Anchorage Daily News

PALMER -- The Matanuska-Susitna Borough has one of the highest concentrations of airports and pilots per capita in the nation, if not in the world. And until recently, little attention was paid to regulating those airstrips.

Most are small -- some just grassy strips cleared of trees and mowed once in a while. Others are paved strips with upscale subdivisions built around them, targeting professionals such as doctors and lawyers for whom flying is an avocation, if not an addiction.

But as development gets denser in the Valley, airspace conflicts loom. To head them off, the Federal Aviation Administration and the borough, with contractor Dowl Engineers, joined in 2006 to develop a regional aviation plan.

The plan, adopted by the Mat-Su Assembly last week, is an effort to make Valley airspace safer by requiring airports and airstrips to register with the Federal Aviation Administration. Other goals include making radio frequencies easier to track and working on ways to reduce airspace conflicts between military and civilian planes. The plan suggests creating an aviation advisory board to deal with the issues.

Some borough residents who live near a new airport say advisory boards and pilot education programs aren't enough.

"It came up short for land-use planning," John Strasenburgh, a Talkeetna resident, said of the plan. "It's silent on the effects the development (of an airport) would have on adjoining properties."

Pam Flowers, also of Talkeetna, said those effects are being felt in her backyard. She bought her land with plans to build a home and live a quiet life. She accomplished both goals until a nearby landowner bought a larger tract, felled trees and added an airstrip with the intent to build a condo-like development aimed at pilots.

"When these people take off, they will take off directly over my house," Flowers said. "Please give strong consideration to the development of rules and regulations, whatever the proper term, that will maintain the safety of me and of my neighbors."

Borough manager John Duffy said borough employees are drafting a proposal to require new airports, commercial floatplane bases, heliports and helipads to get a permit before building.

Assemblyman Tom Kluberton, who lives in the northern Susitna Valley, said privately used airstrips wouldn't need a permit.

"It's more to extend a conditional use process ... for aviation uses that cross the line into commercial," Kluberton said.

Find Daily News reporter Rindi White online at www.adn.com/contact/rwhite or call 352-6709.

LEARN MORE: Read the Regional Aviation System plan online at www.regionalaviation.info

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