07/14/2024

Mayoral Transition

  • LAST WEEK: The Mayor’s transition team held an open house at the Loussac library on July 9th. Boards of the visions and actions developed by transition team groups were posted around the room and snapshots published on Twitter. All recommendations will be provided to the Mayor in the form of a report later this month.

A few listed existing conditions and challenges: 

  • “The regulatory environment doesn’t support development” 

  • “We need strong data and leadership to address the issues” 

  • “Our planning and standards needs improvement”  

A few listed “innovative actions”: 

  • “Revise Title 21 code to simplify building & design requirements” 

  • “Establish a Municipal Housing Department to consolidate all city functions related to housing and ensure housing goals are met” 

  • “Establish an Active Transportation Cabinet with participation from various departments and mayoral leadership (Parks & Rec, AMATS, Dept of Health, Traffic, PM&E)” 

  • “Complete trail connections, including Coastal to Ship, Fish Creek to Ocean, and Campbell Creek Lake Otis Crossing”

  • “Build infrastructure that meets basic needs, such as providing bathrooms to access to basic hygiene, trash disposal, and citywide Wi-Fi.

Land Use

This proposed ordinance merely seeks to codify the long-standing practice of the municipal government. It has been understood that the rigid application of the additional procedural requirements for proposed text amendments to Title 21, as codified in AMC 21.03.210B., would constitute an impermissible burden upon the Assembly’s ability to perform its most fundamental legislative function: to amend the Municipal CodeThis amendment makes explicit what was previously understood by all relevant parties to be implied in the Code and the Charter.

Assembly counsel explained the need for this type of change when talking about an ordinance that attempted to solve the same problem at the 6/11/2024 meeting. In a surprise twist, the municipal attorneys offered an opinion at that same meeting that concurred with Assembly counsel:

“...as the opinion of the municipal attorney's office said… it’s in our charter, the assembly has the power to change the code, and I think that if the Assembly finds it wise in certain circumstances to waive planning and zoning commission review, that that should be provided for in the code.”

  • NEW: Girdwood Comprehensive Plan update will be heard at the July 15, 2024 Planning & Zoning Commission meeting. Here’s the application and draft plan.The staff report calls for redesignating a few areas on the land use map from Open Space to housing. The comments include HLB pushing back on some HLB lands being designated as open space (preferring they instead be designated for housing), a few mentions from traffic engineers worried about unpaved roads, and AKDOT recommending limiting access to the primary road in the area: “Reducing, consolidating, and sharing accesses is one of the easiest ways to help improve roadway safety for not only drivers, but also non-motorized users.” Note that reducing speed is actually one of the easiest ways to improve road safety without impeding access.

One remarkable thing about this updated plan and the accompanying staff report: no mention of how the land use designations for Girdwood’s most connected, most-accessible, geographically central areas are still primarily low density (compare page 69 of the 1995 Girdwood land use plan with page 12 of the 2024 Girdwood land use plan). Locking out mixed density development in the middle of Girdwood is a great way to push more development further out and cement higher transportation costs–did anyone read Girdwood’s own vision, goals, and policies calling for reducing carbon footprints, making the most of existing housing stock, and encouraging more housing in appropriate areas?

  • NEW: Albertson/Krogers merger: Anchorage grocery stores on the chopping block. In the ADN:Albertsons and Kroger on Tuesday unveiled the stores in Alaska that they plan to sell to C&S Wholesale Grocers as part of their controversial, $24.6 billion merger plan..The divestitures include the 11 Carrs stores that operate in Alaska, including eight in Anchorage.” What will this mean for all the vibrant “town centers” as imagined by the 2040 Land Use Plan? Perhaps it will be an opportunity for areas zoned B-1A (“local and neighborhood business district”) to develop with the fabled corner grocers they were intended to accommodate (as long as they can meet the area requirements, special use restrictions, and don’t have other Special Limitations zoning assigned to the lot). Here are some existing examples of B-1A land in Spenard, Mountain View and East Anchorage.

  • LAST WEEK: Implementation status of  adopted plans, tax revenues, and existing challenges to building water infrastructure: topics of discussion at the 7/11/2024 Community and Economic Development Committee meeting.  

    • Slides from AWWU can be found here

    • Taxable value per acre diagram available here

    • As for progress on adopted plans, the spreadsheet provided by the planning department indicates that the vast majority of adopted plans have never been reviewed or updated. The document also claims that “Anchorage 2040 LUP served as both an update and supplement to ANC 2020”, although Table 21.01-1 in Title 21 shows that the 2020 plan hasn’t been amended since 2002 (the 2040 Land Use Plan was adopted in 2017). 

  • NEW: Site Access Saga: The planning department has published a new director’s determination on how to interpret the complicated, twice-walked-back site access standards that proved so complicated when they went live that they had to be suspended from going into effect by AO 2024-24(AA) last April. Memo 2024-02 clarifies that “The intent of the Pedestrian Frontage Standards is to improve the pedestrian interface with public streets…The requirements of AMC 21.07.060F, Pedestrian Frontage Standards, Tables 21.07-2 and 21.07-3 do not apply to private streets.” If you look at the project page, the original intent of the site access project from three years ago was to fulfill 2040 LUP goals 4-3 and 4-6:

    • 4-3 “Amend Title 21 to allow parking reductions by right for residential uses; offer greater reductions in RFAs and other key development areas” and 

    • 4-6 “Amend Title 21 and other regulations for internal site circulation for vehicles, parking courtyards, and private lanes for compact infill housing.

So the project was supposed to address parking and standards for private streets: at the end of it all the Assembly took care of the parking piece, and the private streets will be exempt (but the standards still added requirements for things like “pedestrian amenities” and landscaping on private property). It would be interesting to see an analysis of how much the entire site access odyssey has cost in terms of staff time, meeting time, printing, and impacts to housing projects. 

  • ONGOING: Provide comments on the AHD housing and Community Development 2024 Action Plan.The Anchorage Health Department has released its draft plan for how it proposes to spend federal Housing and Urban Development (HUD) funds. The plan is open for public comment until August 5th, and there will be a public hearing this Wednesday, July 17th, at 6pm at the Loussac Library's Marston Theater with a remote attendance option available.

  • ONGOING: Anchorage AARP Multi-Generational Housing Design Initiative 2024. Design competition with small stipends available:The Project Team invites local designers and architects to participate in the initiative.” Additional information here.

  • UPCOMING:  Federation of Community Councils annual picnic on July 16, 2024. 5-8pm at Valley of the Moon Park. 

Transportation

  • NEW: AKDOT has released Amendment #1 to its Statewide Transportation Improvement Plan (STIP): changed project lists, bloating budgets, and proposed new public debts to be paid at some indeterminate point in the future. Recall that the original STIP was rejected earlier this year until AKDOT fixed the corrective actions listed by the Federal Highway Administration.  As usual, local AMATS staff have identified a number of oddities, miscalculations, and other errors within the State’s documentation, as outlined in a letter to the Policy Committee for the July 18th meeting.  These include procedural issues, funding errors, incorrect listings, website issues, and perhaps most concerning: AKDOT proposing long term, unsecured debt obligations taken against future funding allocations that are not guaranteed. These obligations are known as “Advance Construction”, a practice which per the FHWA: “allows states to begin a project even in the absence of sufficient Federal-aid obligation authority to cover the Federal share of project costs.” From a report from another state DOT: 

As noted previously, the primary risk associated with the use of AC is that the United States Congress could fail to authorize sufficient highway program funds to allow for the timely conversion of numerous AC projects to cover the federal share of project expenses.” 

US DOT explains further: 

…FHWA does not view advance construction as an obligation for Federal funds or reimbursement. This means that if planned Federal funds fail to become available, agencies must either use non-Federal funds to complete projects or suspend work on the projects.” 

So, the AMATS policy committee letter points out that this STIP is betting on large amounts of AC funding with no clear information about when it expects to pay it back (a “conversion” from one funding source to another). And the amount of AC funding AKDOT has proposed is more than double what they are using now ($451 million): 

There appears to be over $900M in AC for FY24-27 outlined in the “Compiled STIP Fiscal Constraint” document without the associated ACCs being shown. The AC balance shown in the STIP Amendment #1 narrative for FY24 is $451M with no conversions shown in the Fiscal Constraint document. This means there could be over $1B in AC on the books for Alaska by the end of FY27.” 

Speaking of billions, it’s worth noting that the Seward Highway Widening Project (STIP ID 12641), initially budgeted at about $670 million dollars a year ago, is now budgeted at nearly $1.5 billion dollars. 

Finally: The STIP website appears to have changed several times since we started reviewing it last week; as of this writing it’s not even clear how or where anyone from the public is supposed to comment on the amendment. Ultimately the only people in the state who can control AKDOT are the state senators and representatives; contact yours here and here.

  • NEW: Assembly Transportation Committee meeting on July 17th from 1-3pm at City Hall Downtown. On the agenda: departmental reports, the new People Mover transit center, Downtown Streets Engineering Study update, and committee and legislative budget priorities. 

  • NEW: Biking Success Stories: This month's Food for Thought Assembly worksession features community organizations' work "to add trails and make biking safer and more accessible in Anchorage" on Friday, July 19, 2024 (meeting link).

  • ONGOING: Downtown Protected Bike Lane (PBL) survey: Provide your feedback here (nice installation video on the website). Also, Bike Anchorage is leading weekly Tuesday group rides all summer to take riders on a loop that uses the facility.

  • ONGOING: People Mover service cuts coming in October 2024. Provide feedback here.

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