University study: Mat-Su residents want to stay rural

PALMER — A survey of what Mat-Su Borough residents want the future of the Valley to look like got lukewarm reviews from the borough mayor this week.

The study, released recently by the University of Alaska Anchorage’s Institute for Social and Economic Research, asked borough residents how much they would be willing to pay for things like farmland preservation and trail access.

“Our survey told us that Mat-Su residents place a high value on protecting the rural character of the area. They put the highest value on fully restoring salmon runs and keeping farmland as farmland. Conversely… they don’t favor actions that would encourage very fast population growth or add local resource-extraction jobs. That doesn’t necessarily mean Mat-Su residents are against resource development: they may just not want it in their neighborhoods or recreation sites,” reads the conclusion of the report, penned by Tobias Schwörer, a researcher at ISER.

The survey found that Mat-Su residents would be willing to pay extra money that would pencil out to $54 million if everyone paid to restore salmon runs.

They would pay $34 million to increase the amount of farmland in the borough and $28 million just to preserve what the Valley already has.

Residents who responded to the survey said they would pay $22 million to increase access to recreation.

As for job creation, the survey found that residents would pay $3 million to encourage professional jobs in the Valley. But they reacted negatively to resource extraction jobs, putting a value of negative $16 million on those jobs, which the research summary interpreted as meaning they would want to be paid for that. But even more negative was the reaction to very fast population growth, which was assigned a value of minus $33 million.

Mat-Su Borough Mayor Larry DeVilbiss said he doesn’t give much weight to the survey, given its response rate.

According to Schwörer’s research summary, 1,400 surveys were mailed to borough residents, with 184 returned as undeliverable, and 224 residents completing and returning the survey.

“I give it the weight that I would give anything that only got 200 out of 1,200 responses,” the mayor said. “It can’t be very representative.”

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