Anchorage Daily News

Imagine a corridor from the Palmer Hay Flats to the Talkeetna Mountains that remains free of development where people and animals have access to an unfettered landscape for generations to come.Farms and hay fields would be preserved.

Housing developments would focus on smaller lots and more common green space for communal use.

Lands along rivers and creeks would be protected to eliminate bank erosion, provide a buffer when floods occur, and provide habitat for fish and their predators.

That's the plan the Friends of the Mat-Su are trying to sell to state and local governments, private land owners and corporate donors.

Executive director of Friends, Kathy Wells, said the group hopes that one day there will be one "secure swath of land" that stretches through the belly of the borough between Palmer and Wasilla.

"It may start as a patchwork quilt," she said Wednesday morning, "but eventually it will be one solid piece. It may not be a straight line," she said. It could meander like a river, she said, depending on the plan that is eventually in place.

In the meantime, Friends and other groups have a long to-do list in a borough where developing resources, particularly land, has been viewed as a rite of progress.

"We started getting involved about two years ago when the U.S. Fish and Wildlife approached the planning director," said Frankie Barker, environmental planner for the Matanuska-Susitna Borough.

She and two others from the Valley went to a national training conference so they could come back and teach a course for locals on how to present information on green infrastructure in their own communities. They eventually brought national trainers here to teach a 41u20442-day course in which she said about 60 people of all walks of life attended.

"We tried to get people of all kinds, including builders and real estate agents."

The borough now encourages community councils to implement green infrastructure in their comprehensive plans.

"They may not always call it green infrastructure," Barker said. "They may prefer to call the space 'natural areas' or 'open spaces,' but the idea is there."

One big, first step recently took place when the Alaska Farmland Trust Corporation helped a local farmer sell the development value of his land, but still keep it in agriculture for the future.

"We just closed on our first conservation easement," Steve Gallagher of the trust said Friday afternoon. He said acquisition of 40 acres of hay field off Fairview Loop came about through the help of the United States Department of Agriculture.

Gallagher said there are a couple of more properties that are in the beginning stages of being turned over for future conservation of open space.

But the first one was probably the hardest because it was the first.

"There were hoops to jump through all the way to the end," Gallagher said.

Now, though, they have that one under their belts and have a better understanding of the federal guidelines, including some dealing with the IRS, that hold those hoops in the air.

Basically what happens is the farmer sells or gives away the potential development value of the land so the family can still keep the land and pay agricultural assessed taxes rather than taxes on the real market value of the land.

Gallagher said beyond providing open spaces, "What are we going to do 100 years from now? We'll be tearing down houses trying to reclaim the farm land. What do we have now, two to three days of food on hand?"

He said if a natural disaster happened and our food lines were cut off, Alaskans would be in real trouble.

"Maybe two to three percent of what we eat is grown here." The rest, he said, comes from Outside or even foreign countries.

IN WASHINGTON

One of the gems of the green infrastructure movement - the Mountains to Sound Greenway - is in Washington state along Interstate 90. The 100-mile stretch of land starts at the shores of Puget Sound in Seattle, goes over Snoqualmie Pass, and ends in the high desert of central Washington.

It's one the Friends point to as an example of how green infrastructure can work.

"It all started in 1990 when some citizen activists saw significant green space that was up for development," said Cynthia Welti, executive director of the Greenway.

She said people began to notice a lot of strip malls along the Interstate 5 corridor and some of the same along state Route 99. But Interstate 90 still held hope for creating a path for saving land for the future. Now the stretch of road has been designated a National Scenic Byway.

The Greenway, according the group's Web site, includes historic towns and more than 750,000 acres of foothills, working farms and forests, mountain scenery, wildlife habitat, campgrounds, trails, lakes and rivers. And it's all held in public ownership.

IT'S NOT ALWAYS EASY

Welti offered an example of how conflicts in communities can end in a meeting of minds.

A gravel mine was going in and neighbors didn't realize the land was zoned industrial. They tried to fight it.

"We said, if not the gravel mine, then something else will," Welti said. "It's going to happen anyway. So we started working with the mine and now they've agreed that once they've extracted all the gravel, they will donate it back to the U.S. Forest Service."

She said some of the most vociferous opponents of the mine are now helping them choose colors of mining equipment so it blends in more with the area.

"It's about dialogue. Getting the right people together and convening," Welti said.

"We work with a variety sources. We get federal funds, state and county funds, city funds, private money and corporate money."

She laughed when asked about the number of people on the board of directors.

"We have about 60 people. I know that sounds like a lot, but it's a very diverse board. Males and females. Republicans and Democrats.

"We have members from four major groups: government, environment, corporate and development. Some of the hardest fought battles we have are among the environmentalists.

Some of them prefer recreation while the other want preservation."

GOING FROM GROUP

TO GROUP

Gathering people from all walks of life is the task that Friends of the Mat-Su is tackling now.

Wells said they just met with the Kiwanis Club in Palmer and plan to meet with the Rotary Club and Chamber of Commerce there as well to spread the word and see if they can get help in the form of money or simply their support.

In an e-mail response, Mat-Su Homebuilders Association president Gary Foster wrote: "The Mat-Su Home Builders support affordable housing development. We are always willing to work with the Borough and the Friends of the Mat-Su and have in fact worked with them in the past to promote affordable housing and smart growth. To date we have partnered with the borough on a wide variety of development projects."

He said people interested in the association's work should visit its office on the Palmer-Wasilla Highway.

"The Mat-Su Home Builders Association is one of more than 800 local associations, located throughout the U.S.," Foster wrote. "We represent the experts in the green home building industry and development."

In another area to reach, Wells said when schools open, she thinks the group will give their presentation to assemblies.

"I think it would be great to have a student group."

With an annual budget Wells said is "under $100,000," the group is going to need significant participation from all over the Valley as well as from state and federal agencies.

Welti, in Washington, said if they had to buy land now at developement price rates, they couldn't do it.

That's why Wells and others who want to save some of the land for the future think now is the time to do it here. Before it's too expensive to dream.

Find TC Mitchell online at adn.com/contact/tcmitchell or call 352-6716.

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