Plenty for landowners if change to borough rules goes through

PALMER — Community councils could be getting larger if the Mat-Su Borough assembly approves a proposal from Mayor Larry DeVilbiss.

An ordinance set for discussion at Tuesday’s meeting, but that will likely be delayed until the start of next year, would expand eligibility for council members. Now council members must be community residents, but the mayor’s proposal would expand that to include people who own land in the community, but reside elsewhere.

Community councils will have to decide individually whether they want to give a seat at the table to people who own property but don’t live in the area.

“It will be voluntary,” said Mayor DeVilbiss.

And even if a community council decides to take the borough up on its offer, that doesn’t necessarily mean the meetings will all of a sudden be flooded with people.

“Last night I was at a meeting up at The Y and there were maybe 10 people there representing probably a couple thousand and so just because that door is open does not mean everybody is going to elect to be there,” DeVilbiss said.

Given how community councils usually work, he said, a crowded meeting would likely remain a rare occurrence, reserved for times when the council is considering something controversial.

“It would have to be an issue that got them pretty motivated,” DeVilbiss said.

The ordinance allows for entities like corporations that own land to send a delegate to be their voting member on the council. But even if a person or corporation owns a dozen pieces of land, they only get one vote each. DeVilbiss pointed out that the residency requirement kind of works the opposite way.

“If you had an apartment with 100 renters in there they could all vote,” DeVilbiss said.

As for whether he sees a need for this change, DeVilbiss said that he’s heard some rumblings from places like Lake Louise.

“The sense I’ve gotten is that our more remote community councils we’ve had requests in the past from — Lake Louise for instance — (is) there’s a lot of non-resident property owners there,” DeVilbiss said. “Chickaloon kind of flirts with that issue to some degree with their existing bylaws, but I think the more remote and the less populated the community council areas the more need there might be for allowing this.”

Borough Attorney Nick Spiropoulos said that the borough is free to make this move if it wants.

“There’s no state law on community councils at all,” he said.

He said community councils are independent organizations that can apply for recognition from the borough. They make recommendations to the borough on land use issues, but have no power to pass ordinances. Borough recognition comes with a few benefits.

“If you’re outside an area where community council exists there’s no requirement by code that the assembly has to consider (your recommendations),” Spiropoulos said. “They also get some staff support from the planning department.”

DeVilbiss said he wants the borough assembly to take its time deciding the issue.

“It’s pretty short notice for community councils to weigh in on this,” the mayor said. “I have offered and put the word out and I’m going to be asking that this public hearing will be extended at least into January.”

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