Community Planning for Yanert Valley and Denali
Project Date: 2006
Lead: Chris Beck
Client: The Yanert Community, with financial support from the
Denali Citizen’s Council
Location: Yanert Valley and Denali
Project Description
The Yanert community has experienced increasing growth in recent years, coupled with continued expansion of tourism and tourism infrastructure into neighboring Denali Park. In response, the community initiated the preparation of a community plan. Agnew::Beck was hired to help the community develop this plan, with the following project goals:
- Building from a recently completed community survey and past borough-wide planning efforts, help the community articulate goals and strategies for the future of the Yanert Valley area to provide the basis for guiding growth and set the stage for more detailed planning.
- Explore alternative strategies to achieve community goals, including advisory design guidelines, land use regulations, infrastructure such as trails and roadside turnouts, and information such as signage and maps.
- Help develop a “template” that demonstrates a practical approach to community planning in the Denali Borough, and to set the stage for planning Borough-wide.
- Design the planning process to ensure that goals, strategies and other project outcomes reflect and are based on the views and values of the full community.
The project included a series of community meetings. Over the course of these meetings, it became clear that, while many wanted a plan, there were several basic problems with the planning process. A number of people argued that the initial survey did not reflect an accurate view of public sentiments. The Ahtna Native Corporation, who owns the majority of the land in the area, did not support the plan. And perhaps most importantly, there were a number of unanswered questions about who should lead such a plan, and if and how the plan would be adopted and implemented by the borough. For these reasons, the process was halted. While not resulting in an approved plan, the process did highlight issues that need to be addressed, and make real progress toward defining strategies to address these issues.
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