09/01/2024

Written By Guest User

Land Use

  • NEW: “An Anchorage program is moving scores of people from shelters and camps into housing” In the ADN: 

“A new Anchorage housing program moved 150 people into apartments from the city’s winter homeless shelters between December and May. Over the last several weeks, it’s moved another 27 people into housing — this time, directly from homeless encampments into apartments — bringing the total housed to 177.” 

Interesting note on transportation: “Kohler has been sober for about a year, is now paying part of her rent, and she’s saving for a vehicle, she said.” First Anchorage hits people with high housing costs, then it follows up with high transportation costs. This is a common problem across the country, noted in this this 2005 article on economic success: 

“Research suggests that having a car is a worthwhile investment in better outcomes for low-income families. Recent reports quantify the additional money required to own and operate personal vehicles, as compared to the lower cost of traveling on public transit” 

and this 2019 article on the “poverty of the carless”: 

“Over time, as driving becomes more necessary, anyone who can acquire a vehicle will, even if doing so is financially burdensome”. 

To change this calculus, Anchorage would likely need a built environment (and public transit system) where other modes of travel were significantly more convenient.

  • NEW: Obstacles to new housing: zoning rules about building aesthetics. Case 2024-104 is an application for Alternative Equivalent Compliance asking for another way to meet the 21.08.090 Building Design Standards in Girdwood’s zoning code. From the application letter: 

“On August 27th I was contacted via phone by a Anchorage Municipal representative that informed me there were multiple complaints filed about ongoing construction projects in Girdwood. Some of the complaints he stated were absolutely meritless, but one he referenced to me was regarding an obscure zoning regulation that may apply to a project we are going to begin the framing scope of work on starting Tuesday September 3rd…The primary objective of this project is to provide 3 long term rental units in Girdwood.” 

Some of the pages from the application appear to be missing from the scan provided online, so it’s difficult to get a full picture of the actual complaint. But likely it could be any number of things, as this Sightline Institute article pointed out in 2022: : 

“Under the multifamily building section of the zoning code, triplex projects have to pave over enough land for a vehicle to make a three-point turn, unless granted an exemption by the city traffic engineer. They are also subject to a raft of landscaping, lighting, drainage, and architectural requirements.” 

Some recent reforms have addressed many of these issues, but this case suggests the code might still need more work. 

  • NEW: Site Plan Review for light manufacturing in B-3. Case 2024-0103 is a site plan review for a small-scale herbal supplement producer in a B-3 zone. The thing that caught our eye was how the application has a section calling out “parking requirements”. Anchorage’s Title 21 no longer mandates parking–was including this a leftover habit of whoever submitted the application, or are MOA planners still pressuring people to always be talking about storing vehicles? The site plan shows plenty of parking (plus the new business will be located in one of the 2040 Land Use Plan's famously successful pedestrian-friendly "town centers").  

  • INTRODUCED LAST WEEK: Simplifying complicated zoning procedures: AO 2024-83, an ordinance that would simplify the process for creating a planned unit development (PUD), was introduced at the August 27th 2024 Assembly meeting. A PUD is a special type of conditional use in which a development can get access to more flexible design and dimensional standards in exchange for conditions imposed by the Planning Department or Planning & Zoning Commission. From Assembly Memo 681-2024: 

“This provision of code has historically been under utilized, despite its stated intent to ‘allow flexibility for residential development in the zoning ordinance and to achieve the creation of a more desirable environment than would be possible through a strict application of the zoning ordinance.’ The proposed ordinance seeks to make this provision a more viable tool for development by reducing the approval criteria, and loosening the standards imposed on a potential PUD.” 

This seems to be a common sense reform, as any PUD application process already requires extensive review by the City and then Planning & Zoning Commission; this doesn’t appear to change the fundamentals of that procedure.

“If an Anchorage sales tax were to be put in place, newly-released data shows beyond property tax relief, most residents want to see the money spent on quality-of-life improvements, such as adding new parks and trails...Under AEDC’s proposed 3% sales tax idea — which UAA’s Center for Economic Development has estimated could generate $180 million a year — the city would use two-thirds of the money to lower property taxes, while one-third would go for capital improvement projects suggested by the public.”

It seems like a lot of the publicity for this potential tax has been focused on 1/3rd that would go to city projects rather than the 2/3rds that would go to property tax relief.

  • NEW: “Why Interest Rate Cuts Won’t Fix a Global Housing Affordability Crisis: Central bankers are lowering borrowing costs, but that won’t be a cure-all for a widespread lack of affordable housing.” Anchorage mentioned in the New York Times:

“From Anchorage to Amsterdam, many developed and even emerging economies are confronting a similar problem: Housing supply is failing to meet demand, helping to push home prices to levels that are out of reach even for middle-income families…We just haven’t built enough housing since 2009,” said Ms. Gallagher, who researches her local housing market as part of her job.””

Caption under the picture of the Anchorage resident quoted in the article: “She was edged out of the housing market in the neighborhood she grew up in…”

  • ONGOING: “Anchorage launches program to tear down abandoned houses” In the ADN: 

“The Development Services department, working with other city entities, plans to tear down 10 houses under the program, said Kenny Friendly, a spokesperson for Public Works. The department is using $500,000 in pandemic funding from the 2021 American Rescue Plan, he said…Friendly said the demolitions can cost $20,000 to $50,000. The removal of hazardous materials can increase costs.  The property owners benefit, he said. They often live out-of-state, but still pay taxes on the property…They’re left with a cleared lot that they can sell, with utilities already in place for development, he said. Some of the property owners under the program are selling their cleared lots to the city, he said”

This looks like a substantial benefit to private property owners, but at the same time, some research shows that “demolishing vacant houses can have positive effect on neighbor maintenance”.

  • NEW: University Area Community Council Meeting on September 4th, 2024. From the agenda:

    • An interesting battle over removing obstructions in a platted public walkway: resolution. 

    • Agenda commentary: “A very bizarre New Site Access Design and an Urban Neighborhood Standards Overlay Map has been published, more or less having the opposite effect of economical housing…if zoning districts are going away, why approve an overlay district? Is this preparation for no more zoning districts??? POSTPONED TO NOVEMBER 2025…have not heard much about this…”

  • NEW: “In Valdez, the city hopes it’s found a solution to the affordable housing crisis” From Alaska Public Media: 

“But there’s reason to believe that the tide may be turning. The city has taken a wide range of steps aimed at making it easier for people to build new homes and upgrade existing stock. One big part of that was a rewrite of the city’s zoning codes. “Essentially what we did was just make sure that more types of housing were allowed in more places,” said Huber, the community development director. The city expanded single-family zones to allow manufactured homes and duplexes without special permits and expanded mixed-use zoning for housing in commercial areas.”

Here in Anchorage, HUD-code manufactured homes are still illegal everywhere except for in mobile home parks (permitted through a conditional use) or lots zoned R-5. 

  • NEW: Community and Economic Development Committee meeting on September 5, 2024. On the agenda: AO-2024-75(S), which would “Include the Muldoon special study area in the tax incentives for housing program and to increase the duration of the tax abatement for Downtown Anchorage.”


Transportation

  • NEW: “State fails to qualify for tens of millions in federal highway funds. From Dermot Cole:  “The mess created by problems with the Statewide Transportation Improvement Plan has had its first clear financial consequence—the state stands to lose tens of millions in federal funds because it didn’t have the paperwork in order for projects to spend it on.” These and other issues with the STIP, slipping maintenance and operations, plus an obstinate focus on large highway projects seem to indicate some deep institutional or leadership issues at AKDOT.

  • NEW: AMATS Technical Advisory Committee Meeting September 5, 2024. Agenda. Teams link. Interesting agenda items:

    • AMATS Boundary Discussion. Memo: “DOT&PF has concerns that planned projects along the Seward Highway, that will be included in the new AMATS boundary, may be impacted by becoming part of the AMATS process.”  To interpret this: The whole purpose of Metropolitan Planning Organizations (MPOs) like AMATS, FAST, and MVP, is to ensure that projects within the boundary align with local goals and priorities. Theoretically, DOTs are supposed to work according to the priorities of the MPOs–that they don’t like the AMATS process hints at a deeper issue with outside accountability. 

    • Highway Safety Improvement Program funding: Nice google maps examples in the Memo.

    • STIP Amendment #1 Comments. Letter from AKDOT to AMATS, and then the AMATS response. Considering AKDOT’s repeated stumbling and incompetence this year, the complaints in their letter seem somewhat insubstantial. 

    • Fish passage project: memo


Events





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