Monday’s Mountain View Community Council meeting brought big news on several fronts, from neighborhood development to the much-anticipated annual spring cleanup.

Spring Cleanup

After months of uncertainty, the neighborhood cleanup is scheduled to take place May 2-9 at a vacant property on Mountain View Drive.

The event — which collects tens of thousands of pounds of trash annually — traditionally took place in an empty lot alongside the old Brewster’s building. This year, though, the Brewster’s building is gone and the old empty lot now holds a row of new duplexes. With no suitable space to stage the cleanup, the event was at risk of cancellation until the Anchorage Community Land Trust donated the use of one of its own properties.

Art on the fence surrounding 3543 Mountain View Drive, the site of this year’s neighborhood spring cleanup.

Now, the cleanup is set to take place at 3543 Mountain View Dr., the vacant lot where John’s Motel & RV Park once stood.

A cadre of volunteers is organizing the effort, but Mountain View resident Niki Burrows said pulling it off requires more manpower.

“We’re in good shape — we just need volunteers,” she told the community council Monday night.

Ship Creek Trail

The community land trust plans on upgrading the Ship Creek Trail with the help of a $30,000 matching funds grant from the Anchorage Park Foundation, said ACLT Executive Director Kirk Rose.

The Ship Creek Trailhead at Tyson Elementary School.

The multi-use trail runs from Tyson Elementary School to the Alaska Railroad Depot through the Ship Creek industrial area. It’s popular with pedestrians, bicyclists, wildlife and illegal campsites, but the path’s trailheads are poorly marked and difficult to find. With the support of the community council, ACLT applied for a 2015 APF Challenge Grant earlier this year, hoping to add maps, wayfinding markers and other informational signage along the two-and-a-half mile trail.

Monday, Rose announced that the application was successful and the land trust will begin work on the trail later this year.

Roundabout design: Back to the drawing board

A proposed centerpiece for a new roundabout on Mountain View Drive is heading back to the drawing board following a Monday night vote by a majority of community council members.

The concept, designed by local landscape architecture firm Earthscape, features long metal arms reaching up from the ground holding a “Welcome to Mountain View” banner. The design was selected from a pool of several artistic renderings at a roundtable meeting earlier this year, but it later drew sharp criticism from community members.

While the roundabout at the intersection of Mountain View Drive and McCarrey Street is scheduled for completion in 2016, engineers, architects and Mountain View residents have disagreed on how to best combine engineering requirements and artistic tastes in the center of the roundabout. There have been many suggestions — trees, a welcome sign, something similar to the art at the Gardens at Bragaw. Still, an acceptable alternative design for the center of the roundabout has yet to surface.

After Monday’s community council vote, though, one thing was clear: The giant arms are not the right fit.

Concept art courtesy Earthscape