Mat-Su Borough: Planning Commission Meeting -September 14, 2026

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 very much.

Consent agenda. Minutes, regular meeting minutes, August 17th, 2026. B, introduction for public hearing. Quasi-judicial matters, none. Introduction for 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 is Paul Clark, long-range planner. That public hearing date is October 5th, 2026. Are there any objections to approving the consent agenda as written?

All right. Hearing and seeing none, the consent agenda is approved.

Committee reports, none. Agency staff reports, none. Land use classifications, None. Audience participation, 3 minutes per person for items not scheduled for public hearing. Is there anyone on the phone who would like to speak tonight?

Anyone on the phone, Caleb? No, thank you. Is there anyone in the audience who would like to speak to anything not on the agenda for tonight? 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, none. Correspondence and information, none. Unfinished business, none. New business, none.

Commission business. Commissioners, do you have any questions regarding the future agenda items? Provided in your folders. No questions. All right, I know that, um, before we go to, uh, commissioner comments, um, staff has comments.

So, Mr. Long, thank you. Wade Long, Development Services Manager. I just wanted to let you guys know that there's been a pretty huge shakeup in our planning department, and, um, so Lacey Oliveri. Uh, today is her last day as Planning Commission Clerk. She was promoted to a planner, so she'll actually be presenting from the other side of the dais.

Congratulations. And then taking her place is Kayla Smith, who just got a promotion to our department admin. So she'll be the—. Congratulations to you. Also, we have a couple of new planners.

So Lacey is a new planner, and then also Ashley Stick, she was in the Transportation Board. She is now a planner for us. So outside of that, so I'm very grateful for the shakeup of our team. We're hiring new admins if you guys know anybody who wants a job. But that being said, we will be conducting a lot of OJT.

So we're on plans to submit to you guys, so they'll be slow, but they're on their way. Okay. And just one last thing I wanted to say, thank you to Commissioner McCabe. She did help out on my last cleanup at Peaceful Place in Big Lake, along with her husband, Representative McCabe, and others. Very grateful for their efforts.

And that's all I have. Thank you very much. Oh, thank you.

All right. Commissioners, I'll go ahead and start with Commissioner McCabe on the line. Any comments?

Yes. Yeah, just thanks to Lacey for all of her hard work on the commission staff, and congratulations in your new role. I'm sure we will still be seeing you at least now and then.

Enjoy your new position. Thank you, ma'am. Did you have public comment? I know the meeting was only 5 minutes long. Yeah, it just did.

There just wasn't much on the docket for today, so I do not mind. Go ahead.

Nice day.

And then please state and spell your last name. My name is Andrea Larson, L-A-R-S-O-N. Ready? Okay, so I am Andrea Larson. I'm here to bring your attention to the fact that the borough is proposing to install A 375,000-gallon storage tank and facility upgrade on an unsuitable property, in my opinion, in the Talkeetna townsite, which would eliminate the 1.4 acres of Front Street bear trail woods. I'm asking that the Planning Commission recommend against the use of this existing water site where there is plenty of room.

I'm sorry, I'm asking that, that you recommend to use the existing water site where there is plenty of room for the entire project. I'm asking at the Planning Commission to recommend against the use of the DNR Front Street site. There are visual, audible, and financial impacts on neighboring properties and businesses, loss of town trees and trails, historical preservation issues, and there is a blatant disregard for the comprehensive plan, which protects and preserves the natural resources and provides for the open space, scenic, and recreational values. I believe it's an irresponsible choice to unnecessarily level these woods only to discover that it's not suitable and then hand the gravel pad back to DNR while the town is left with the devastating results. There has been extensive formal opposition from the community council, the community, and Talkitna Sewer and Water Board opposing the use of this land, and even though DNR has conveyed it to the borough with stipulations.

They told us that all these issues are the borough's responsibility to address because I had put in a, um, a DNR request for reconsideration. It's a 1.4-acre lot bordered by 2 lodging businesses and each with private septic systems with barely enough clearance to address the legal contamination issues. The property has a deep floodway diversion channel to be addressed. It's a trail corridor connecting East Talkeetna over by the campground to West Talkeetna, used by locals and tourists year-round, not to mention the visual and audible impact to these bordering lodging businesses and residences, of which I am one of the lodging businesses. These impacts are not an issue on the existing property where the water site currently is.

I'll be presenting more information to the Matsu Assembly tomorrow. And that's about it. But I have been working on this since about— since December. And we have a group of people in Talkeetna and 300— a petition with 300 signatures. So just kind of wanted to let you guys know what was going on.

And I don't know at this point that you have enough information because I didn't bring you any. But just wanted to make you aware of it. Thank you. And if you have information you want to email to Lacey, she can distribute it to the rest of us. I'll do that as well.

Thank you.

Do you have a question? Okay. All right. Yes, sir. Did you like to speak?

You're very welcome. Yeah, go ahead.

My name is My name is Alan Larson, L-A-R-S-O-N, and I have a little bit of different perspective. I'm not an engineer, but I have designed and built 6 houses in Alaska and worked with the federal government for the last 25 years. So I understand procedures and things. What happened in this particular case is that we— Andrea put out a petition, had almost 300 people sign it, say they didn't want to do this. We presented that position to DNR and DNR.

Basically, there was plus 13 of the local people and residents answered DNR with, with opposition, and DNR answered all the questions, but basically said the responsibility for the public opposition to this now rests with the borough, not with them, because if the borough can't succeed in moving the sewer water treatment facility to that lot, then they get the lot back. And at first, as Andrea said, this is a wooded lot, a trail that facilitates moving people back and forth across Talkeetna. But to DNR's advantage, probably, if this gets to be a cleared space now, it's, you know, property value probably goes up when for a cleared space versus a wooded space. One of the—. There's a lot of things that is going on.

I was able to meet with the Public Works Director. We talked for 45 minutes about this. I also talked to the DNR Commissioner after the transfer, and I was kind of surprised that the Public Works folks didn't even know there was any public opposition to this. But it's because we gave the public opposition to DNR, not to, um, the borough. I did give a copy of the thing to Mr. Brown, and I haven't heard back from him.

But what I did hear from Public Works is that they're going to go ahead and proceed with the project, put it out for bid and all that sort of thing. It bothers me a little bit that the, the, the borough is not listening to the, the Talkeetna Water and Sewer Board. I applied for that, but I'm not on it yet. I've been to the last half a dozen meetings or so. And in 2024, they said we should drill a test well on the current site and not move it because we spent, I don't know how many thousands of dollars for an engineering firm to evaluate 5 other sites in Talkeena.

They all were turned down. The only good, the best site was on state property at the airport, which is out of the flood zone, which is a big plus, and other reasons, but the But after they evaluated, the state said, we're not giving it to you because it's on airport property and all the conflicts with federal law and all that. What they didn't evaluate is the current fire department lot right beside the fire department. There's actually a cleared spot that's big enough right beside the hockey rink in Talkeetna, right beside the hockey rink, that, that they could put the tank in. So is that my goal?

I guess that's your 3 minutes. That's the hook. Okay, I think, uh, Commissioner Carpenter might have a question for you. So, so you said you have like experience, like you've built 6 homes and you've designed stuff, right? Correct.

So, and it's in your— you, you believe that the current site would be able to handle it, is that correct? That is correct, and it's also my opinion but not my fact that the borough has specifically manipulated the current site to be a bad spot versus the new spots by saying, well, for instance, they said on the new spot they're only going to have to clear 0.4 of an acre on a 1.4-acre lot. But then they give a drawing that shows 8 inches of clear— or 0.8 of an acre cleared without even having the roads cleared and stuff on there. So that didn't make any sense. The other thing is interesting is that the current facility already is fenced in for a 500 or 50-foot diameter tank, which is like they thought about that 10 years, 20 years ago, and there's space for it without clearing any more land.

One of the other things that's important about Talkeetna, and I'll shut up any minute now, just raise your hand, but Talkeetna does have a traffic problem, right? Talkeetna is a tourist community. The tourists generate a lot of revenue because 3% sales tax in Talkeetna goes to fund this water and, and wastewater facility. So one of the things that I said is that instead of accessing it through downtown, they could access it through the Chase Trail lot, which would basically mean you don't have to drive downtown to get there anymore. I think that, that's a significant factor.

But what my impression is from the things that I'm hearing from the borough and attending these meetings and stuff is that they just don't want to deal with the state. To me, I think, and again, when they just did an addition to the previous resolution adding these two other sites, and basically they manipulated the cost so that it would look like more to be on railroad site. For instance, they made a new site on this test well off F Street and S Street, South S and South F, it's crazy. Words up there in Talkeetna. But basically, and they said, well, we'll just— we'd lease 1.2 acres even though the drawing of what the SPUP they use is less, is about half that.

So it almost like they got more property there potentially just to make it more expensive. Again, thanks for your time. We're going to— I want to present this to the assembly just because I'm a little concerned that the borough doesn't maybe know that there's any opposition to this. Um, can't imagine, but maybe. And, uh, we can send you guys some information if you like to take a look at it.

Please. Thank you. Thank you for your time. All right, um, go back to, uh, Commissioner comments. Um, Commissioner Bonoff, uh, I was going to say.