Growing pains on rise

November 12,2006

By Michael Rovito

Frontiersman

PALMER - Out of 2,600 Mat-Su Borough residents who responded to a recent borough survey, the majority - 81 percent - favor more management of growth and development by the borough, officials said last week.

Even so, some residents are outraged over a proposed borough ordinance aimed at improving the level of compliance with borough code in areas outside Palmer, Wasilla and Houston.

If passed, the ordinance would require landowners to obtain a building permit from the borough before building a structure that is 300 square feet or more, an addition exceeding 10 percent of a building's gross floor area or increasing the number of dwellings in areas with regulations addressing the number of dwellings on a particular site, according to borough documents.

Those examples are only a handful of regulations the ordinance could mandate, but Borough Manager John Duffy said the public can expect significant changes by the time the assembly would vote to adopt the measure.

Tom Kluberton, the borough's District 7 assemblyman, said many people in the more sparsely populated areas of the borough may be reacting to the proposed ordinance because the borough has never had a process to tell people exactly what the building requirements are.

&#8220Land use sets people off,” Kluberton said, adding that many residents in his district still hold an &#8220it's Alaska” mentality about their living situation, harking back to the Last Frontier's historic freedom to do what one pleases.

The outcry is nothing new to the borough, which saw much the same type of reaction during the lead-up to land use Title 16. The reworking of that ordinance, which tightened many of the regulations that were loosened during a late 1980s housing decline in the borough, saw packed assembly meetings and residents from parts of the borough up the Parks Highway expressing their anger at being required to follow the same rules they said were more important for the core area.

In Meadow Lakes, an area Kluberton said seems to have some of the most concerned citizens about the permitting ordinance, community council member William Browne said he agrees with Kluberton's assessment that those living outside the core see this type of ordinance as bowing to something more suited to the Wasilla-Palmer area.

&#8220A lot of people move out here to get away from that,” Browne said.

Citing the remoteness of some properties, Browne said he wonders who will enforce the ordinance's regulations, if it is passed. Browne also said many of the chicken coops built in his area are larger than 300 square feet, and he questions the necessity of requiring a permit for such a structure.

&#8220We're not the core area out here,” Browne said, adding that minimal regulation is

preferred.

But that mentality is most likely what has caused the congestion conundrum in Alaska's larger cities, according to Claus-M. Naske, a former professor of Northern Studies at the University of Alaska Fairbanks.

Naske said the time when planning could go by the wayside in Alaska no longer exists, and to not plan in every area of a borough would be risky.

&#8220Just look at Wasilla,” Naske said. &#8220That's a crime, that isn't a city.”

The agenda of many Alaskans who came from Outside also hasn't changed, even as the state progresses and catches up with those in the Lower 48, Naske said.

&#8220We have this wild idea that anyone who comes to Alaska can do what they want,” he said. &#8220We've caught up with the Lower 48, but we don't have the same mechanisms of the other states.”

To Kluberton, who runs the Fireweed Station Inn in Talkeetna, along with serving on the assembly, the borough can't afford to be affected by the &#8220it's Alaska” attitude of area residents.

&#8220You can't have efficient government and not have zoning,” Kluberton said, &#8220I think the climate in the borough is warming up to

zoning.”

Contact Michael Rovito at 352-2252 or michael.rovito@frontiersman.com.