Palmer to zone annexed land

PALMER -- Joining the city of Palmer means following its rules, but what will those rules be?

Later this summer the city of Palmer will grow to encompass another 859 acres. In the meantime, the Palmer City Council and planning commission continue to work out the details of how to zone these new portions of the city.

The planning commission will have a public hearing on the matter at its April 17 meeting. The meeting is slated for 7 p.m. in the council chambers at Palmer City Hall.

With annexation expected to be finalized sometime in June, City Manager Tom Healy has urged the council to settle on a zoning approach for the annexed areas sooner rather than later.

"We'd like to get those in place before the date of annexation, so people know the rules," Healy explained.

The most recent plan favored by the council is "transitional zoning." This approach would allow single-family residential areas to be zoned "R-1" and government-owned property be zoned "public" upon annexation.

Property that fell outside of these designations would be labeled "T-zone," with the intent of allowing property owners to continue using their land the way they had before being included in the city, as long as there are not health or safety issues.

"The idea is over time these areas will move toward more specific zoning requirements," Healy said.

As the city attorney described it, the transitional zoning is intended to "allow a broad range of continued land use, including delineated expansion and development of continued uses." However, property owners would not be allowed to change how they use their parcels of land while retaining the label of transitional zone.

While the transitional zoning is meant to be just that -- transitional -- there is no sunset clause.

According to the ordinance before the commission, within two years of annexation, the commission will hold public hearing regarding land use. After the hearings, the city can rezone land previously labeled "transitional," which could result in property being more strictly rezoned. However, the ordinance does not require a change in zoning and instead property could remain "T-zoned" indefinitely.

Healy does expect this will be an issue with most annexed properties, however.

"With the majority of them, we know what the uses are," Healy said. Most of the annexed land is residential, he said, and is less densely developed than core city areas. In other cases, Healy said, commercial operations have already proven to be "good neighbors," and most likely won't be required to run their businesses any differently than they already are.