Resolution would create two new townsites

I am asking the Mat-Su Borough Assembly at our first meeting in January to approve a resolution to put not one, but two new townsites on the map.

I have been the brunt of some criticism by renowned Constitutional Convention member and Alaska’s first state planner Vic Fischer. In a meeting a little over a year ago, he was decrying the disaster of the “Bridge to Nowhere” and suggested that Anchorage should annex Point MacKenzie to mitigate such a disaster. He ignored the fact that we already have 14 square miles of land designated for industrial use with leases already in place. We already have dirt moving on the rail extension. We have an active farming community that has been in production for more than 20 years. We also have Goose Creek Correctional Center with its 1,536 beds up and running with a public water and sewer system that is poised for expansion.

I have pretty thick skin when it comes to criticism, but I also have an open mind. I also totally support getting land into private ownership. The causeway (KABATA) is imminent. The right-of-way is being purchased. A plan is in process for Big Lake regarding the transportation corridor to the Park’s Highway with other infrastructure such as a gas line and a new leg of the Alaska Electrical Intertie — it is high time to put our intentions on the map.

The first townsite is about three square miles of borough land adjacent to the Goose Creek Correctional Center. The resolution has already been unanimously approved by the Point MacKenzie Community Council. The Point MacKenzie comprehensive plan already makes provision for townsites by stating it encourages “development of town centers. The town centers should include sites for a library, health clinic, post office, service station, school sites, community center, grocery store, café, hotel, police station and multi-family development.”

This townsite will complement the housing needs and commercial interests of the port, the correctional center, the rail and the agricultural district. There is the opportunity to also include the concept of a floatplane base on two unnamed lakes in the site.

The second site has been talked about for more than 20 years and is part of a 50,000-acre agricultural disposal on Fish Creek between the Little and the Big Susitna rivers just a couple of miles west of the existing Susitna Parkway, south of Big Lake, and is owned jointly by the borough and state. This could conceivably tie in with a new road connecting the Knik Arm Bridge and Toll Authority project to the Park’s Highway that runs north toward Nancy Lake.

This townsite would complement the already planned agriculture disposal that provides for small to mid-sized agricultural parcels that are laid out to hold existing wetlands in public ownership. The eastern portion of that project that was originally approved in concept by the assembly in the 1980s states that land should be reserved for town center development for community services and a centralized commercial district. This layout with the adjacent Big Lake trail system and public ownership of wetland corridors would lend itself handily to Big Lake’s recreation infrastructure and connections to points far beyond.

Those who want to see more details on resolution number 13-031 can see it in the next assembly packet that will be posted on the Mat-Su Borough website at the end of the second week in January. As we face a new year, I trust we can open new opportunities to the next generation of development in our great borough.

Larry DeVilbiss has been mayor of the Mat-Su Borough since January 2011.