Cook Inlet Housing asks Anchorage to lift 2001 rules on its Creekside land

Cook Inlet Housing Authority has asked Anchorage to drop special rules that have governed what can be built on 9.46 acres at Muldoon and DeBarr roads since 2001, a request the city's Planning and Zoning Commission will take up Dec. 7.

The land is part of Creekside Town Center, at the southwest corner of the intersection, where the authority says it has built more than 250 units of housing and commercial space over 15 years. One tract is still vacant, and the authority is "exploring options for development there," Vice President Tyler Robinson wrote in its application.

The four parcels are zoned for general business with special limits set by a 2001 ordinance. As introduced, that ordinance barred a long list of businesses there, including pawn shops, car lots, bingo halls, stand-alone gun shops and storage yards. It called for a 100-foot buffer along Chester Creek and for buildings that face the street and are arranged as a campus, with shared parking and a public gathering space at the center.

Lifting the limits would leave the land under the city's standard general business zoning.

"The SL, instituted more than two decades ago, imposes prescriptive design requirements and time-consuming entitlement processes that limit development opportunities," Robinson wrote, referring to the special limitations. Removing them "chiefly targets burdensome design standards and process requirements that are not currently in place for similar developments elsewhere," he wrote, and city code "has numerous existing requirements to ensure the health and safety of current and future residents."

In June, the Assembly changed the city's land use plan to designate the land as Town Center, which general business zoning supports, the authority wrote.

Cook Inlet Housing has been pressing the city to ease design rules more broadly. In August, it asked the Assembly to make permanent a pause on design standards for apartment and townhouse projects, Alaska News reported Aug. 29.

The commission will make a recommendation, and the Assembly decides. To approve, the Assembly must find the change consistent with the city's comprehensive plan, not an objective risk to health or safety and not in conflict with other laws. City planners' recommendation is due the Friday before the hearing.