Local Committees Forward Remarks on ‘Holtan Hills’ Permit to GBOS

Signs hang in Girdwood's post office. Numerous messages left with the municipal planning office had not been returned as of Thursday. (Photo by Soren Wuerth)

By Soren Wuerth

TNews Editor

Local committees are recommending the city complete a land use plan before approving a conditional use permit for the first phase of the "Holtan Hills" subdivision.

The motion, passed unanimously on Dec. 1 by Girdwood's Housing and Economic Committee, is one of six measures supported Monday by the Land Use Committee.

Other items passed by GHEC include:

• a requirement for two lots to be deeded to a local non-profit to build community housing, 

• that at least three of the lots contain duplexes, that some lots require the owner to live and work in Girdwood, 

• and that the road to a cul de sac is a public, rather than private, road.

The LUC also agreed to recommendations by the Trails Committe to require developers pay the cost of moving the historic Iditarod Trail and that the trail is surveyed and recorded on the plat along with 25-foot easements on either side of it.

All these requirements will be taken up by Girdwood's Board of Supervisors Monday. 

The GBOS plans to hear other comments, then send a resolution an Anchorage platting board with recommended changes to the conditional use permit for "Holtan Hills".

A land use plan is required by the municipality for large developments. Municipal planners are relying on a nearly 20-year old "Crow Creek Neighborhood Plan" that has been disregarded, or even dismissed, in development plans for "Holtan Hills", the GHEC argues. The plan needs to be updated, the committee agreed.

Anchorage's Planning and Zoning Commission will take up the "Holtan Hills" permit January 5. The deadline for comments is December 15. 

Should a person or group appeal a platting decision, that process could push development back by a year, developer Connie Yoshimura told an audience during a meeting earlier this fall.