Anchorage ordinance would raise transit-corridor density target from 8 to 36 homes per acre

The Anchorage Assembly is scheduled to hear testimony Tuesday on an ordinance from Assembly Member Erin Baldwin Day. The measure would raise the housing density target in the city's long-range plans for transit corridors from 8 homes per acre to 36.

The ordinance cites data showing Anchorage needs 11,811 dwelling units by 2035. That total includes 3,096 new units and 8,715 units that need rehabilitation or replacement.

The measure amends the Anchorage 2020 Comprehensive Plan, adopted in 2001, and the Anchorage 2040 Land Use Plan, adopted in 2017. Under the 2020 plan, new housing within a quarter mile of a corridor's main street "should" average 36 or more units per acre. The current text sets that figure at 8. A passage describing a typical corridor puts it at 25.

The 2040 plan changes widen a corridor's reach from a quarter mile to as much as a half mile. They also strike language saying single-family and two-family sections of a corridor may carry less density, and language saying corridors cannot raise density above the plan's underlying designations. Single-family areas, now planned for 3 to 5 homes per acre, could go higher inside the Missing Middle Housing Opportunity overlay, which the ordinance lists as an implementing zone across most land use designations.

The overlay is a separate ordinance Baldwin Day and Assembly Member George Martinez introduced in June. Its continued public hearing is also set for Tuesday. It follows the Transit-Supportive Development Overlay, which the city paused in October 2025. "The updated map better reflects the intent of the ordinance to enable the development of creative multifamily housing that the average resident can afford to build, buy, or rent," Baldwin Day said in a Sept. 23 press release.

The Turnagain Community Council voted 18-9 on Sept. 3 to back amendments excluding R-1 and R-2 neighborhoods from the overlay. Its resolution, signed by President Cathy Gleason, says most of the more than 30,000 property owners inside the overlay are likely unaware of it. The Huffman/O'Malley Community Council, led by President Jason Norris, endorsed the overlay in August, saying it "has been before the public for approximately two years."

The plan changes would take effect immediately upon passage.