12/1/2024
Land Use
NEW: Anchorage Assembly 2025 legislative priorities at the 12/3/2024 Assembly meeting:
“TOP PRIORITY #1: Adequately fund snow removal on state roads and sidewalks within the Department of Transportation and Public Facilities’ (DOT&PF) Central Region, which includes the Municipality. Reduce turnaround timelines for plow outs by adding equipment and increasing staff capacity. Fully fund and staff the DOT&PF Central Region to allow critical transportation priorities to move forward:
• Road safety: Support the implementation of the Vision Zero Action Plan to eliminate traffic fatalities and severe injuries.
• Pavement preservation: Repairing the surfaces of roads and sidewalks.
-Refrain from expanding mandatory property tax exemptions which would result in a net decrease in the local government tax base.
-Allow senior and residential exemptions for individual units of a “cooperative property.”
-Increase resources available to improve housing affordability statewide through AHFC and Alaska Mental Health Trust programs such as the Special Needs Housing Grant.
-Increase funding available to build infrastructure that supports new housing development through DOT&PF and AHFC’s Supplemental Housing Program.
-Develop new mechanisms through AIDEA, AHFC and HAPPP to provide gap financing, funding and patient capital for housing development. Allow the AIDEA Loan Participation Program to be used for financing multifamily housing development.
-Allow local governments to designate and tax dilapidated properties at a higher mill rate”
NEW: Assembly resolution to streamline zoning review in order to facilitate construction of more Accessory Dwelling Units: AR 2024-376 at the 12/3/2024 Assembly meeting:
“When conducting a zoning review for a proposed detached ADU development, the Municipality should limit its zoning review to the proposed ADU and should not consider any other structures on the property in the zoning review, unless it is a matter of serious health and safety….If zoning non-conformities of other structures on the property are identified in the ADU permitting process, the Planning Department may send a letter notifying the property owner of the issue and will keep the letter on file for the property, but will not require conformity as a condition of the ADU permit.”
Conformity is a primary obsession of Euclidean zoning; evidenced in Anchorage’s own zoning code by an entire chapter regulating non-conformities: “It is the intent of this chapter to permit these nonconformities to continue until they are removed or brought into conformance with this title, and to encourage their re-use and movement towards conformity”. A perspective on this from Harvard Law Review in 2022:
“While some zoning rules may be justified by reference to legitimate government interests, closer examination reveals that they are untethered to these interests and are instead based on covert or overt desires to restrict growth. This is often the case for laws requiring new construction to conform to an existing community character. While these limits may be justified as attempts to promote historical or environmental preservation, they are frequently the product of covert or overt desires to keep the community free of the types of residents that might populate affordable housing.”
NEW: Updating transit supportive corridors and expanding tax incentives: AO 2024-111, AM 906-2024, and map of the expanded areas. From section 2 of the AO: “The Assembly hereby petitions the Planning Department to initiate an amendment to the Anchorage Land Use Plan Map to conform that document to the changes approved in this ordinance.” At the 12/3/2024 Assembly meeting. A clerk’s note indicates the public hearing for this item will be continued to 12/17/2024.
NEW: For introduction: AO 2024-116 would establish the Helen Mcdowell Sanctuary as municipal park land. At the 12/3/2024 Assembly meeting. Note that this property is right next to the large area that AKDOT clear cut recently for “pedestrian safety”, and also might be some of the land which AKDOT may have planned to take for a less recent highway expansion project.
NEW: AO 2024-122, clarifying how foreclosed-upon property owners can get back extra value from the sale of property. AM 962-2024. At the 12/3/2024 Assembly meeting.
NEW: Establishing a records management program: AO 2024-124 is item 10.G.10 to establish a records retention program separate from the executive branch at the 12/3/2024 Assembly meeting. Interesting to look at the records retention schedule. Everything this Bulletin publishes is from public news sources or based on public records.
NEW: Community & Economic Development Committee (CEDC) meeting on 12/5/2024. Items of interest: the AO to expand the existing transit supportive corridors and add tax incentives to these areas, and the AO on removing special limitations in rezonings.
ONGOING: Project Anchorage sales tax. AO 2024-105. AM 854-2024. At the 12/3/2024 Assembly meeting.
ONGOING: 12/2/2024 Planning and Zoning Commission meeting:
Comprehensive plan map change in the Eklutna area
Rezone of ~760 acres to CE R-3 and CE B-3 in the Eklutna area
Comprehensive plan map change along Abbott Road
Rezone from R-5 to B-3 along Abbott Road
Transportation
NEW: AMATS Technical Advisory Committee12/5/2024. Action items: Title VI (rules on equal access to federal funding/planning), support for the Highway Safety Improvement Program (HSIP), and a new household travel survey:
“Approximately every ten years, AMATS conducts a Household Travel Survey to update regional travel information. The statistically valid survey will gather information about how people in the region travel to and from and within the AMATS area. It will show trends in personal and family travel and look at daily travel, by all types of transportation.”
Informational items at this meeting include updates on the Fish Creek Trail connection, findings from the downtown protected bike lane pilot, and the upcoming Fireweed Lane rehabilitation.
NEW: “WestJet new Anchorage-Calgary route starts summer 2025” From an AKDOT press release: “Starting June 29, 2025, WestJet will operate twice-weekly flights between Anchorage and Calgary. Calgary International Airport, a major hub for WestJet, provides seamless connections to destinations across Canada, the United States, Europe, and Asia, making it easier than ever for Alaskans to reach a variety of global destinations.”
ONGOING: This week in traffic violence: “Pedestrian struck, killed by driver in Anchorage: Fifteenth pedestrian fatality this year.” In Alaska’s News Source. C street is an AKDOT-managed road; at this location it has 3 vehicle lanes, a design speed of probably over 50 mph, and a speed limit of 45 mph.
ONGOING: Seward to Glenn Connection open house at the Anchorage Senior Activity Center on 19th avenue.Tuesday, December 10, 2024 from 4:30-6:30 p.m. ”DOT&PF is seeking feedback on refined alternative designs for the Seward to Glenn Connection Planning and Environmental Linkages (PEL) Study.” Website.
Events
NEW: City Nerd Nite: Won't You Be My Neighbor? ”It's a beautiful day in the neighborhood to announce City Nerd Nite will be back in 2025 in partnership with ANC Design Week. On Thurs. February 20, don your favorite sweater and kick off your shoes at the Seed Lab to share your brave ambitions to build better community in Anchorage. We're calling on our neighbors to pitch 7-minute presentations on ways to welcome new friends to the neighborhood, inspire a stronger workforce, create neighborly spaces or events that celebrate our imaginative community, challenge the status quo of our own King Friday's, or raise a little mischief with grassroots Lady Elaine-like initiatives.” Make your pitch by 1/12/2025 here.