South Goldenview Anchorage

9/16/07

There is a new proposal from Forest Heights LLC for the developement of Legacy Pointe. This is totally different from the one we heard about on August 20. This new plan calls for developing the entire area but with lower roof lines - 3 stories instead of 5 and three fewer buildings for drainage mitigation.  The Site Plan Cover Letter describes the new approach and the Site Plan Narrative represents a creative writing exercise to make this project appear as if it conforms to the Anchorage 2020 guidelines for the area. The Executive Summary for the TIA describes the traffic impacts - but still doesn't consider upgrading 172nd or the intersection of Bluebell and Goldenview.  The Declarations reads like a Homeowners Association document.  The Drainage Impact Analysis describes the 3 fewer buildings for drainage.

Pretty Pictures - that look like they came from California!

Legacy Pointe Site Plan

Building Plans

Phase Plans

Offsite Road Plan

Landscape Plan

8/16/07

Here is a study on the Report on the Economic Well-Being of Alaska Senior's.  This study was done by the State of Alaska Dept of Health and Social Services commission on Aging and published January of this year.  I also found an inventory report for Senior Housing inventory for Alaska.  Rabbit Creek Community Council submitted written comments on July 26th.

The Developers for Legacy Pointe has submitted some new documents to the Planning Dept this week for the hearing on August 20.  The Letter to Jerry Weaver describes that they are submitting a new Phase Plan, a new profile of the buildings, and a Market Study.  They are now going to start at the bottom of the hill rather than at the top - which is a good alternative to make sure they build the road before reaching Goldenview.  The drawings of the buildings show that they are still 2 floors higher than the Fire Dept's ladders can reach and the Market Study Report doesn't show any proof what so ever that this will work in Alaska.

7/6/07

We received a copy of the entire plan re-submittal for Legacy Pointe. Please use this information to plan written and/ or verbal testimony for the upcoming August 6th P&Z meeting.  It is ridiculous to put elderly people on our roads without adequate infrastructure to support their increasing needs for public services.  We need to have responsible development that is not driven by loop-holes and maximum return for developers when it hurts the community and the neighbors.  This development alone will add 150% of the current density along S. Goldenview.   

• The new Traffic Impact Analysis was just given to us last week. I am publishing it before I have even looked at it.  Hopefully they have considered Bluebell and changed the grade on 172nd from zero to something in the neighborhood of 25%.  I am sure I will have more to comment on this once I have had a chance to digest it.
• I choked when I first saw the "Calfornia-esque" site plan many months ago.   The landscaping plan and landscape 2 plan shows a staking method for each tree they are going to "plant".  Would have been nice to leave some of the ones there naturally - but again our native trees wouldn't fit in well in California.
• Check out the ghetto-fabulous building plans.  Representative Hawker coined our area high-end ghetto for its latest development patterns.  Building A, Building B, Building C, Club House, and Color Palette. 
• In the proposed phasing plan, the developer is proposing to build from the top down from Goldenview to Potter Valley and not connect the roads for 5 - 15 years!  S. Goldenview will bear the brunt of the development abuse and they don't even plan to join our Road Service Area.  Therefore it would fall to the tax payers of S. Goldenview RRSA to pay the bill to ease the developers financial burden of having to build the road before selling units.  I find this completely unacceptable. 
• Speaking of the RRSA  and our 4 hour snow removal contract and 2 hour sanding contract - they are choosing to join ARDSA with 72 hour snow removal .... for elderly folks. Nice, as Borat would say.
• The Legacy Site Plan Review is an insult to Anchorage 2020.  See how it manipulates and takes the intent out of context to seem to conform to the 2020 guidelines.  This is not the Lake Otis corridor where they were talking about potential for  higher density housing - this is the "upper hillside" with steep terrain and drainage issues.   
• It has been agreed that there will be a collector standard road (such as Goldenview is now)  through this property to connect to Potter Valley. This is necessary to allow secondary access off S. Goldenview and manage future traffic volumes brought on by new development.  I don't like that the developers engineers have been allowed thus-far to dictate the alignment of the road. I fear that the road alignment will better meet their needs for having it sweep back and forth to each property than to be the best possible route that will feed traffic off S. Goldenview.  We have to have a very inviting road to convince drivers to go South to get North - otherwise everyone will continue to flood Goldenview and Rabbit Creek.  The road plan submitted shows taking a huge chunk of land from the Heritage Land bank and cutting into a very hydric hillside as seen on the HLB Road Plan and profile.  The intent of that land was for a park - not a collector road.  I am working to have the Road contractor for the Hillside District Plan take an independent stab to see if there isn't a better road alignment - irrespective of the proposed layout of the buildings.
• The Drainage Impact Analysis shows that there is a lot of water that runs through this tract of land and it has very shallow bed rock.  There are several Appendix to this report; Pre-develop conditions, post-develop conditions, curve number computations, storage volume estimations, storm system capacities, and calculations for storm events. A Corps of Engineers application was submitted because they are impacting water of the United States.
• They are looking to append the Hillside Wastewater Management plan to include this area because it cannot support onsite utilities for this level of density. They could develop at an R6 standard with high-tech septic systems, but that isn't even on the table. Instead they are going to tear up S. Goldenview for a sewer main and find a lot to put a 2 million gallon water tank on it to support this riduculous scheme we like to call "development by loophole". 

05/30/07

Planning and Zoning hearing on Legacy Pointe has been moved to August 6th.  The Legislature approved the $900K to plan the re-design of Goldenview to connect with the new collector road through Legacy to Potter Valley.  With the funds, we should be able to garner more support in ensuring the proper road design is platted - rather than the one that best meets the developer's goals.

--12/9/06 - I just found out the developers of Legacy Pointe are doing a re-design for this development and it is not yet available.   The documents below pertain to the current design.   The documents will be updated as they become available.--

There are currently many developments impacting South Goldenview.  This will be updated regularly as more information becomes available.  You can download the documents by clicking on a hyper-link and can be identified by the yellow color of the words.

Public comments to Planning and Zoning can be viewed and made by clicking  here.

Legacy Pointe is a proposed 660 senior housing condo development slated for the southwest portion of South Goldenview. The developers are Aaron and Tabitha Scott, Thomas Alexander, and Sharon Elliot - each showing a 25% stake as a shareholder of the corporation formed as Forest Heights LLC.  The application for site plan review shows the map of the area and proposed layout.   The Planning and Zoning will review the newly revised site plan on February, 2007.  I haven't heard what will be revised, but I will post the information here as soon as it becomes available.  The documents for residents to make themselves familiar with have been uploaded for easy access.

Among the concerns for Legacy Pointe:

• Traffic Impacts to the area
• Creation of a Collector Road to offload traffic from the south end of South Goldenview to Potter Road
• Historic Moen Trail
• Hydrology of the area and the impacts of high density development which removes vast vegetation and disrupts ground water
• Potential elimination of a wildlife corridor

Hydrology / Wetlands

Little Survival Creek Watershed mapping was completed by the Muni in 2002