Anchorage may let its planning director redraw wetland maps as wetlands shift and dry up

Under an ordinance headed to a public hearing Oct. 6, Anchorage's planning director could redraw the boundaries of mapped wetlands administratively — without an Assembly vote — where wetlands have moved or dried up.

Wetlands cover a lot of Anchorage: about 7,300 acres in the Anchorage Bowl alone, and some 14,500 across the wider municipality — bogs, streamside marshes and ponded ground that the city's decades-old Wetlands Management Plan sorts into "developable," "conservation" and "preservation." Those classifications decide where building is easy, where it is restricted, and where filling requires a federal Clean Water Act permit.

Wetlands don't stay put, though. Anchorage's have diminished since the 1950s as the city filled and drained them for housing and commercial land, and shifting hydrology can leave a mapped wetland migrating or vanishing while its official boundary stays frozen. Updating the maps now takes an Assembly ordinance; this change would let the planning director make those corrections directly.

The ordinance also adjusts the city's fee schedule so the administrative map fixes aren't charged the higher fee the Assembly route would carry. The Planning and Zoning Commission heard no public opposition.