Girdwood's parks plan eyes land its own housing plan wanted for homes

Girdwood's draft parks plan runs into a problem the town already decided: it maps future parkland and a disc golf course onto Glacier Creek land that Girdwood's own comprehensive plan set aside for housing and small commercial use.

Anchorage planning staff won't back the plan until that's resolved. In a June memo, a city planner spelled out the collision — the parks plan calls the area future parkland; the housing plan, adopted just last year, calls it mixed-use development, meaning homes and Girdwood-sized businesses.

It lands in a community that knows it's short on housing. At a recent planning meeting, resident Mike Edgington noted the comprehensive plan offers 500 acres for housing against a projected need of at most 100 — a reminder that how Girdwood spends its buildable land is a live argument. The Glacier Creek concept would fill some of it with an RV campground, a fenced dog park, the relocated disc golf course and a covered ice rink — amenities recreation users backed, and that others questioned as the wrong use of the ground.

The Planning and Zoning Commission holds a public hearing Aug. 3.