Fairbanks North Star Borough, Department of Community Planning

Borough Zoning Permit (free) and Conditional Use Permit

This record is listed for the City because a business inside Fairbanks needs it, but the permit is a Borough instrument — the City Code of Ordinances, whose chapters run from 1 to 86, contains no zoning chapter, and the Borough zones the City including its Central Business District. The Borough states the trigger itself: 'You are required to obtain a zoning permit before any excavation, construction, relocation, or installation is started for a new use (FNSBC 18.104.080.B). The only exceptions to this requirement are if the property is within a General Use (GU) zoning district (and outside of a special landscape area overlay zone) or if the lot is just being cleared or graded.' The zoning permit being free is unusual and worth noting against the $800.00 conditional use permit, which is where the real cost sits when a district makes a use conditional rather than permitted. One footnote is directly valuable to a childcare operator and is quoted in the schedule as: 'The Conditional Use Permit fee is waived for child care center applications.' The Borough's two commercial districts have now been enumerated against the Code as current through Ord. 2025-32 (2026), and the answer is favourable for most of the industries covered here. In the GC general commercial district, FNSBC 18.64.020 lists as permitted uses — not conditional — 'Animal hospitals and veterinary clinics'; 'Athletic clubs'; 'Automobile service and repair'; 'Automobile service stations'; 'Automobile car washes, self-service and automatic'; 'Restaurants, lounges, alcoholic beverage dispensaries, cafes and tea rooms'; 'Drive-in restaurants'; 'Health centers'; 'Pet stores and animal grooming shops'; 'Suntan parlors'; and food and grocery stores over 5,000 square feet. What is conditional in GC matters mainly to contractors and kennels: 'Animal boarding and breeding facilities'; 'Building contractor's office and material storage'; 'Building material sales and storage, retail, as a principal use'; lumberyards; warehouses; welding as a principal use; and large scale development. The LC light commercial district works by reference — 18.60.020 permits 'Other uses permitted in the general commercial zone' subject to four standards: one building of not more than 5,000 square feet gross floor area per lot, no outside storage except for florists, greenhouses and nurseries, no opening between 9:00 p.m. and 7:00 a.m., and all outdoor lighting including signage off between 10:00 p.m. and 6:00 a.m. except motion-activated security lighting. Buildings over 5,000 square feet are conditional in LC, and LC excludes gasoline, propane and diesel sales, alcohol for on- or off-premises consumption, drive-in and drive-through facilities, and marijuana uses. So the operating-hours restriction, not the fee, is the binding constraint on a restaurant or gym in LC. Child care is settled by the Code's chain of incorporation: a child care centre, defined at 18.04.010 as a state-licensed facility for thirteen or more children, is conditional in the single-family districts under 18.44.020(B)(2) but permitted in MFO under 18.56.020(A)(4); LC then permits 'Any permitted use in the SF-20, SF-10, SF-5, TF, MF and the MFO districts' under 18.60.020(A)(1), GC permits 'Any permitted use in the LC district' under 18.64.020(A)(1), and the CBD permits GC uses under 18.68.020(A)(1). A centre is therefore permitted in all three commercial districts — in LC without the hours and floor-area limits, which attach only to 18.60.020(A)(2) — and the waived conditional use fee matters in the rural, single-family, two-family and multiple-family districts, where a centre is conditional. Salons are the opposite case: none of Title 18's thirty-two chapters names a barber shop, beauty salon or personal-service establishment in any district list or definition, the phrase 'personal service' appearing only in the GC and CBD intent statements, so a salon's classification is decided by the Department of Community Planning at zoning permit review under 18.100.010, appealable under 18.104.090. Site plan review is part of the free zoning permit rather than a separately charged procedure: the Borough's commercial zoning permit application, reviewed July 1, 2026, states that site plans 'are required for all zoning permits,' and 18.104.080(A) provides that 'A review of the zoning permit application ensures the development's conformance with the regulations and provisions of this title.' A conditional use application must also carry a site plan under 18.104.050(B)(4), prepared by a licensed architect or engineer for a large scale development under 18.96.210(C)(3).