Months of debate on subdivisions ends with borough rules changes

PALMER — After months and months amendments and work sessions, meetings and false starts, the Mat-Su Borough Assembly has made a decision about subdividing land.

In a 5-1 vote Tuesday, the assembly decided to loosen restrictions on landowners trying to divide bigger parcels of land into smaller parcels.

In an interview Thursday, Assemblyman Jim Colver said the rules are in effect right now. He said the summer should see a few projects get off the ground, but he’s not predicting a new subdivision boom.

“I think what you’ll see is the individuals, that the people (who) retire, they want to give their kids some land, stuff they wanted to do that they haven’t been able to,” Colver said.

Main points of contention in previous incarnations of the subdivision codes included requirements that road access be built to subdivided parcels and how difficult it made subdividing land for non-developers.

The counter argument had been that the rules in place prevent unscrupulous subdivision developers from building substandard roads and sticking the borough with the cost of bringing them up to code and maintaining them.

An illustration of that second point about non-developers arrived at Tuesday’s meeting in the form of Mike Shrieves, a local concrete contractor who staked out 40 acres of land between the Kahiltna River and Lake Creek. He built a cabin and now wants to give 20 of those to a partner who’s also built a cabin on the land.

“You can’t subdivide unless you can prove a constructible borough access,” Shrieves said he was told when he went to the borough. “If I got sick or died I could sell it to my partner, but I got this for my family and I don’t see why I should have to prove to you that we can build a borough maintainable road.”

He said he likes that the land is inaccessible and kind of wants to keep it that way.

The bulk of Tuesday’s meeting was taken up with complex changes to the minutiae of the code change.

Colver said in the interview that the big changes to the code had to do mostly with reducing requirements to build roads to borough standard— not everyone has to now — and empowering the platting director to make decisions. But, he said, it doesn’t let developers off the hook.

“We’re not always just addressing development for the developers,” he said. “The developers are still going to have to build full-on roads.

Having passed a raft of changes, Assemblyman Warren Keogh asked that the assembly send the ordinance to the borough’s planning commission, platting board and the supervisors of its road service areas.

Assemblyman Darcie Salmon was the first to object, saying that the two months or more that would be needed to get a response back from those bodies would basically destroy the entire summer construction season for people planning subdivide parcels.

“You’re calling 2012 a dead year if this happens,” Salmon said. And, anyway, he said it’s not like the ordinance hasn’t gotten plenty of input already. “It’s been revised and revised and revised.”

Keogh said that’s just the problem.

“We’ve had no public input for eight or nine months,” he said, and in that nine months the assembly has drastically changed what it intended to do with the re-write. “What we have now is extraordinarily different “

Assemblyman Colver, who put in the bulk of the assembly’s legwork in gathering suggestions from various parties, said he wanted to see the new ordinance in action.

“I’d just like to get this thing over with and let’s test drive it,” he said. “We’ve been on this for almost a year.”

Assemblyman Ron Arvin agreed that more input wasn’t necessary.

“This didn’t go idly by the public. This didn’t get slipped into code one dark night,” he said. “This has been talked about probably more than any topic since I’ve sat at this table.”

Assemblyman Steve Colligan said he could sympathize with the desire for more tweaks to the ordinance, but didn’t support it.

“Being German and stubborn and liking perfection is one of my faults, but I have to remind myself that sometimes you have to make it possible,” he said.

Keogh ended up being the lone dissenting vote on the ordinance, saying that the process started out when it became clear there were major flaws in the borough’s subdivision codes that needed to be replaced.

But instead of, in Keogh’s words, “using a scalpel” to cut out the offending bits, “We used a sledgehammer and so we’ve smashed it to smithereens and cobbled it back together,” he said. With more input, “we could have maybe made it better than it is, but as it is I can’t in good conscience support this thing.”

After the ordinance passed, Assemblyman Vern Halter asked that the planning commission and platting board be tasked with coming back with a review of the ordinance. He set the date for those bodies to report back as late as January 2013, so that the report could include some sense of how the new ordinance works.

Contact reporter Andrew Wellner at andrew.wellner@frontiersman.com or 352-2270.

Should the borough loosen standards on subdividing land?

Ron Arvin: Yes

Steve Colligan: Yes

Jim Colver: Yes

Vern Halter: Yes

Warren Keogh: No

Darcie Salmon: Yes

Noel Woods: Yes