Same rules apply

PALMER -- Can they keep their horses on their property? Will they be allowed to continue burning garbage in a burn barrel?

These are the sorts of questions homeowners have been asking as Palmer prepares to annex them into the city. Now they have their answers -- they will have to follow the same rules as everyone else in city limits. For example, those who own an acre or more will still be able to keep large animals. Burn barrels would be allowed only with an open-burn permit from the fire chief.

More than 800 acres are expected to become part of the city later this summer when an ongoing annexation attempt is finalized, and then hundreds of property owners will have a whole new set of rules to follow.

"We're getting a lot of questions about it," City Manager Tom Healy said. Homeowners have showed up to Planning and Zoning meetings to ask how they will be affected when they join the city. In hopes of easing the transition, the city is preparing a sheet of answers to "frequently asked questions" to be mailed out to all annexed property owners later this summer.

But for these new city residents, there will be no "transitional zoning."

The Palmer City Council had been considering this option for the annexed areas, but at a meeting earlier this month the council followed the recommendation of the Planning and Zoning Commission and threw out the plan. Commissioners argued the transitional zoning was largely unnecessary, since most properties will easily fall into existing zoning categories, and would simply delay the inevitable classification of property. The council seemed to agree

Instead, as is currently laid out in city code, all annexed properties will come into the city as either residential or public lands. Within two months of the official date of annexation, the Planning and Zoning Commission will review land issues in the new areas and recommend changes if necessary to designations such as industrial, commercial, agriculture or non-conforming use. Property owners can also come to the city to request a reconsideration of their zoning.

Some council members weren't ready to abandon a transitional plan, however. Councilmen John Combs and Brad Hanson voted against throwing it out, saying the city had put a lot of time and effort into it and that the more flexible approach was appropriate for the annexed areas.

The transitional zoning would have been used for property that wasn't residential or public, and the label was designed to allow property owners to continue using their land the way they had before they were included in the city, as long as there were not any health or safety issues.

Even without the transitional zoning option, though, Healy said the vast majority of annexed properties will be easily categorized, and most of them as residential.

"We would like to accommodate the uses as much as possible, and a lot of them are fairly obvious," Healy said.

Healy said in addition to sending out information to property owners, the city will conduct an inventory of existing land uses in the annexed areas to help guide the city as it makes zoning decisions.

The annexation is expected to become official in June or July once the city clears its last hurdle -- the U.S. Department of Justice. The department has to give its stamp of approval based on the Voting Rights Act of 1965, designed to make sure the boundary changes won't compromise anyone's voting rights.