Farm Loop flap: secessionists get the core

MAT-SU -- After hearing public testimony from people both in favor of and against allowing the Farm Loop community to secede from the core area, the Mat-Su Borough Assembly agreed through a split vote to keep the community within the core area boundary.

According to Pio Cottini, president of the Greater Farm Loop Community Council, the extraction request started in March 2000. Discussion of extraction began in 1999, he said, after a borough-wide zoning advisory vote.

Cottini said the council, through a split vote of its board members, agreed to proceed with the extraction request. In April 2000, the borough planning department received a letter from the Farm Loop Community Council requesting extraction from the core area. The letter also requested the borough to begin the development of a comprehensive plan for the council area and amend borough code to include restrictions within the Farm Loop area on businesses that would require a conditional-use permit, such as adult-oriented businesses, race tracks and other businesses.

According to information provided by planning department staff, a survey of the council area was conducted to see whether the council's letter had the support of the community. The results, as listed in information presented to the assembly last week, showed 67 people were in favor of remaining in the core area, 26 were willing to stay within the core area until a Farm Loop Community Comprehensive Plan was complete and 93 residents favored being removed from the core area and beginning the comprehensive plan process.

Kim Robinson, a Farm Loop Community Council board member, spoke against the board majority's request, stating the request should wait.

"I think action is premature," Robinson said. "Core area zoning may be adapted in such a form that appeals to the community of Farm Loop."

Deborah Schildt, a community council member, said she was frustrated with the continued push to be extracted from the council area, and felt the board did not represent the desires of a significant portion of the community.

"We're all looking for solutions that could work for all of us," Schildt said. "I'm tired of coming here and testifying … to me, this is a situation that's like a hairball in a cat -- it won't go away. I wish we could stay in the core area. I wish we could rid ourselves of this tiresome debate and just get on with it."

Several other people spoke in favor of keeping Farm Loop within the core area, at least until a final zoning proposal was on the table, most of whom reiterated similar concerns -- worries about future extraction problems and an influx of "uglies." Testifiers believed the assembly's approval would set a precedent that would allow any community council to extract itself from the core area, resulting in a piecemeal approach to establishing a core area. Concerns that removing Farm Loop from the core area would open the area up to fringe uses, possibly objectionable uses, that were not allowed in the core area were also raised at the meeting.

When the matter was addressed by the assembly, assembly member Sara Jansen made a motion to uphold the planning staff's recommendation that the community stay within the core area. She agreed with Robinson's sentiments that the action seemed premature.

Assembly member Kelly Lankford Ladere disagreed, saying she would uphold the decision and thought process that was expressed by the community council.

"This community council has formalized a position and I intend to align myself with it," Ladere said.

Although assembly member Bruce Bush requested postponing the issue, assembly member Dan Kelly objected, stating a motion he made to bring the zoning proposal to a vote could make the community council's extraction request moot.

"I believe that both sides still want something," Kelly said. "[They should] have the opportunity to address this as a voting concept."

The motion passed, with Ladere and Bush opposed.