Wasilla planners move to ask the council to repeal its ban on housing in commercial zones

The Wasilla Planning Commission voted Tuesday to start drafting a formal request that the City Council repeal its ban on housing in the city's commercial zoning district.

The motion, by Commissioner Simon Brown II, passed without objection. It directs the planning clerk and city attorney to write a resolution with a ready-to-adopt repeal ordinance attached, according to the meeting record. The commission still has to approve that resolution before it goes to the council.

The council's ordinance, adopted in May, bars single-family homes, duplexes, multifamily dwellings and small assisted living facilities in the commercial district. Its sponsor, Council Member Graham, wrote that housing there creates conflicts in areas meant mainly for business and takes valuable property out of future commercial use.

Chair David Seals said the ban has stopped projects and in some cases caused "irreparable harm." One commissioner pointed to Basil Ginger, a local business, as an example of mixed residential and commercial use the city had allowed.

The commission had asked the council to wait for the city's new comprehensive plan, a draft of which goes out for public comment early next year, and for the second phase of a rewrite of the city's land development code. The council passed the ban anyway, the city attorney said.

Commissioner Todd Stafford, who seconded the motion, said the commission put "a ton of work" into the land code and the council "did whatever they wanted." "So it kind of makes you feel like, why bother?" he said. Seals said council members had remarked at a council meeting that commissioners are appointed and council members are elected.

Brown called the resolution "a polite way of telling your boss to reconsider and to recognize our input to the process." He also reminded colleagues of the commission's limits. "We can request the council look at it and to consider changes, but we do not have the authority to make the council make that decision," he said.