Anchorage Board endorses sweeping changes to Girdwood Comprehensive Plan

By Soren Wuerth

TNews Editor

An Anchorage board erased hundreds of acres preserved as natural space from Girdwood's comprehensive plan Monday, rejecting pleas to consider the community's preference to keep the land from being developed for subdivisions.

Anchorage's Planning and Zoning Commission, in a 5-2 vote, endorsed suggestions from the city's planning department that would dramatically change Girdwood's update of a nearly 30-year-old area plan. 

The commission's decision, which serves as advice for a subsequent Anchorage Assembly determination, allows much of the land designated as "open space", "future parkland", or "vegetative buffers" to be clearcut, filled and developed. 

Girdwood's Comprehensive Plan was dealt a sweeping blow from the Planning and Zoning Commission Monday impacting pristine areas of forest land in Girdwood. (Photo by Soren Wuerth)

Provisions that preserve natural areas, such as vegetation buffers of 100 feet or more around new development, keeps future development in line with the character of the community, architects of Girdwood's area plan said.

"We think the community gets an opinion on where they want housing and where they want open space, the community views the preservation of open space and park land as part of their public interest and welfare," said Holly Spoth-Torres, of Huddle AK, a consulting firm hired by the municipality to help Girdwood with its plan.

A planning department official said that the provisions to protect lands from development, such as vegetative buffers, are impediments to development and consistent with Anchorage's housing plan that calls on agencies to make land available for housing.

Areas designated as open space or preserves are among 11 areas described by the Heritage Land Bank, the Anchorage office that manages much of Girdwood's public land, as "developable" for housing, said Elizabeth Appleby, of the city's planning office.

"The department feels these amendments are necessary to address the housing crisis," Appleby said.

Applyby also said a designation of open space in the upper valley would be "inconsistent" with the commission's approval of Alyeska's master plan in early June. 

The planning department, in a letter issued last week, said undeveloped land in Girdwood is detrimental to the "public interest and welfare of the community" even though the vast majority of comments on the plan urged protection of natural areas in Girdwood's valley.

One area that has drawn contention is nearly 100 acres of land in the upper valley where Alyeska Resort owner Pomeroy Lodging hopes to build housing. Though it was aware the Girdwood Comprehensive Plan, with that land protected as open space, was months away from adoption, the commission voted in June to allow Pomeroy to develop the public land under the old Girdwood Area Plan.

Barbara Crews, who chairs Girdwood's trail committee, told commission members the community spent six years on a trails plan in the upper valley where there is a "spider web" of existing trails.

“You have to put it in perspective. No one in Girdwood ever desired to have housing in this area," Crews said. "The discussion, the spectrum, was all the way at the other end, whether there was nothing or there was a Class Four trail. It wasn't what we wanted, roads and development and trams."

"To put a housing development in the middle of this, I find it is an insult to all our hard work," she said.

Deb Essex, who is president of Girdwood's Nordic Ski Club, noted the planning department's justification for removing open space from the Comprehensive Plan.

"One, the property owner is the public, not [Heritage Land Bank], not Pomeroy ... the only HLB approved proposal on that parcel is the Girdwood Nordic Ski Club's Forest Loop Trail," Essex said. She said although it is a "developable" parcel, it is the most expensive of 11 parcels HLB included in a report to the city's planning office. 

Housing there would be expensive and residential development would take place beneath the flight path of the airport, where helicopters often carry "sling loads", creating congestion, Essex said.

She added that rather than a "detriment to public interest and the welfare of the community", the recreational area provides an economic benefit for Girdwood.

"Obviously development is inevitable, but if we focus on safety, the values of our community, connectivity of trails and conservation first, maybe we could avoid some of the mistakes of other well-known and over-developed resort towns that have lost their affordable housing and small town feel," Essex said.

Shannon O'Brien told the panel rather than degrading development, vegetative buffers enhance development while keeping a "small town feel". "It seems like an easy meeting in the middle" to satisfy the desires of those who want to develop with those who want natural areas, she said.

O'Brien also said natural and recreational areas around Girdwood attract tourism. "That benefits Anchorage, that is what public land is used for," she said.

Board member Greg Strike, who voted no on the planning office's amendments, asked for more time for the plan's framers and the city's planning department to get together to find areas of compromise.

"I don't want to be in the position of Big Brother to oversee and guide [Girdwood's residents] and dictate to them what they have in this comprehensive plan … these are very clear definitions they have asked for and, again, this is their comprehensive plan," said Strike.

Strike's amendment to delay was rejected by the commission.