Cook Inlet Housing Authority chief backs Anchorage housing code changes his projects use

Mayor Suzanne LaFrance's housing initiative calls for 1,000 homes a year. Anchorage permitted 393 residential units in 2025.

At a town hall last week, city officials said recent code changes and tax abatements have already produced three active developments: Debenham's Raspberry Townhomes, The Nest and Touchmark Senior Living. The municipality says it has permitted more housing in 2026 than in either of the two previous years, though 2025 is the 393-unit figure that comparison rests on. More than 100 residents attended.

Gabriel Layman, president and chief executive of Cook Inlet Housing Authority, credited the administration from the stage.

"We're making progress today because our leaders have established a culture that recognizes housing affordability matters to the people of Anchorage and created an expectation that we will confront barriers and challenges head on," Layman said, according to the city's account of the event.

His organization built The Nest, one of the three projects cited. It is also asking the Assembly to expand the same tools. In a memo for the Assembly's Aug. 28 housing work session, the housing authority recommended making the pause on multifamily design standards permanent, pausing Major Site Plan Reviews, and extending tax abatements in both geography and duration. The design-standard pause now expires Jan. 31, 2028.

Not everyone on the Assembly is sold. In a July discussion of separate abatement ordinances, member Yarrow Silvers warned that nine years of abatements on "what could include $500,000 condos" shift a tax burden "to other taxpayers." Neighborhood commenters have asked for a narrower waiver than the housing authority wants.

By the city's own account, no such voices spoke at the town hall.

The administration has also proposed handing the housing authority a fire-damaged parcel on Teshlar Drive for less than market value, a transfer that would net the city $10,000.

The Assembly holds a public hearing Sept. 15 on the missing middle overlay ordinance.