03/03/2024

Written By Guest User

Land Use

  • NEW: Rogers Park Neighborhood taking a preemptive stand against highway expansion with a resolution to have the right-of-way park along the Seward Highway designated as park land: “Rogers Park Community Council requests that the Anchorage Assembly formally dedicate these two parcels of land as parkland”. Per AMC 25.30.025, “Public notice Procedures When Municipal Land Disposal Requires Voter Approval”, designating something as park land may make it slightly harder for a park to be converted into a highway. Note that there is another right-of-way park along Minnesota north of Spenard road, generously permitted for use by the public through a 55 year lease from AKDOT.

  • NEW: Girdwood Comprehensive Plan update: Girdwood is in the final stages of updating its comp plan, as the existing plan is about 30 years old. Some interesting recommended actions include:

    • Revising road standards and the Design Criteria Manual

    • Revising dimensional standards for new development

    • Regulating short term rentals through land use regulation

    • Reducing minimum lot sizes, removing barriers to ADUs, eliminating single-family-only zoning, and converting to form-based code.

More info on the project here. 

  • NEW: The South Addition Neighborhood Plan is posted for review and also has some pro-reform implementation items including: 

    • Reforming zoning to allow small-lot, small-scale multi unit housing

    • Setting maximum lot sizes for new single-family and duplex construction

    • Regulating short-term rentals as a type of use 

    • Modernizing the residential parking permit program to reduce congestion and provide on-street supply

  • LAST WEEK:  Items of interest at the February 27, 2024 Assembly Regular Meeting

    • PASSED: The Assembly passed the Planning Department’s proposed reductions to open space requirements in AO 2024-16. It looks like the changes were just dividing the existing requirements in half (although without reasons given for why those specific numbers will solve a problem or produce some benefit). This item had apparently been “on the list of things [the planning department] wanted to address”, good news that they finally managed to get around to it. 

    • PASSED: The Assembly passed a roll-back ordinance to deal with unintended consequences of new design rules in AO 2024-23.This ordinance reinstates a set of overlays conceived of by the planning department in a previous ordinance; the overlay map exists only as an image within the code text, with design rules that apply sometimes by subdivision name, sometimes by property ownership, sometimes by campus designation, and with some exemptions by zone. To complicate things even further, additional changes may be coming up again soon.

    • PASSED: The Assembly passed AO 2024-12, a rezone to allow a property with a television tower to add more uses but without the Special Limitations (it was already B-3SL). Testimony from the applicant’s representative:“It’s what I suggested in the first place, but we were told we could not go through with the B-3. So we’d be more than happy to leave it B-3 without special limitations. I agree 100% with what just went on here with special limitations, they make it so difficult to find, they’re hard to develop, so I applaud what just took place here.” Assembly Member Brawley provided some context on the problems of special limitations in general.

  • NEXT WEEK:  Items of interest at the March 5, 2024 Assembly Regular Meeting

    • BACK FOR DISCUSSION: Short term rentals are back up for discussion in AO 2023-110, item 13B. Note that both Girdwood and South Addition are calling for Short Term Rentals to be regulated as a land use in their local plan updates.

    • BACK FOR DISCUSSION: Rezone along Abbot Road and discussion of Special limitations in AO 2024-1 and AO 2024-2. Items 13C and D.

    • ONGOING: Rezoning a Midtown property that was once supposed to be a National Archive Building. AO 2024-22 is Item 14A. Per the staff report: “There are no special limitations currently imposed on the property, nor are any being proposed in this request.” Thank heavens!

  • NEW: Extra reviews for new housing in Eagle River because of Special Limitations from 1985. This is a bit outside of the scope of our usual programming, but pertinent to the hot topic of Special Limitations (SL) in general. The case is a major site plan review for 6 new housing units; this extra process is required due to a special limitation established by an ordinance in 1985. From the application: “The code does not specifically require a Public Site Plan Review but Municipal Ordinance AO 85-198 (attached) was approved by the Assembly and added a Special Limitation when the property was rezoned to CE_ROSL to require one. The Special Limitations required a Public Site Plan Public Hearing Site [sic] by the Planning and Zoning Commission subject to 21.15.030 and 21.50.200 prior to any and all development of the property”. The SL also prohibits “hotels, motels, motor lodges, and the like”, as well as banks, savings and loans associations, and similar financial institutions. Legal eagles among our readership will note that this Special Limitation is so old that the code sections it references no longer make sense; 21.15.030 is a section on “Common Acronyms and Abbreviations”, and 21.50.200 is long obsolete. Like a bad debt, SLs persist beyond time, plan changes, reason, and changing regulatory regimes. 

  • NEW: Parking reform win at Glacier City in Girdwood: Compare the site plan for this new development from 2022, when parking mandates were in effect, to this one from 2024 when property owners were able to exercise their right to choose: it appears that as a result of the reform, Girdwood will be getting more green space and more restaurant area.

  • NEW: Downtown Anchorage apparently getting a library again. Reported in Alaska Public Media.

Transportation

  • ONGOING: AKDOT’s Statewide Transportation Improvement Plan (STIP) fiasco continues: It’s unclear whether or not AKDOT came into compliance by submitting the corrected STIP by the 3/1 deadline. In the news and from Juneau:

  • NEW: Representative Mina and others sent a letter to Sullivan, Murkowski, and Peltola asking them to help resolve AKDOT's unprecedented problems: “Given DOT&PF’s unprecedented problems in developing the 2024-207 STIP and the urgency of sustaining federal funding for transportation in Alaska, we request that you explore all possible options to work with FHWA to fix the STIP. Tweet with a screenshot of the letter.

  • NEW:  Agency Comments on the Seward-Glenn Highway Expansion Project through Fairview/greenbelt/Airport Heights. Several weeks ago, AKDOT released concepts for its Seward/Glenn Planning & Environmental Linkages project (materials available here or here). Two responses from local agencies last week suggest the alternatives were poorly conceived and AKDOT (or its consultant) didn't do its homework:

    • NEW:  AMATS Memo prepared for the March 7th Technical Advisory Committee meeting: 

      • “The overall feedback from AMATS staff is that the draft alternatives do not appear to address the concerns raised by the community nor solve many of the problems that have been raised as part of the plan development.”

      • “The alternatives shown do not match up with the purpose and need”.

      • “Building highways is not part of the current best practices within the transportation planning profession.”

      • “No funding is indicated for the alternatives that have been presented, not even a planning level cost estimate.”

      • “The proposed alternatives will add a significant amount of infrastructure that will require long term pavement rehabilitation and winter maintenance. There is a significant backlog of deferred maintenance projects for the regional transportation system.”

  • NEW:  MOA Planning Department memo via Reconnecting Fairview: “A preliminary analysis…indicates that all designs could have significant impacts on private property, housing units, and zoning capacity throughout the project area and the Municipality of Anchorage (MOA) overall.”

Make sure to check out how much taxable land value each alternative might eliminate from municipal tax rolls. 

Events

  • NEW: AK DOT&PF Complete Streets Open House Fairview Community Center: 1121 E. 10th Ave. Anchorage Monday, March 4, 2024 6:00pm - 8:00pm.

  • NEW: AMATS Bicycle & Pedestrian Advisory Committee (BPAC) meeting on 3/11/2024 at 6:30 pm (to avoid conflict with the complete streets open house above) and AMATS Technical Advisory Committee (TAC) meeting on 3/7/2024 at 1pm.

  • ONGOING: Sponsors of the HOME initiative zoning reform are hosting a webinar on March 4th at 6pm. From the description: “A complex, prescriptive rulebook stands in the way of the diverse, abundant housing that Anchorage badly needs. Simplifying these rules, and giving property owners more flexibility to build and renovate housing that suits their needs, is a critical step to address our housing shortage.” More project information on HOME can be found here, and additional materials here. 

  • ONGOING:  Municipality of Anchorage Transportation Priorities Survey: Share your perspective on the future of transportation infrastructure investments in Anchorage.

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