Popular Settlers Bay Coastal Park opens a new entrance -- and new land

A new trailhead and parking area are officially open at Settlers Bay Coastal Park off Knik-Goose Bay Road, adding an additional development to the Borough’s newest park in a part of the region with booming population growth.

Known as the west trailhead, the new parking area also includes two additional pit toilets for the park, bringing the total to three. Best accessed off South Turner Drive on the southern end of South Settlers Bay Drive, the parking area offers users easy access to a viewing platform over the flats unveiled in 2021.

The park has been under development since 2018 when an initial Borough plan was created after a public comment period. That survey ranked hiking trails and bathrooms as the two highest priorities. The park today has nine miles of trails, including single track trials designed for mountain bikes.

While opening the west trailhead is a final major step in the park’s initial plan, a recent donation of 187 adjacent acres means work there is still just starting for Eric Phllips, community development director for the MatSu Borough.

The land was donated to the Borough by the conservation organization Great Land Trust under a special protection agreement known as a conservation easement. That means the Borough can use it for some developed park activities, such as adding some bathrooms and building trails, but not others, such as a motorized trails.

The easement is designed to protect the delicate wetlands and salmon habitat that are in the wetlands portion of the area as well as its rich indigenous historical site, GLT officials said in a March release announcing the donation.

“GLT holds a conservation easement over the entire park, which ensures that the park will be reserved for public recreation and that the wildlife habitat and salmon streams will be protected forever,” the release said.

The newly added parcels are northeast of the current Settlers Bay Coastal Park. The additions bring the park’s size to 480 acres.

Donations of land to the Borough typically take months, following a long bureaucratic process. But thanks to a fundraising deadline with Great Land Trust, the process for this donation was accelerated, with public comment opening on the acquisition in late December and the transfer completed by late March.

That means the Borough didn’t follow its usual process of creating a park management or project plan before completing the transfer, Phillips said, and that work has still yet to get rolling.

“Our next logical step is to have a development plan put together for how the second phase is going to fit in with what we're accomplishing with the first phase,” he said. “The key part of it is soliciting public input, and then taking it and molding it into the planning document.”

Phillips didn’t have a timeline for when that may happen.

In the meantime, GLT is planning a celebration at the park for late July, GLT executive director Ellen Kazary said in an email. The free, family-friendly event will provide guided tours, information and activities on the park’s cultural history.

The event will run July 22 from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. at the newly opened west parking lot.