Anchorage board vacates a Glen Alps public easement the city paid $130K to acquire

The Anchorage Platting Board voted Wednesday to vacate a public-use easement along Canyon Road in Glen Alps, clearing the way for a house on the lot — over objections that the city is giving up public access it paid to acquire, near a large area of public land with few ways in.

The easement is the last of three the municipality bought from the Rahaley family for $130,000, Glen Alps Community Council Vice President Brian Cook said, and the staff report recommending the vacation left that payment out. "There's no discussion of that in the public report," Cook said. Ten written comments and a council resolution opposed giving up the easement.

Craig Bennett of S4 Group, representing the petitioner, said the easement is surplus and dead-ends at fenced private property. "It doesn't go anywhere. Even if there was a trail, this would just create a short dead-end segment that crosses an existing driveway," Bennett said. Planning staff agreed the easement was surplus to the municipality's needs and reported no objections from the reviewing agencies.

Some residents said the easement carries an informal trail they use, built about five years ago, and that a gravel road shoulder is the only other place to walk — occupied by parked cars in summer and plowed snow in winter.

The board split on whether the city had shown the access was no longer needed. Members who opposed the vacation said the petitioner hadn't met the code's burden of proving the easement exceeds present and future public need, pointing to the trail's use and the fact that the municipal agency which acquired the easement never weighed in. Member Kevin Cross noted the easement was granted for valuable consideration and the city hadn't been compensated to release it — though after hearing the other members, he said he'd changed his position. The majority said no adopted plan identifies the easement for future public use, and that its original purpose, securing road access, was already met by the dedicated Canyon Road right-of-way. The motion passed.