Residents will have a voice in Wasilla’s new city plan, officials say
The new comprehensive plan will take a look at all aspects of city life, including roads.
What you need to know:
- Wasilla is starting a yearlong project to update its comprehensive plan, with community forums planned to gather residents' opinions on roads, parks, zoning and other city features.
- The project includes evaluating potential annexation of new land to accommodate future growth in Wasilla, which has about 10,000 residents within 13 square miles.
- Comprehensive plans are typically updated every 10 years. The current update was delayed from 2021 because of workload and staff turnover in the city's planning department.
WASILLA - Mat-Su residents will have a chance to weigh in on the future look and feel of Wasilla as part of a new planning project that begins this month.
The yearlong effort will examine various aspects of the city, including roads, sidewalks and bike paths, parks, zoning, utilities and the airport, planning officials told the Wasilla City Council during a Feb. 10 meeting.
The process will update a comprehensive plan created in 2011.
The new Wasilla Comprehensive Plan will take about a year to complete, said LaQuita Chmielowski, a land-use planner with Dowl, an Anchorage-based engineering firm conducting the project.
Public input will be gathered through a series of forums and incorporated into the final report, she said.
Those meetings have not yet been scheduled.
Updating the plan allows the city to take a strategic approach to future growth, Chmielowski told the council.
“It creates an opportunity to be proactive in how you look at your development,” she said during the meeting. “As you look at your infrastructure, whether it’s your roads or … utilities, it starts to lay a plan out for what those things are that are most important to the community.”
The plan will also include a process to evaluate potential annexation of new land into the city, Chmielowski said.
With about 10,000 residents in about 13 square miles, Wasilla is the most densely populated city in the Matanuska-Susitna Borough and is funded primarily by sales tax collected from businesses within its borders. The city last annexed land in 2014, city officials said.
City comprehensive plans are typically updated every 10 years, said Wasilla Public Works Director Erich Schaal. Wasilla's was due for an update in 2021 but was delayed due to workload and staff turnover in the city's planning department, he said.
The project is partially funded by $195,000 approved by the city council late last year. A second round of funding is expected to be approved this spring as part of the city's 2026 budget process, according to city documents.
-- Contact Amy Bushatz at abushatz@matsusentinel.com
