Chugach Electric asks Anchorage to zone its Third Avenue utility yard heavy industrial

The Anchorage Assembly will take up Chugach Electric's request to rezone part of its North Campus near Third Avenue and Post Road as heavy industrial. The change would also remove a greenway designation from the city's land use map there. The two ordinances are set for introduction Nov. 4, and the public hearing is Dec. 1.

Karlie Lamothe of DOWL, who represented Chugach before the city's Planning and Zoning Commission in August, said the utility isn't proposing any new development. The five parcels, about 9 acres, were first developed for Municipal Light & Power and have been used for electric utility work since the 1960s, she said. Today they hold storage yards for substation and transmission equipment, heavy-vehicle parking, warehouses and offices, according to city planners.

The land is zoned general business, which city code says is mainly for commercial uses. The code calls heavy industrial zoning a reserve for heavy manufacturing, warehousing and major freight terminals, along with waste and salvage.

The greenway marking comes from the city's 2040 Land Use Plan, adopted in 2017. The plan labels a small section on the southwestern side of the parcels "Greenway-Supported Development." That means new development there should include open space, creek corridors and walking routes.

Lamothe said the marking was drawn as a buffer park in case a Seward-to-Glenn highway connection came through. A 2025 draft study favors routes that avoid the campus, she said.

City planners called the change a "housekeeping matter" that fixes an error on the map. The greenway designation is conceptual and marks a needed link between greenbelts, they wrote, but a route through the site isn't appropriate "given the intended future industrial uses." It could run elsewhere, possibly in the adjacent right-of-way.

The campus's neighbors to the west are the Brother Francis Shelter and the Third Avenue Navigation Center. At the August hearing, a commissioner asked how heavy industrial zoning might affect them. Lamothe said people from both, along with a nearby auction house, were at the May Fairview Community Council meeting where her team presented the change, and they didn't raise concerns.

The Planning Department received no public comments. The commission recommended both ordinances in August, and city planners recommend approval.