That could create pressure for the residents there to consider joining the city of Houston, which is nearby, though officials said residents will have to decide for themselves how to proceed.

“The property owners could just decide to take care of the roads themselves,” he said.

Another potential option could be a contractual agreement involving the Miller’s Reach neighborhood, the borough, and the city of Houston, said Mayor Virgie Thompson, where residents paid for some of the services they received.

“That’s something the council and the planning commission would have to consider,” she said.

That could be seen as welcome news in the wake of a divisive recent debate about at possible lighting factory, Hartley said.

“It’s not that we’re at the limit of what we have space for,” he said. “We’re at the limit of what people want in their back yards.”

The annexed lands could be seen as a potential way of introducing an industry to Houston, which has struggled to provide services in recent years, and temporarily closed its police department as a result of financial troubles and a lingering personnel dispute only recently resolved in court.

Contact Brian O’Connor at 352-2269 or brian.oconnor@frontiersman.com.