Planning commission upholds grandfathered status for Fox Range; denies neighbor appeal 10-0

The Fairbanks North Star Borough Planning Commission on Dec. 16, 2025, denied an appeal by Joel McGill Tapia challenging the administrative hearing officer’s determination that the Fox Range, a private outdoor shooting facility at 2435 Steese Highway, qualifies for legal nonconforming use status. The motion to deny the appeal passed unanimously, 10-0, effectively upholding GR2026-9 and the planning staff’s findings.

Community planning director and hearing officer Kellen Spellman told commissioners the grandfather-rights analysis turns on whether the shooting range use existed before the borough adopted shooting-range regulations on Jan. 28, 2016, and whether later changes altered the “quality or character” of the use. Spellman summarized aerial photos and applicant-supplied images from 2012–2015 and said the administrative hearing found commercial shooting and organized matches were taking place before the 2016 rules. “Grandfather rights are extremely fact based,” Spellman said, describing code criteria and noting the 2016 ordinance’s rule that a permitted range be a quarter-mile from dwelling units.

Applicant David Dwyer, who operates the Fox Range and testified at the hearing, described events and matches on the site from about 2012 onward, improvements since he purchased the property in 2019, and safety upgrades including raised berms and a concrete-block wall. Dwyer cited assembly meeting minutes and audio he says show the borough intended existing ranges to be grandfathered: he read from a 2016 meeting in which an assembly member said, “Existing ranges are grandfathered in…this ordinance does nothing to affect you.” He also described safety measures to address neighbor concerns, saying the berms between the properties are “approximately 15 feet tall.”

Neighbors and users who testified largely supported the range’s long-standing use. Clyde Barnaby, who lives across the road, told commissioners he and his wife back the operation: “I just came here to support the range,” he said, adding that shooting has been a fixture in the Fox area for decades and that the organized range is safer than ad hoc activity elsewhere.

Opposition in the appeal raised health-and-safety concerns — children’s safety, noise and the risk of ricochet — and questioned whether the addition of Bay 4 (constructed starting about 2020) changed the range’s character. Spellman and witnesses answered technical questions about berm heights, backstop standards and setbacks; staff said the code’s focus for the grandfather analysis is the type of use rather than frequency of shooting, and explained a borough code provision that can treat adjacent conveyed parcels as a single ‘zone lot’ for zoning purposes.

After questioning and deliberation, a commissioner moved to deny the appeal “and uphold the decision of GR2026-9 approving legal nonconforming use status” for the listed tax lots; the motion was seconded and adopted. The clerk recorded a unanimous roll call vote of 10-0 in favor of denial. The commission adopted the staff report and the findings of fact in support of the decision. The decision is appealable to the Superior Court.

Because the appellant did not appear at the hearing, commissioners and staff noted the appellant bore the burden of proof for the appeal. The commission’s action preserves the administrative determination that Bays 1–3 and the overall shooting use preexisted the 2016 ordinance and that the addition of Bay 4 did not, in the hearing officer’s finding, change the character of the use sufficiently to defeat grandfather rights.

The commission’s written decision and the underlying hearing record include technical findings on the 2016 ordinance, the quarter-mile and 100-foot buffer provisions, the zone-lot treatment of adjacent tax parcels, and the timeline of photos and events dating back to 2012. The outcome leaves the owner authorized to continue the range’s operation under the borough’s determination, subject to any external appeals.