04/14/2024
Land Use
NEW: More special reviews for housing triggered by special limitations from 1985. Case number 2023-128 requires a property owner proposing to build 3 duplexes in Eagle River to go through a major site plan review before the Planning & Zoning Commission at their April 15, 2024 meeting. Note from the applicant on page 29 of the packet regarding the mandated public consultation last October: “All other comments were positive, and they [attendees] only questioned the need for this process and why the master site plan review was even required. We just explained we are following the required process dictated by Title 21 and the ordinance that required it.”
Based on dates in the packet:Scope Permitting & Engineering fee for navigating MOA rules & regulations: $85 per hour.
Pre-application conference fee in September 2023: $130.
Required public meeting at Matanuska Brewing in October 2023: $??.
Major site plan review fee in January 2024: $5,665.
Nearly 7 months have passed since the first meeting, and the project still needs PZC’s approval to build 6 units–is it possible there is some sort of connection between processes like this and Anchorage’s housing problems?
NEW: Administrative site plan review for 30 new housing units in East Anchorage: Process aside, this might be an example of zoning reform at work–this new development appears to have slightly less guest parking than would have been previously required, and also seems to be using the recently-adopted recent reductions to open space requirements due to its proximity to a park. Check out the painful table of design standards on sheet A301 though. This application was submitted on 3/26/2024, is not required to be decided until 5/26/2024, and cost $1,850. While it’s great for development watchers like us, what’s the functional purpose of having a review like this again?
NEW: R-4A Rezone of the Archives Site. A recurring topic this spring, AO 2024-25 was introduced weeks ago to rezone a piece of property in midtown to the R-4A zone (which was updated just last year). When asked by the Assembly what, exactly, is desirable about the new R-4A zoning district, the planning department was unable to answer. Assembly Chair Christopher Constant quoted a moment later: “An assertion made without facts can be dismissed without facts…”. There’s a bit more detail on this case in the bulletin from 3/10/2024.
NEW: Discussing Statewide Building codes in the ADN. “Some of the most compelling evidence to which Salisbury referred is in a 2021 University of Alaska Anchorage-led study that detailed worse building performance in the outlying communities of Eagle River and Chugiak, which do not have residential building codes despite being part of the Municipality of Anchorage, and in the Matanuska-Susitna Borough, which also lacks such codes. In those northern communities, rates of damage to buildings were 18 to 20 times as high as rates within the area of Anchorage where codes are mandated, the study said.”” Love them or hate them, unlike a lot of zoning codes, building codes are at least usually tied to some sort of reasonably objective, verifiable standard.
ONGOING: New Site Access standards: AO 2024-24 was supposed to be discussed at the 4/9/2024 Assembly meeting, but it looks like they ran out of time. Word on the street is that at some point soon there will have to be some tough decisions about the tradeoffs between the needs of housing today and the desires for a better built environment for the Anchorage of tomorrow.
NEW: Anchorage Park Foundation: Map Your Anchorage.
Transportation
NEW: Anchorage’s next Protected Bike Lane pilot study. “Phase 2 of the larger study, the Summer 2024 Downtown PBL Pilot, will analyze Protected Bike Lanes (PBL) in different contexts than those tested during the September 2023 Pine/McCarrey Pilot. The 2024 route is intended to test a protected bike lane connection between the Coastal Trail and the Chester Creek Trail through Downtown, expanding access to areas currently challenging to cyclists. The Summer 2024 Pilot will take place along 6th Ave. from the Coastal Trail to A St., and A St. from 6th Ave. to 10th Ave.”
NEW: The Assembly’s Transportation Committee meeting will be April 17th from 1-3pm.
NEW: AMATS Policy Committee Meeting will be April 18th from 1-3pm.
NEW: Key Anchorage stakeholders skeptical of megaproject solutions to connect Seward and Glenn highways: from Alaska Public Media: “As a transportation planner, it’s our responsibility in AMATS to say whether or not alternatives that are brought forward can be paid for,” Jongenelen told the Anchorage Assembly last month, at a meeting where state transportation officials and their consultants walked through the concepts. “And, no, I’ll say it right now, we can’t afford this stuff.”
NEW: Fireweed lane rehabilitation project. “The project team will analyze and design alternative roadway configurations to rehabilitate Fireweed Lane to improve motorized and active transportation needs, as well as business circulation and access along the corridor.”
ONGOING: News reports from the transportation system. Consistent reminders that the transportation system we have designed and built is actually regularly quite dangerous:
“Anchorage man arrested in hit-and-run that seriously injured pedestrian” 12/23/23
“Multiple-vehicle wreck closes stretch of Glenn Highway” 2/24/24
“Driver charged with manslaughter, DUI in Anchorage hit-and-run” 3/5/2024
“Crash knocks out power for thousands in East Anchorage” 3/17/24
“2 injured in crash involving fire department vehicle” 3/22/2024
“Driver arrested in fatal hit-and-run after running over man lying in road, charges say” 4/8/24
“Bicyclist seriously injured by hit-and-run driver, Anchorage police say” 4/9/24