Community Review of Draft Girdwood Comprehensive Plan Opens

March 31 Deadline for Public Comments on Draft Plan

By Brooks Chandler

TN Contributor

An important way station on the long and winding road to an update of the 1995 Girdwood Area Plan has been reached.  

On Wednesday,  Imagine! Girdwood released the Public Review Draft of the Girdwood Comprehensive Plan.   

The draft plan will be presented to the public at a Land Use Committee meeting March 11 and at the Girdwood Board of Supervisors meeting March 25.  

A final draft is planned for release April 24.  Adoption of a new comprehensive plan requires Assembly approval following formal review by the MOA planning staff and the Anchorage Planning and Zoning Commission. The time required for that process is uncertain. Imagine! Girdwood has targeted May 3 for submission of a formal request to review and approve the new plan.

Imagine Girdwood is a non-profit organization formed in 2019 specifically to complete an update to the Girdwood Area Plan following the failure of the Municipality of Anchorage to fully fund this effort.  MOA through the Mayor’s office and HLB has since contributed partial funding and staff to the effort.   

The purpose of any comprehensive plan is to guide the next 20 years of growth and development in a community.  

Topics addressed in the draft plan include utilities, environmental constraints, trails, housing, transportation, land use and public facilities—in short, many topics that impact day to day life in Glacier Valley. 

The draft concludes with a series of specific policy recommendations and suggested general revisions to existing land use regulations. The public is encouraged to review and comment on the plan.

Huddle Alaska, an Anchorage based planning and landscape architecture firm owned by Holly Spoth-Torres was the primary consultant to Imagine! Girdwood.  

Imagine Girdwood is sponsored by Girdwood, Inc.  The group was formally authorized, and permitted to receive MOA Planning staff support, by the Anchorage Assembly in April of 2021.  Current directors and officers of Imagine! Girdwood are Mike Edgington, chair; Chase Berenson, vice-chair, Shannon O’Brien, secretary; Amanda Sassi, treasurer and Mitch Roth, director at large.  Past officers included Erin Eker, Diana Livingston, Ed Harris and Craig Schubert.

Public Comments will be accepted through March 31. Comments can be submitted using a form available on the Imagine! Girdwood website or by email addressed to girdwoodareaplan@gmail.com.