Mat-Su Borough: Planning Commission Meeting Oct. 5th, 2026

Planning Commission recommending adoption of the fiscal year 2028 capital improvement program. Staff Natasha Grover, current planner. Public hearing date October 19th, 2026. Are there any objections to approving the consent agenda as written?

Hearing and seeing none, the consent agenda is approved.

Committee reports, none. Agency staff reports, none. Land use classifications, none. Audience participation, is there anyone in the audience who would like to speak on anything that is not on the agenda tonight? All right, Caleb, anyone on the phone?

All right, anyone at all? All right. Seeing and hearing that there are no persons to be heard, is there any objection to closing Audience participation. No objection. Audience participation is closed.

Public hearing, quasi-judicial matters, none. Public hearing, legislative matters, Resolution 26-19, a resolution of the Matanuska-Susitna Borough Planning Commission recommending the Matanuska-Susitna Borough Assembly Establish the Greater Oil Well Road Community Council District. Staff: Paul Clark, Long Range Planner.

So we do have a staff report. Okay, if, uh, we could ask Paul to come up and give a brief summary.

All right. Good evening, Mr. Chair, members of the Planning Commission. My name is Paul Clark. I'm the long-range planner in the planning division with the planning and land use in the planning and land use department.

And today, I'm just giving a brief report and a little bit of background, as you see in your packet way down yonder on page. 123 For further information on this. And what this resolution in front of you does is recommend to the assembly to establish the Greater Oil Well Road Community Council District Boundary. So the benefit— the Greater Oil Well Road Community Association has formed in order to be a representative body and look out and discuss the interests of their organization. They help determine the boundary that you see in your packet based on the borough code that identifies that it should be an area with similar features, transportation, access, and, and lifestyle.

And so, in the case of the Greater Oil Well Road Community Council District, that is one of a predominantly rural remote recreational lifestyle. One thing to note that, uh, that the district is needed for, um, would be to allow the Greater Oil Well Road Community Association to be eligible for Community Associate— Community Assistance Program grant funds. If they do end up being state incorporated, they would be eligible for those. One key thing to note that this resolution does not do is identify or recommend Greater Oil Well Road Community Association as a community council. Um, and I point that out because it can be confusing, uh, that, that they are seeking to be a representative body, but not an officially recognized community council because they do not meet the definition and code of a community council because their bylaws establish membership based on property ownership and not residential status.

Um, but they are— their bylaws are similar to the Louise, Sissetona, and Tayone Lakes Community Association, which also not official community council but do play a role in, in representing that body and do receive presentations on, on borough activities in a fashion similar to community councils.

So with this, the, the assembly's role is by resolution to approve this community council district. Uh, there's not an official role for the Planning Commission, um, but as with other, other processes, what this resolution does would show your recommendation that the assembly do approve this district. With that, I'll conclude my presentation pending questions. Thank you, Mr. Clark. Uh, any questions for Mr. Clark?

I'm just kind of curious, Commissioner McCabe, um, how many people have property in that area inside that map, the map boundaries?

Through the chair, uh, Commissioner McCabe, I do not have that, that number right offhand. Um, they do have enough residents, uh, which is the, the threshold is 25, um, in terms of the community assistance program. Uh, but I am, I'm not sure. I, I could get back to you, uh, to with that number. Okay.

And just to follow up, how many of the 25 signed on to forming an association?

Uh, through the chair, uh, to Commissioner McCabe, uh, they, they did reach, they had at least 20, I believe 25 signatures on each of their, uh, 2 meetings that they, that they held. It's been a while now, but that they held to establish the association. Okay, yeah, just curious. Thanks. Thank you.

Any other questions? All right, uh, thank you, Mr. Clark. Appreciate your time. All right, thank you.

All right, correspondence and information.

Mr. Chair, so there's, uh, we're hoping to have an act open up a public hearing and have an action on this resolution before we move on. Got it. All right, um, so I need a motion regarding 26-19. I'll make the motion.

Let's move 26-19. I'll second it. Thank you very much. So that was, uh, moved by Commissioner McCabe and seconded by Commissioner Carpenter. Um, any opposition to— I thought we— I thought that's what we just did.

Okay, that was just staff report. Oh yeah, I'm sorry, I was— I confused the public hearing with audience participation, which I sometimes do. Yeah, sorry about that. Anyone, uh, in the audience like to speak to this issue, to 26-19? Yes, ma'am.

And please, uh, state and spell your last name for the record, please.

Oh, the mic. You're going to want to turn on the mic. Nope, nope. Oh, there you go. Thanks.

I do this often, you can tell. Uh, Donna Massay, M-A-S-S-A-Y. I live at Mile 10 Oil Well Road within the GORCA boundaries, uh, and thank you for letting me testify, and I have some answers to your questions. Um, there's over 400 properties. The borough sent out— by eliminating duplicate owners, the borough sent out 243 public notices for our first meeting.

Um, so this all started— brief history— started when the Trapper Creek Community Council was looking to extend their boundaries in 2023. Both north and south, and it didn't happen, but it got some of us thinking, what do we want for our community? We consider ourselves a community out here at the end of Oil Well Road. What do we want? And that's when we started to explore, went through the borough, started the process, had our first meeting in May of '25, and it was well attended.

Not knowing what the results might be from gathering everyone together and what the consensus really was. The consensus was unanimous that they wanted an organization, but only if property owners had the vote and not full-time residents, because the vast majority of the property owners are part-time residents. Uh, so we went back and started to figure out, you know, how— what this looked like. And then that research is when we came across the Lake Louise example. And thought they're the same parameters, you know, not very many full-time residents, a lot of part-time residents wanted a voice for their community.

So that's how it all came to be. We've had, uh, 3 general meetings, uh, and it's all been positive. And we just hope that you can really— and the common theme on how we selected the boundaries is it contains all the properties that we know of that is accessed from Greater Oil Well Road, either directly from the road itself or from the whole network of trails, off-road ATV snow machine trails. And that's why we kind of designated the Greater Oil Well Road Community Association, and we have applied for the nonprofit And we're like this close to getting that granted as being our guiding body. Thank you.

Any questions? Where have you held your meetings? Uh, the first one was actually at the winter equipment road maintenance turnaround out in the open, and the next two, one was in my garage and one was in a new pole barn I built. I suspected it would be something like that. Thank you very much.

And thanks for your community involvement. That's great. I mean, it's going to be a net positive for your community, I'm sure. So thank you so much.

All right. At this stage, any other— anyone else to testify? Caleb, anyone online to testify? All right. Thank you.

Okay. Yes, sir.

Good evening, I'm Sylvan Morgan, and until just recently I lived there full-time since 2000 at about mile 14.5 Oil Well Road. Due to breaking my back, they decided maybe I can't live the remote lifestyle, so we're now in Wasilla. And I was at the first meeting. We probably had, oh, 40 to 50 people there at that meeting. We now have, I think, on our rolls over 30 paid members.

We're still contacting folks. We've got a website set up to to keep them up to date on what we're doing, getting a lot of positive feedback. I think the biggest thing we can get as an association, besides maybe some grant money to help with trails and other things, is a common voice for some of the problems we have seen out there. A while back, we had a series of robberies, you know, and we just don't have any police presence out there. And we thought maybe rather than have 14 or 15 people all pointing fingers as a group, maybe we have a little louder voice to the, uh, to the borough, uh, road maintenance, uh, trail maintenance, uh, problems we have.

Everybody out there as a community has a little different view of things than, say, the folks that live in Trapper Creek. Proper that have, they live on the grid.

All of us live off the grid. All of us, I won't say a subsistence lifestyle, but they go out there to enjoy the cabin, to get away from pressures. And so I would appreciate a favorable reaction to get us on our way. It's been a long journey, a lot of meetings, a lot of phone calls, a lot of face-to-face. And, uh, but we're ready to launch this thing.

So, thank you. Thank you for your efforts. Appreciate you.

All right. Anyone else? Caleb, anyone? All right. I think at this stage we're ready to vote.

We need to close. Oh, we're closing, closing audience participation. Public hearing. Public hearing.

Apologize. Oh, you got somebody on the phone?

Okay, uh, person on the phone, if you're, uh, here to speak about 2619, please state your name and spell your last name. This is Joan Medberry, M-E-D-B-E-R-Y. I live within the Gorka proposed boundaries, and I And for it to be approved. Thank you. Thank you for calling in.

All right. Anyone else, Caleb? You sure? Okay. Anyone else in the audience?

All right. At this point, we can close the public hearing. And I think we've got a motion and second. So, any objection really at this stage? I think we need a formal vote.

Any objection? No objection. Uh, Resolution 2619 passes.