When the borough's 400,00th person gets here, where will they live?

The Mat Su Borough is the fastest growing area of Alaska, and planners have a new tool to look into a future where all the land available to live on, is lived-on. Borough staff will be in Talkeetna tonight to discuss the new Density and Build-Out study, and what it means for residents of the borough as it continues to grow. Lorien Nettleton has more.

listen to full story: [audio:https://ktna.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/1DensityBuildout245.mp3|titles=1DensityBuildout245]
The 2010 Census has 89-thousand people living in the Mat Su Borough. Following a strong growth trend, planners envision a day when an additional 3-hundred-fifteen thousand people will call the valley home. For planners, preparing for a day when all available land is occupied is essential for making future plans for infrastructure. Enter a New tool called the Density and Build-out model. It pairs statistics with Geographic Information Services, and Planners from the Borough, and Lauren Kruer says the tool will help plan for the future

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Kruer says the tool lets the planning department create maps that blends layers of information about soils, water bodies and wetlands, and slopes to forecast where most likely areas for settlement will be, and project what the total population the land can hold. From those projections they can start to anticipate where structures like schools and public safety stations can be placed.

Clip: 2densityBuildOut

Though the day when the borough’s population rivals that of anchorage may still be a long ways off, planners are already thinking about where to put them when they get here