Fairbanks board approves 8 industrial lots on land split without approval in 1974

The Fairbanks North Star Borough Platting Board voted 5-0 on Oct. 21 to approve dividing a 37-acre industrial property on South Cushman Street Extension into eight lots. The property came out of a larger tract that was split up without borough approval, starting more than 50 years ago.

The first of those splits came by a deed recorded in 1974, without the platting approval required, according to the staff report.

A 2023 ordinance lets owners of land divided that way before Oct. 20, 2023, apply to have it recognized and further subdivided. It's meant to let "innocent purchasers" of illegally created parcels make the land marketable and developable. The ordinance cites an estimate that for about 10,000 parcels, roughly a fifth of all parcels in the borough, it's hard to tell whether they were legally created.

As the ordinance requires, the owner, Park 815 LLC, swore in an affidavit that it did not cause, know about or profit from the unauthorized split. The approval doesn't limit any penalty against whoever divided the land, the staff report says.

The property is zoned for heavy industry. Seven of the new lots would be 1.5 acres, and the largest would be 23.4 acres. The borough's transportation planner recommended that the seven small lots consolidate their driveways to put more space between access points on South Cushman.

About 78% of the land lies in a flood zone where development has to meet borough floodplain rules, and the rest is in a zone protected by a levee. At the public works director's request, the board required a note on the plat about a rule that bars digging within 250 feet of the center of the Tanana Levee System. Digging for building foundations is allowed if it's backfilled within 90 days.