Borough staff back letting a 1976 Fairbanks duplex keep both homes despite rezoning

A Fairbanks North Star Borough hearing officer will decide Nov. 5 whether a duplex built on Birch Lane in 1976 can keep both of its homes, though the land under it was later rezoned for single-family houses.

Borough staff recommend letting it stay.

Two couples owned the land as the duplex went up. In a September 1976 letter, John and Candice Detwiler and Larry and Marilyn Gill asked the borough to split the lot along the building's shared wall so each couple could own its half.

Each intended "to occupy their respective Town House residences," they wrote, and a mortgage company had agreed to write a separate mortgage for each half if the borough approved.

The borough Planning Commission approved the request that November. Duplexes were allowed under the land's zoning at the time.

In the 1990s, the borough rezoned the land Single-Family Residential, which allows only one home per building. Staff couldn't find the ordinance that made the change or a zoning permit for the duplex.

Owner Bryce Weaver applied in September for grandfather rights, which let a property keep a use that was legal before the zoning changed. Borough assessing records list Weaver as an owner since 1997.

Borough planner Sarah Bingham recommends granting them, finding the building had two homes before the rezone and hasn't been altered since it was built. A borough assessor recorded "a new duplex" on the lot in August 1976, she wrote.

If Hearing Officer Kellen Spillman agrees, the status would stay with the property if it's sold. It would end if the building stopped being used as two homes for 36 months.