Anchorage Daily News

MEADOW LAKES -- Sun filtered through birch tree leaves Monday as painters and pavers put finishing touches on a new senior housing complex tucked away in Meadow Lakes.

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It's obvious where the Birch Creek Villas got its name.

And for residents like Tony Story, the draw of a home surrounded by a forest and without the headaches of snowplowing, lawn mowing and general fix-it chores that usually accompany home ownership is ideal.

The apartment complex, built by the Meadow Lakes Community Council on council property, is for tenants aged 62 and older.

Half of the apartments are rented to seniors whose annual income is half the typical income in Mat-Su. The other four apartments go for $950 per month, the market rate for similar rentals.

Story was the first tenant to move in at Birch Creek Villas in mid-May. A data-entry worker at Alaska Native Medical Center who retired after 28 years, Story said his apartment has amenities he's never had before: a dishwasher, a garage-door opener and more closets than he knows what to do with.

"I really lucked into this place. I can't believe it," he said Monday.

Story's one-bedroom apartment, with a large bathroom, a breakfast nook and room for dining and living space under the vaulted ceiling of its central room, is one of eight units.

The other seven have two bedrooms.

All come with a sit-down shower, heated garage, washer and dryer and other appliances, and a patio looking out on the birch forest.

FINDING THE MONEYThe community council plans to build two more apartment complexes when the market is ready for them, Meadow Lakes Seniors board president Sherri Rusher said Monday. But the group didn't set out to build senior housing. It had hoped to find grants to build a community center and ball fields, but found housing money first.

"We were able to obtain grants and funding for that more easily than the community center," Rusher said.

The community council enlisted the help of Tim and Mary Anderson, owners of Anderson Enterprises, to help them get the grants and build the apartments.

Tim Anderson, formerly the Mat-Su Borough mayor, was the executive director at Wasilla Area Seniors Inc. for 11 years and orchestrated a housing boom on the campus. Mary began working there in 2001 and also worked on the housing projects.

Since resigning from the senior center the couple has worked with several Mat-Su communities to develop senior housing.

Mary Anderson said they are branching out to other Alaska communities now, with one project under construction in Ketchikan and another being analyzed in Sitka.

The projects aren't big money-makers for the groups that build them, she said.

But groups like Meadow Lakes Seniors can qualify for construction grants if they make some of the units available to low-income seniors.

CLOSE TO HOME

The Birch Creek Villas project tallied $2.2 million, she said, with $1.8 million in federal grants passed through Alaska Housing Finance Corp.

Rusher said Meadow Lakes Community Council leaders liked the project because it provides a place for community residents who might otherwise have to move away.

The council is seeing benefits too. The spacious common area at the Villas is the new meeting place for it and other community groups. With large windows, comfortable couches, a flat-screen television, a kitchen and foldable tables, the commons has already been rented for a baby shower and nearby residents are scheduling card games there.

Anderson said senior housing projects in rural communities tend to be popular in Mat-Su.

"A lot of people in those communities don't want to move in to Wasilla. They want to be in the community they have lived in," Anderson said.

That's true for Story, who moved to Meadow Lakes when he retired in 2002.

Until he moved to the Villas, he lived in a two-room cabin just up the road with electricity and heat but no indoor plumbing. It was comfortable, but it needs work, he said.

He's looking forward to having his driveway plowed next winter, and a warm garage to drive his old Chevrolet pickup into.

"I'm getting spoiled," he said, laughing.

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

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