Wasilla: Planning Commission Regular - 22 Sep 2026

Thank you. Please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance. Commissioner Stafford, will you please lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance? Yes. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Thank you.

First item of business is approval of the agenda. Before changes are discussed, are there any conflicts of interest to declare?

Hearing none, are there any changes to the agenda?

Hearing no changes to the agenda, the agenda will stand as presented unless objection is raised.

All right, next on the agenda is reports. Acting City Planner, would you provide us a report?

Thank you, Commissioner. Uh, Crystal Nygard, Acting City Planner. In your packet, you'll see that our contractor for the comp plan Dow has provided a monthly update. Those monthly updates to the city council as well. You will see that the comp plan is quite nicely, but we always need lots of feedback.

We're continuing to post on social media. We're doing some student engagement up at the high school. Very, uh, I was intrigued by the conversation that we had with 10 to 11th graders. We were asking them, you know, if you could describe to somebody one thing that you makes you think of Wasilla, and it was Wonderland Park first and Taco Bell second. And, and then to think about what you want the city to look like 20 years from now, whether it's, you know, a rocket launcher or what that looks like.

To get them engaged. And so we continue to make it a design competition, and, uh, really is leading the charge on this entire idea and talking with the students and coming up with ways that we can get people to engage. The steering committee is going to reconvene in October, so you will see that there are a variety of steering committee meetings, and then we are Talking with them about a sizable event in January when it's dark outside, we'll give them some good food, get the juices moving here. And then, uh, also in your packet, you'll see some infographics on just the timeline or the life cycle of how this plan will come about, where the approvals have to be presented, whether it's the It's going to be the Planning Commission, the City Council. We also have to go to the borough, Borough Planning Commission, and the Borough Assembly for their approval.

So we wanted to make sure you understood the life cycle of the, the comp plan, and more importantly, the importance of it. We just recently have had quite a few applicants that have come in that have had to get familiar with the zoning map and some of the inconsistencies that have happened over the years because we haven't kept it updated, or, you know, had growth has happened and we haven't always managed that growth properly. So the more that we can be very focused, you'll see in October the primary topic is future land use and growth planning. That's going to be a sizable component of this plan. Look through the material.

If you have any questions, uh, you can contact, uh, the planning department, or if you have an audience that you think we need to come speak to, please connect us and we'll go out and speak with them.

Thank you.

Do we have a report from our city attorney tonight? No report. Awesome. Next item on the agenda is public participation. Public participation is a time for the public to comment on any matter except agenda items that are scheduled for public legislative or quasi-judicial hearings.

We are now at Persons to Be Heard, a time for members of the public to share their views with the Planning Commission. This is not a question and answer period or a time for dialogue. Speakers may be referred to administration, or issues raised may be taken into advisement by the Commission or administration. Anyone wishing to step forward may do so at this time.

Welcome. Please write your name and contact information on the sign-up sheet. When you're finished, state your name for the record, and you will have 3 minutes to speak.

Oh, we have an obstacle. What is this? The—. You need to take the cap off. Oh, that's why.

Sorry, feel retarded on that one.

You want me turn on his mic for him? Oh, is it not on? Okay, thank you.

My name is Brent Jennison. I live here in Wasilla, and the issue I wanted to talk about today was the new zoning on Dana Street. We spoke about this briefly 2 or 3 weeks ago. What we're trying to do is we were planning on building a 4-plex there, and just down the street someone was— did start building a triplex, and then the zoning changed, and that stopped us on that issue being able to build. So we're trying to appeal and get it changed enough that we can, we can build a 4-plex, which is in vogue with What's already on the street on that end of it, if I could just give you copies of the aerials, it'll help you a little bit.

I put in that slash line, and to the east of it, to the east of that slash line is toward Main Street, and that's definitely commercial developed. It's gone commercial and developed. But to the west of it, so far it's all been residential. And most of the lots have been built on already and developed. And to some extent, there's quite a bit of multi-residential use.

There's a condo complex on the north side of the street directly opposite my property, which is number 9. There's a— to the east of me is an assisted living. To the west of me is a 4-plex, and then it goes on down, and near the end of the street, about Lot 3, I believe, is a new triplex going in. So what you've got from that slash line that I put in is, is relatively had just gone developed as residential all the way to the end. And going to the east, it's— you start looking at it, it's pretty much just Commercial, so it kind of begs the question of, does it make sense to put something other than residential right dead center of assisted living, fourplex, and condos and on down the street?

And we had a discussion earlier today with the city on, you know, just one, a waiver for one property versus changing the zoning because it is more practical in that area. So, that's kind of what we're trying to do is decide which way to go.

And it's just a warning. Oh, warning. Okay. So that's where I'm not sure what we're accomplishing today, other than bringing this up as something we'd like to look at and put in whatever forms we need to start the process for zoning or exceptions to zoning. I don't know if you have any thoughts on it, but that's where we're at.

We're not at a dialogue period right now. Okay, so good enough. So I'm about up. Yeah, but we do appreciate you coming tonight and bringing this before the commission and the public. I appreciate it.

Thank you. Thank you.

Do you wish to speak? Same thing. We're together, so we trying to reach the same goal. You're just here to watch me. Thank you.

Well, you're more than welcome to stay. We're going to have cake later, so thank you. With no one else wishing to speak, the next item of business is approval of the minutes. Will the planning clerk please read the items under approval of the minutes into the record? Thank you, Commissioner Seals.

We have the regular meeting minutes for August 12th— or August 11th, excuse me— and September 8th, 2026. Perfect. Is there a motion to approve the August 11th and September 8th, 2026 minutes?

Uh, Commissioner Stafford, I move we approve the August 11th and September 26th— or September 8th minutes. Is there a second? Commissioner Brown second.

Thank you. Chair Seales, Chairman Seales, this is Commissioner Landshill. Go ahead. Uh, the minutes of August 11th, 2026 needs to be corrected, uh, under the 8.1.3 Resolution 2611. Shows my vote, uh, as no.

The official— I went back and looked at the video, and I was very clear. I stated that the request met code requirements and that I would vote— I will vote in the affirmative, which I did. When a commissioner states that they are voting yes with a reservation, the chairman or clerk will record it legally as a favorable vote toward passing the resolution, uh, so I would like the record to be corrected. Thank you. Yes, we can do that.

So we can make a— we can withdraw the motion, and then Commissioner Langille can make a motion to amend the minutes and make a new motion based on the amended minutes. Sounds good. So I will need Mr. Stafford. Yeah, Commissioner Stafford, I withdraw my motion.

And that was the motion to approve, so I withdraw that. Yeah, Commissioner Blangel, would you like to make a motion to correct the minutes? I move to correct the minutes of August 11th, 2026.

As stated. And that's to reflect that you had definitely had a yes vote, is that correct?

Yes. All right, is there a second?

Commissioner Brown second.

Are there any objections to the motion?

Hearing none, the motion is approved. Now we go backwards. Is there a motion to approve the amended August 11th, um, minutes and the September 8th, 2026 minutes?

Uh, Commissioner Stafford, I'll make the motion to approve the amended August 11th minutes and the September 8th minutes. Commissioner Brown, second. Are there any objections to the motion? Hearing none, the motion is approved. Next on the agenda is legislative recommendations actions.

Will the planning clerk please read the first item under legislative recommendations actions? Thank you, Commissioner Seals. We have, uh, the first item is the roadmaster plan update discussion. Thank you. Will the acting city planner please provide a report?

Thank you, Chair. I thought, um, that one of the most important parts of your job is to understand when an applicant comes forward how we get to our decision. And so before you tonight is the official streets and highway plan that was valid from 2005 to 2025. It was funded in the last budget cycle to update this plan. And as you look through the plan, you will see that it references more on more than one occasion the comprehensive plan.

So on page 4, you'll see the land use goals that they identified, and that's the 1996 comp plan. And it does look at traffic. It looks at different arteries for main roads. It looks at the volumes of traffic that, that they're projecting as well as priorities. So this is a plan that you will see an RFP going out on the streets in the next 30 days for the market to engage with us to update it.

But I thought it was really important that the role that the Planning Commission can play is to recommend any changes or anything that you would like added to it. I will tell you that in the past 2 years, we have approved permits with conditions that they have to get a permit from another agency, whether it's DOT, maybe a driveway permit, or in some cases The DOT will require a traffic impact analysis. Once that's complete, then in some cases we have much higher traffic than they ever anticipated. And so getting the investment for the traffic signal, or even acquiring right-of-way that we maybe thought we didn't have to acquire, maybe DOT had to acquire, or they charge us. This is the document that's— they're going to reference each time.

And so it's really important that we have an up-to-date plan. The council thought it was important. They put the funding forward. And so I wanted to just open it up for discussion about your understanding of the street highway plan, how it's going to be used in the future, and feel free to give us your input. Just the planning department share with the council.

Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Chair.

I would like to invite the attorney to give, um, a quick report on how this plays into the role of commissioners.

Sure, that would be great. Do you mean in terms of opening up to roundtable discussion? Yeah. Or what can they do? So now at this time, someone can make a motion to open up the discussion to a roundtable discussion so that everyone can speak at once, and then you can make a motion to exit the roundtable discussion.

That would be committee of the whole type thing. Committee of the whole, yes.

Uh, so, Commissioner Stafford, I move that we move into the Committee of the Whole for the purpose of discussing, uh, the, uh, uh, official streets and highway plan. Commissioner Brown, second. Okay, we are now in Committee of the Whole.

Chair, the other thing I'd like to put out, um, there to consider is when we go to talk to our federal delegation, our state delegation, we turn in a grant, they're going to want us to show that there's been discussion, there's been stakeholders, and that we're very clear about what our priorities are. As stated on page 18, that identified a long range recommendations, and those are going to be where the contractor, the staff and the Planning Commission as well as the council will approve that we all agree on the priorities. Some of the things that aren't in here that you're going to see is the role that the MPO is going to play. And also, you know, if we say Sun Mountain realignment was one of our long-range recommendations, has that been completed? Is it still on track?

So it brings a lot of accountability where the investment was, and it also secures future funding.

I have a question for, um, the city acting city planner. Does— I didn't go over this real heavy, um, but does this have anything to do with the downtown overlay still being in it?

I didn't notice it, but yeah, so you will see that, uh, Main Street is not specifically identified in here, but it does have all of the, uh, what they call the, the main arterial roads that cruise East Street, Palmer-Wassilix, and Sun Mountain, Fern Street Extension. And some of these projects have just recently been funded through the MPO, but it does not specifically identify Main Street. Very interesting knowing that we had an overlay and all the components of making a downtown. Well, that was one of my main concerns was, uh, when we were discussing getting rid of the downtown overlay or keeping the downtown overlay was that it was, uh, really affecting any change to Main Street. And so with that being gone, I'm not sure if DOT has changed anything in, in that section of Main Street.

They have referenced it on page 17 for the Boundary Street extension, and that was the extension of Boundary from Watts and Bogard that provided the alternative route for traffic on Main Street. I don't specifically say Main Street, but they do look at that Boundary Street extension. And really, this is just a starting place for you guys to review and see the correlation between this and the comp plan and how that's going to look. Commissioner Brown, this has been something been on my mind many years, even when I was on the council and stuff. I, I see the, the predicted plans here, and I see projected traffic patterns and projected populations, which I think are all off.

The population has changed, and I think it is a false population for Wausau because so much of the population lives outside of Wausau city limits, but is an intricate part of Wausau and affects the traffic and everything else in Wausau. And I'm just trying to look at all these streets projected plans and stuff. It's not going to resolve— I don't see how it's going to resolve the problem I see with the traffic coming through Wausau. Years ago, I was told that businesses didn't want an alternate route from the Parks Highway because they thought they was going to get more business. I talk to people from Anchorage now.

When they go into Big Lake, Talkeetna, or further out to fish or hunt, they buy their groceries and stuff in Anchorage. So when they get to Wasilla, the traffic is so bad, the last thing they want to do is get out of that traffic and go into a store. And have to fight their way back into that traffic. And I see it's a detriment to Wasilla and to the people who are Wasilla citizens, residents, having to fight that traffic every day. I mean, it can take from Church Road to Walmart can take 30 minutes sometimes.

And some of the things that we've heard in the community is especially around schools, schools is that when the schools were initially built, like Colony, it was anticipated that students had a few— few of them drove their car. But now, as soon as they turn 16, they have cars. And I think you could say the same about a family living in a single-family dwelling, that they probably have more than 2 cars, maybe 3 or 4 cars. The other thing that's we've heard in the community is we've watched and looked at some data from aircraft that's coming into the airport, and the Three Bears on the north side of Wasilla actually gets the highest first stop versus coming south. And so that's telling us that that traffic is going out a little bit further north to buy some of their supplies because of the traffic.

Yes. So I think one of the things that should impact this plan positively is we can get real-time data now within the last 12 months. So we know if it come— aircraft comes into Wasilla, it's going to go first to AIH and then it's going to go to Wendy's. Well, it used to go to Wendy's, maybe not anymore. Yeah.

But it's, it's 9th or 10th before they go to Fred Meyer's. Yes. Yes. Right. And so they are going around.

But the other thing too, I think that we have to be realistic about is once a road is constructed by DOT, they have given us ownership with no prior discussion about that and no maintenance money. And so when you're not in the design of a road and you don't know what the long range price tag is going to be, and that has to happen now. Like, we have memorandums of understanding right now for the couplet— who's going to pay, who's going to maintain— and I think that is really critical. So that's the importance of this roads and roads update. And along with the DOT agreements, I think, again, because most of the traffic from residents in the area belong to the borough.

They don't belong to Westover. So we need to have re-initiated conversation with the borough of some financial aid. And, and, and, you know, talking about traffic in just in my neighborhood, the average house in my neighborhood has 4 cars.

Yes, and we saw there was a meeting with the MPO, MVP, meeting yesterday with the borough and all the cities, and 3 of the projects that they're going to fund is a light inventory in the city. Where are your streetlights? What kind of streetlights are they? Are there enough streetlights? And the other are signs, signage inventory.

It's another thing that we probably go through more signs than anybody with the way the wind is, but those are ancillary costs. To be part of it, but that would be a component of this plan as well, is all of the projects that— and it's a relatively small investment for the inventories to be done. You're talking a 10% match from our checkbook, which is reasonable. So just highly encourage you guys to take some time to read it or AI it or whatever you want to do. And give us your input.

Um, I'm encouraged to find that at least on this, uh, couplet project there are some maintenance agreements, because, um, for Main Street, has it been— especially as you're going down to the light at the Parks Highway, with all the money that DOT has put into this couplet project over 33 years You think they could have repaved that section that's really bad? And I think they really need to look at continuous right-hand turn lanes. If you look at Fred Meyers, that's what works. So if you, if you take the Parks Highway and you make it into 7 lanes, so you have 3 lanes on each side with a center turn lane, and those 2 lane 2 lanes on the outside would be unloading and offloading from the main 2 lanes of traffic. So if, if people aren't stacked up trying to turn right at, at our intersections and we have continuous turn lanes, that's probably going to be one of the most effective things we can do until we put an overpass over the whole thing.

But does the city have the stomach to engage Fred Meyer's, uh, Target cars to give up part of their parking lots to widen the highway? No, we have enough right-of-way, um, that we wouldn't have to do that. So there's plenty of— the Parks Highway was designed at one point to be 7 lanes, or Yeah, 7 lanes, so there's plenty of right-of-way. The biggest thing would probably be moving the signal lights and maybe not having the, the lane go as far as it should. So it's not— what people use that outer lane for in some areas is to get around the traffic.

Yes. So if you can do something that would help alleviate that but allow traffic, especially coming down the hill on the Palmer Highway extension. If you had a continuous right turn lane the same as you did on the other— on the Fred Meyer side, that would, that would be a major way to lessen the traffic that sometimes now is stacked all the way to KGB. Yes. And that should have been 5 lanes from the get-go.

I think DOT has kind of let us down in a lot of areas. And so I'm really interested in keeping track of what they're doing going forward here. So one of the things that we try to keep our applicants up to date is what we call inside baseball, and that is Realistically, how long is it going to get— how long is it going to take for you to get a permit from another agency like DOT? And there are parts of the city that it is taking a year or a year and a half because they don't have the extra funding to do some traffic mitigation solution. And yet the developer doesn't want to stop the development to wait for it.

And especially along the Parks Highway, had some scenarios where they have just one driveway and it still causes them to pause for upgrades. And we're going to have to maybe have an ulterior, like a secondary access. So then they're going up to these roads that were not engineered for commerce. And those are things I think, because growth, growth is just built around the roads because they cannot wait for agencies to find the time to approve it. And if you saw DOT's, uh, positions, you would see why they have lots of vacancies.

And there's just lots of, uh, especially out here, we thought when they moved their office out here, they would hire more people, but they moved people from Anchorage. And so they still have a deadline problem, but we are trying to, and Julia reached out this week and asked if they could come talk to the Planning Commission about their permit process, their— what does it take to get a driveway permit? What does it take to get a right-of-way? In a brief presentation to you so we understand it when we get the permits and you guys understand it. Well, along with that, Commissioner Brown, along with that, other areas I'm familiar with, yes, there's an agreement that DOT does certain maintenance and stuff, but that doesn't always happen on schedule.

And it's a big delay and it affects the entire city and traffic, even though it's their responsibility. If they don't have the people or the funding from DC to do that, it's okay, we're supposed to do it, but if I don't have the money, I'm not going to do it. And, um, and that's what I worry about going to bigger highways under this agreement and changing Main Street under this agreement. It'll look good for the first few years, but when I look at the federal budget and look at what's happened at the federal level, well, 2 years from now, how much would that mean?

Commissioner Seals. Yeah, I really am concerned that, um, the lack of financing for this change from rural to urban is going to be a messy situation, um, getting funding. We're supposed to do all these fancy new urban things, but we're all sitting here trying to figure out where DOT is going to really fit into the picture.

Realistic, I think. Chairman Fields, go ahead. Commissioner Langell. Yes, I I'm starting to wonder if we— if the city has not reached a point. We have been planning for what, 20 years now on streets and highways, and nothing is happening.

Is it time that the city is going to have to stand up and say, we cannot have any more commercial development until this is resolved with the state?

That's just my thoughts.

That's, that's very interesting, Commissioner Langille, because Wasilla gets its money from commerce. So if we limit our commerce, we limit, we limit the money we have going into the future to even come up with our 10% match for some of these projects.

But I appreciate your opinion, Commissioner Stafford. And so this is from 2005. You said there was an update of this coming after the comp plan, and I missed what you said when you—. No, so this will be— so you'll have the comp plan, and then this will be another 20— is it 20-year And so there'll be a new plan. So part of the comp plan is an updated transportation plan.

Okay. And it was kind of cool to go through and see some of the projects that have been done and the positive impact they had. Obviously, there's still a lot that hasn't been done, but hopefully in the future it will be. Yeah.

So until this— this is Commissioner Seals— so until this new plan comes out, Are, are, are the parties working off of this plan as it stands?

Yes. Commissioner Brown, do the city have their own formula for figuring out traffic, uh, households, uh, population? Are they using the federal standard? They're using the federal— when they did this plan, they used that federal planning document. Yeah, but now we have, and the planning department pays for this citywide use of the real-time cell tracking data.

So we can geofence an area of the city as a specific timeframe of over a 2 or 3 year period. We can see peaks of when the traffic comes and, and really that's been very useful for showing DOT, hey, there's a problem here. It's better to say no now than to go ahead and move forward with the project and later try to figure it out. We just submitted a letter of support for one of the projects in advocating that the DOT would allow the signal to happen as part of the design, entire system to happen, because we didn't want to go back and have to try to bag later.

So, Chairman Seals, the, the purpose of this being on the agenda tonight is just to have this open discussion. You guys feel free to— you don't have to take action on it, but I would say definitely, uh, review it Like Mrs. Langell had said, she's got some comments. Those comments are very helpful to share when the contractor is selected. And then if you at some point want to do a resolution of support with your priorities that you want to see in the plan, then we can bring that to, uh, the Public Works people. One last question.

Commissioner Brown, can you explain How the borough plays into this family between the state, the city, and the borough, talking about roads and population and movement and traffic and stuff. Um, or do they try to keep hands off as much as possible? Commissioner Brown, I cannot answer that question intelligently. I, I would say that we can invite somebody from the planning department the borough to better explain that. Of course, you have the MPO, that's a collective group.

Yeah. Um, but the borough is one of the main owners of all the roads out here. Good. And so it would be nice to have their plan, you know, where that investment is going. I—.

We just went out to the port for industry days, and I, I was reminded of just the traffic that's on that road right now and what that traffic's going going to be if you've got a big tenant out there. And it's— I think that conversation has to happen like yesterday. And that's my point. I mean, the rural roads feeds into the city roads, and again, most of the population that Wasilla see on a daily basis is borough residents, not Wasilla residents.

Commissioner Seales, and One thing I see that we are planning, we are permitting growth, infrastructure, housing, business, commercial. So if we have— so if our clients, I would call them clients, are having trouble getting a driveway permit for 3 years, how can we help speed that process up?

Well, Commissioner, uh, that's a million-dollar question, right? We've heard a variety of different applicants say they hired a retired DOT engineer who knew how the system worked. That was one way. We've heard, uh, they've hired consultants to do an updated traffic impact analysis and that approved. They've also have found somebody within DOT that they can cry loud enough to get theirs to the top of the table.

So, it's, it's challenging, but we're trying to let applicants know, don't wait till the last minute to go to DOT, like, get to them first. We also encourage them to go to the fire marshal because there have been at least once, one case since I've been here where we rezoned an entire block And then the fire department said, wait a minute, the fire truck has to be able to get in there. The road was engineered 40 years ago, and we only had 3 inches on each side that saved us. So even the way some of our smaller roads were constructed, I say if you're going to rezone, have the fire marshal look at those— that application as well. I'd much rather know before construction happened.

And fire trucks obviously have a circumference that they need to turn around.

Thank you. You guys were— I don't want to bring up a scenario of disaster, but one of the headlines last week was a fire that did not have a working or lack of water at a hydrant. So one of the priorities that Public Works has made is we've We have mapped every fire hydrant in the city. We have it all cataloged when we do an inspection, when it gets calibrated, when it gets tested, who did it, when did they do it. That is a basically something we do for the borough, and we do not get paid for it, but it is critically important.

Uh, with this plan and with the comprehensive plan and all the stuff we doing. Has the city versus city council decided what— what is a bedroom community? Is it an industrial community? Is it a small business community? Is it a mom-and-pop grocery community?

Because without having an umbrella that you call yourself, if you're just building commercial to bring in more taxes and I can bring a mom and poppy, and I can bring a big office complex, and I can bring a triplex, a fourplex, you know, what is Wascola hoping to be seen in the world as? Somebody asked, they asked the students that question, but I think we should ask ourself that question. What do we want to be considered as? Because all of those require different billing systems and different projections.

Mr. Brown, what we have heard from the council is the comp plan will set some guidelines to where the growth is going to happen and what types of growth. The second step they want to take is to do a strategic plan for us to be very clear about what we're trying to be when we grow up. They've never had a strategic plan, or if they did, we have not found one. I think it's critically important because we're not all on the same page. What happens is we get stuff forced on us and we just, you know, turn and burn and want to attract the right commercial activity in the right place with the right infrastructure.

And that's my point is because once it's built and concrete is laid, it takes an act of God to undo that now.

Yeah, Commissioner Sills, what we really need to do is probably get all the, all the players in one room so that we can, we can find out where everybody's coming from. Because I— my view 50 years from now is the valley is going to be split up into 3 groups. You're going to have Palmer and Wasilla spreading out, and the borough is going to take what's left. That's my view 50 years from now, because I saw 50 years ago where we were. So it'd be really nice if we could get DOT to come and give us a presentation, and, uh, and all the other players.

The planning commission from the borough would be an excellent time for us to sit and discuss, because what we want to be is going to be dependent on the borough in some way or another, because they own the land. And I disagree slightly. I think the cost of law enforcement, the cost of education, the cost of emergency services— I see the borough 50 years from now Being the big daddy on the block and having the major control of all of this in Wasilla and Palmer, I don't see us having the ability to grow to support a large fire department, police department, and the borough does. And I think we're gonna be kept pretty much where we are and the borough's gonna eat up more and more control out of necessity. Either way, there's something to be discussed where all 3 of us think we're going and stuff, because the 3 of us impacting the entire valley.

I mean, other smaller communities don't have the ability, but we are the control. And if we don't sit down and plan it out now, which we haven't done for the last 25 years. No, we haven't.

I appreciate your opinion.

It could go either way, but they could end up being the major player as well.

So anything else?

I move we withdraw from the committee to hold. Commissioner Stafford second. Is there an objection? Hearing no objection, we move out of the committee to the whole.

Next.

I'm not sure if we have enough information to draft a resolution tonight. So, no, so I think, um, further discussion will be at a next meeting. I think, uh, we should do a walk through the Parks and Trails Master Plan update discussion. Will the acting city planner please provide a report?

Thank you, Chairman Seals. I did ask, uh, Eric Shaw, the Public Works Director, who wasn't able to be here tonight, to give us an update on this. There again, I had no idea Westville had 11 parks, and I did not know that our trails did not connect to everybody else. And these are things we just don't know till we're inside. But the city is updating its road and parks and recreation master plan.

They're going to identify the current needs, gather community input and set priorities for future improvements. The, uh, I will have, uh, Julia Barnett, the planning clerk, send this memo out to you guys so you have it. But the road, roads master plan request for proposals and development expected to be issued in October. Corbus Design has been selected for the Parks and Rec master plan, and their project team helped kick off this meeting. This week and is working through the fee schedule.

They hope to bring an agreement to the city council at its second October meeting, as they have to actually make the award legislatively. The planning process is expected to take approximately 1 year and will include multiple opportunities for public input. So that's, uh, from Eric Shaw. We'll send that out to you as well, just the role that you're playing in it. That would be great.

But again, this This plan was authored in 2011, and unlike the Rose and Hyland, it does not have a 20-year time frame. But it— when you go through this plan, you will see that there's quite a bit of growth in the recreation area, even though we don't see it all the time. They go through each of the parks. This is independent of the Menard study that they're completing. One of the interesting things about the city is Public Works actually funds the infrastructure, and then the recreational director at the sports center manages the users of that infrastructure instead of it all being in one budget or under one leadership.

It's very interesting that they, they've kind of diced it up over the years. Um, but feel free, just like we did in the roads plan, to look through this. Um, there's 6 known parks in the city, which range from 120 acres on page B-1 or page 77 of your packet to Newcomb Park, which is 5.4 acres and one boat launch, which is over off of, uh, So they'll go through this, they'll look at the users, they'll look at the amenities. And then I think at some point the city's going to have to have a real conversation about the cost of parks. And can we keep funding them with a sales tax?

And if we do, who are the users? Like I was saying, the traffic impact analysis tool that we use, we can also do it on parks. We can geofence a park and see where the users are coming from. What they're using the park for. So those are tools they probably did not have back then, but it looks like the city does own about 166 acreage of parks, and we've acquired them in different ways over the years.

So again, look at that. I will tell you that some of the cities that we've talked to, whether we're at the think of cities or AML is that the workforce that comes to live in a city wants to have these amenities. They want to have a place to go play hockey, or they want a basketball court, or they want a pickleball. I mean, as you will find, some cities are— their entire strategy is to be the pickleball destination tournaments and everything. So I think these this recreation tourism is what they call it is real.

We probably could repurpose some of our parks into being more of a destination. It's just food for thought for you guys. Go ahead, Commissioner Brown. You kind of answered it, but you know, you said they didn't have the ability 20 years ago to track use So we don't have any kind of check-in or anybody kind of taking a wild guess how much these parks use. Is the same family using the same trail every time, or is it—.

Well, we probably in the planning side could get a reasonable estimate because we track special events on private property. But when it comes to the public parks, and they give issue permits, say for a pavilion or rent a park, they probably have an estimated number, but nobody or no department that I know has really tracked that. And so it'll be very interesting to see how they collect that data. So we could have Ms. Barnett go stand in the rain at the trailhead and count people for a month.

If you issue a permit for it.

Uh, it's kind of different but tied in with parks, library, museum. These are things that are not moneymakers. They cost the city, all three of those, to have those in existence. But I think all of them are important and necessary because it kind of just paints a picture at who you are as a community, as a city. Um, And that's the tough decision I just need to realize.

Do you want this? And it costs money because everybody is saying this is too expensive, this is too expensive, but it kind of paint a picture as to who you are and stuff. And a lot of us paid sales tax in order to have these things, but they are expensive and to maintain trails is really expensive. And there's nothing worse than being on a trail that has not been upkept. Commissioner Brown, I would also say that when you track the participants at the library, say, story hours, 90 kids at a time, we've also looked at that data.

They go to Target or they go to Fred Meyer's or they go somewhere to buy commerce when they come to the city. So yeah, maybe 15% are residents, but you've got whole nother market, they're using your infrastructure, not giving you a dollar, but they are giving a commerce a dollar. And so we right now are doing a Wasilla Airport impact analysis where if aircraft comes in from Nome, and they leave with supplies to Nome, what is that commerce? What is that converter of that dollar? How far does that dollar go when it hits hits the airport.

It's quite shocking what some of the businesses out there are doing as far as buying their supplies here. The 2% is not, it's not deterring them to Anchorage. They land, they get their airplane serviced, they go back with full loads. So when we looked at the tracking analysis, uh, we go, huh, there's people that live in Nome that are coming here to shop because they have aircraft to do it. Yeah.

And like you pointed out, not all assets like an airport pays for itself, right? But it attracts a dollar we couldn't otherwise get. Will this comprehensive plan— Commissioner Brown, with this comprehensive plan, this future planning, take into consideration the museum, which in my opinion is in a very poor, poor, poor location?

I will say the comp plan will address some of those components, but it's really about zoning and land use and future growth. And that museum is on a prime piece of real estate that will be heavily impacted by this couplet. Yes. Commissioner Seals. I have been thinking about the museum and several properties in the city that cost the city money and get absolutely no return on.

And I think that's where we need to bring in partnerships, partnerships with private, with nonprofits. And because right now Wasilla has two museums, And one is way more expensive, sitting on prime property, than the other museum, which seems to fund itself. Weird. So my thought would be, is the, the city actually get in partnership with the Museum of Transportation and Industry and work out a location that the Visitors coming to our city from other areas of the lower 48 or, or from anywhere in the world can go to that spot, and it's a museum that's run by a nonprofit, and the city is not paying. Uh, I think it's, what, a couple hundred thousand dollars or more a year.

For the museum. Yeah, so I think partnerships with nonprofits is going to help alleviate some of these things. Uh, the Herning Building, I know the city pays for all the maintenance on that. The city pays for all the maintenance on the, um, performing theater down off of Tommy Moe. And that property could become either sales tax generating or businesses don't really generate sales tax, their customers are the ones that generate it.

So the businesses are collecting the sales tax, they're drawing the people because of their product, but it, it's actually the people spending the money. So If we can get public-private partnerships with nonprofits, I think that would help move the city forward to have money for the other avenues that are going to be in focus. I think our current museum is not bringing anything in because it is— parking is a problem getting to it, and if you're from out of town, finding it is a problem. So I would be all in for moving it to a different location. I'll just be concerned when you start having private entities start taking over parks, recs, museums, libraries, and stuff.

Other cities who've tried that, in my experience, it hasn't worked out well for the citizens. Again, it's one of those things that doesn't make money, but it's one of those things that citizens like, and when it's gone, you hear about it. You won't hear about it right now, but if you take it away Yeah, I wasn't including parks. Chairman Seals, I will share that we have developed a very good relationship with the DEC Brownfield Division, where they are exploring known brownfield contaminated sites, what you could do to revitalize it. And so we submitted our project to them about 6 months ago, it's a 7 acres by the train depot, and it was a known contaminated site when we purchased it from the borough, or who gave it to us.

And it's just a vacant lot. However, it was chosen by the Brownfield team to explore what are the options. So you have to go through a phase of validation. We already had a Phase 1 environmental ESI 1, and then we had 2, which we know what the contaminants are. But the 3rd phase is soil sampling so they can better understand what's feasible for that property.

And my experience with environmental is that you have, you know, a little bit of organic contamination which comes from fuel or diesel or operations, but you have the inorganic, which could be lead or some kind of element that suspends itself in the soil, which would limit us, but we still— they would— they could give us reasonable solutions to that. So they'll do soil sampling should the council decide to accept their offer in the springtime. That is fully funded with federal funds, and then they'll give us a report, and they'll tell us exactly what is feasible for that property. And if they say it's it's good for nothing but a parking lot, then we'll have to figure out what that looks like. But to your partnership statement is that we will put it out for a request for information of what could we do with this property and have developers explain it to us.

And then we would explore funding. There's a pretty substantial amount of funding associated with the redevelopment of property. You'll see that like in in Tacoma with paper mills, how they redeveloped an entire boardwalk and attracted private breweries to come build there. So we'll keep you updated. We've contacted the Brownfield Group and asked them to give a presentation in November, what that looks like and some of the projects that they've done in the state.

So we'll keep you updated, but it's all about that partnership and finding a reasonable solution. That an entity in the private sector sees vision, and then we can work with them instead of just having a gravel pit when you drive into the city. We also shared it with our partners, the railroad, said, you know, if we, if we pursued this, how interested would you be in a nice, uh, secondary facility where your passengers could maybe base out of Wasilla to go up to Denali. They're looking for those amenities. They say there's a big need for independent travelers that want to figure out where they want to catch the train.

So again, it's opening those partnerships that we're, we're, uh, cuddling and trying to see how we can work together. Thank you.

So I have a question for the acting city planner. So, so do we have a Parks and Trails Master Plan update?

To the chairman, the, the last one is 2011, and the, the Corbus design was just awarded contract, but has to go through legislation, and then you'll get an updated plan. So our resolution, I guess, would be in support of, uh, the updating of the plan? Yeah. So I could see where we could go with that tonight.

And he gave us an excellent report. So not the answers I wanted.

So now, are we still in Committee of the Whole? No, we—. Okay, I'm sorry, I lost track. That's okay. Uh, we were just discussing the parks upgrade, and so we know that we don't have a new plan in front of us But, uh, I think we could support the update of the plan being updated.

Yes. Has the council already awarded that plan, that contract though? Yes. So they have identified the known recipient, but they do have to go through legislation to, uh, grant the award and then do the appropriation. Okay.

Yes. So now may I have a motion to draft a resolution in support of the Parks and Trails Master Plan update. Uh, Commissioner Stafford, I, um, uh, like to make a resolution to support the master plan update. I think I said that right. Close.

Commissioner Brown, second. And that is to, um, be in favor of the update? Yes. So Is there any discussion by the commission?

You have anything, Commissioner Langell? No, I'm in favor. Okay, well, with no further discussion, will the planning clerk please call for a roll call vote to approve the Parks and Trails Master Plan update?

Uh, Commissioner Seals? Yes. If there is no objection, I do believe the motion just passes. Is that no objection correct? Through the— through the chair to the attorney.

I believe the motion just passes. Everyone express their—. With no objection. With no objection. I'm in the script.

Trying to follow the script. So is there any objection?

Hearing no objection, the motion passes. All right, moving on.

Next on the agenda is quasi-judicial hearings, and with no items under quasi-judicial hearings, we move to unfinished business.

We are now at— we are now at unfinished business. With no unfinished business, we move on to communications. We are now at communications. Would the planning clerk please read the items for approval under the communications into the record? Thank you, Commissioner Seals.

Uh, tonight we have permits and licenses issued August 5th through September 15th, 2026. We also have code compliance activity from August 5th through September 15th, 2026, and the Matsuburo Planning Commission agendas, um, from August through September 2026. Thank you. We now move on to audience comments. With nobody in the audience, uh, we now move to staff attorney and commission comments.

Does the acting city planner have any comments to tonight. I do. Thank you, Chairman Seals. Uh, one, happy birthday. I'm really glad you brought your own birthday cake so we can celebrate tonight.

16 And holding. Thank you. Uh, second is it is really a pleasure not having animal control. I'm just saying that because the amount of time that code compliance was spent is time spent chasing dogs around. We have diverted into some of these properties that have been a systemic problem for neighbors, and you've heard them testify that they are tired of the junk that is being accumulated.

So, uh, Julia has been working very hard with legal to establish the necessary paperwork to get these, uh, code compliance to do his deliveries. And, uh, we've had a lot of success. There's been 3 properties that Once they receive the notice of violation, they have proactively come in with some type of plan on how they're going to remediate the problem. And we go back out in 30 days to see if that's what they've actually done. We still have a few that are, you know, a challenge, but we're doing a lot better than we have in the past with getting them to pay attention.

And I think So, really kudos to our legal team for putting the teeth that we need in Title 16. It also has been proactive for the larger box stores that seem to attract unsolicited campers in the back of their buildings. We have the ability now to give them a temporary use permit where they can use it for landscape maintenance or a public health safety concern, they can go and get the brush out and take some stuff down that's causing it to be a nice place to camp. So we've been working with the larger BoxStar stores as well. So for those that come and testify, just know we are taking their concerns seriously and we're working with code compliance to figure out a way to help the neighbors and have a nice neighborhood to live in.

Does the city attorney have any comments tonight? Happy birthday. Thank you. Commissioner Langell, do you have any comments tonight? No, no comment.

Thank you. Commissioner Stafford, do you have any comments? I just, you know, the comp plan's 20-whatever years old, the street plan's 20 years old, the Parks and Rec's almost 20 years old. I think it's, it's good that we're looking at all this. We've experienced some significant growth since then and what could be in the future.

And so I want to say thanks to everyone in the city that's putting work on this and look forward to seeing it continue to develop and come out over the next couple years as we work on it. And yeah, nothing, you know, I think good things are ahead. And of course, happy birthday. Thank you. Commissioner Brown, do you have any comments?

I don't know people got that old.

Um, yeah, with Commissioner Stafford, I hope it doesn't take a couple years. I hope we can finish this up within a couple years. It's way overdue because This would be time to start a new one as soon as we finish this one. The rapid pace of the city growth and rapid pace of transportation, everything else, uh, it's got to be an ongoing process. So hopefully we can get ahead of the game and stay ahead of the game.

Thank you, Chair Seales. Yeah, it was really good meeting tonight. It's going to be some delicious cake.

My concern is scheduling the second phase of Title 16 rewrite because we all sat down and we went through the, the use in the commercial districts and all the other districts, and we were getting investment coming into the city. And people were excited that the city was open for business. And then a not in my neighborhood moment happened. And so we've lost some investment opportunities for commercial and residential. So I would really like to see that we can schedule a meeting for— or schedule for Phase 2, because there's some issues we need to correct.

And that's all I have tonight. Commissioner Seals, I do have a comment, if I may. Yeah, Planning Clerk Barnett, through the chair, I just thought that this upcoming Matsu 2050 open house event that is being held by the.