Conditional use ordinance

forwarded

By RINDI WHITE-Frontiersman reporter

MAT-SU -- Just a month after the Mat-Su Borough Planning Commission forwarded a proposed core area zoning ordinance to the borough assembly, the body wrapped up a revamp of the borough's conditional use permit.

The new ordinance was requested by borough assembly members shortly before the commission completed the zoning ordinance.

"The assembly ultimately passed a resolution that directed us to provide to them by July 16, a conditional-use permit ordinance that would deal with the 'big uglies,'" said planning commissioner Lee Sharp, who served as acting chair at the July 8 meeting at which the ordinance was passed.

"Big uglies" has come to represent land uses that could have adverse effects on neighbors. Uses currently regulated are junkyards, landfills and correctional community residential centers.

The new ordinance, as passed by the commission, would include regulations for noise, traffic, hazardous materials, exterior lighting and odors. It would apply in addition to the existing conditional use ordinance, and has two tiers of permitting -- one for land uses that would have impacts on their neighborhoods at just above the performance levels allowed in the document. For such land uses, Sharp explained, the permits could be granted in-house by borough staff. The second tier of permits, Sharp said, would mean the land user would go before the planning commission for permit approval.

After the assembly directed the planning commission to move forward, Sharp said, the body was provided with a near-complete ordinance.

"We scheduled several meetings on it to discuss it and request changes," Sharp said. "We scheduled the public hearing … probably two to three weeks before we had finished the ordinance."

That, he said, created problems during the public hearings held July 1 and 8.

"That was one of the problems," Sharp said. "There were changes being run in literally days before the hearing was scheduled … That was one of the things we heard a lot about at that Monday hearing."

Another thing the commission heard a lot of was opposition. Although people mentioned they hadn't had a chance to review the document as fully as they would have liked, all but three of the nearly 30 people who testified July 1 were against the ordinance.

Mat-Su Property Owners Association Vice-president Pio Cottini testified July 1 against the ordinance. Wednesday, he said the ordinance was not what he or other members of MSPOA were expecting to see.

"We had said that we would support a reasonable, well-thought-out conditional use permit," Cottini said. "We were hopeful that this conditional use permit would be reasonable … list a dozen, maybe half a dozen things. We would have been okay with that."

But Sharp said the commission was directed to come up with a performance-based standard for conditional use permits, not a list of uses that should be regulated.

"What we did was say we're not really concerned with the use, except whether it be commercial or industrial," Sharp said. "We were to try to come up with a list of the kinds of adverse impacts the 'big uglies' create."

Cottini maintains that the present ordinance would squelch development, and the planning commission's efforts would be better spent undertaking a thorough, comprehensive update of the core area comprehensive plan that could help identify road, utility and development corridors.

But it will be some time before the commission can take up that project. The conditional use permit ordinance is set to go to the assembly for introduction on July 16. At that same meeting, the core area zoning ordinance is set for introduction, and the assembly will discuss a proposal penned by assembly member Dan Kelly to ask borough residents whether zoning should be considered in their area. At the same time, the assembly has planned a work session to discuss zoning. That work session is set for 3 p.m. in assembly chambers.