Planning and Zoning Commission - September 8, 2025 - 2025-09-08 18:30:00

Sometimes the world moves too quickly, and I know it's not like the Earth is turning slow. I'm already gone, but we both know I can't sleep alone, or at least I won't.

Okay, uh, we're going to call the September 8th meeting of the Planning and Zoning Commission to order. May we please have the roll call? Andres Spinelli. Here. Jared Gardner.

Here. Radhika Krishna. Here. Jim Winchester. Here.

Scott Pullis. Here. Jeff Rahn. Here. Greg Stryke.

Here. Brandy Eber is excused. You have a quorum. Thank you.

First item on the agenda, the minutes. Is there a motion to approve the minutes from Monday, July 14th, August 4th, and August 11th.

Moved by Commissioner Aron, seconded by Commissioner Pulis. Any corrections or objections to the minutes?

Hearing and seeing none, minutes are approved. Are there any disclosures?

Uh, Commissioner Krishna. Yes, I have two items to disclose. Disclose. The first is that I was absent for the meeting of August 11th, and so I will be abstaining from resolutions 21 through 24. Um, the second is that in the case of 2025-0102, this property is located within the Downtown Improvement District, which my organization manages.

And I have heard a presentation of theirs at the Downtown Community Council. I did not vote, and I don't believe that there's any reason why I, um, have a conflict in participating in this case.

I agree that I don't see any conflict, and unless anyone from the Commission objects, will direct you to participate.

Any other disclosures?

Hearing none, we will move on. Is there a motion to approve the consent agenda?

Uh, that's moved by Commissioner Winchester, seconded by Commissioner Pullis. Anyone wishing to pull any items for discussion?

Seeing none, are there any objections?

Hearing none, the consent agenda is approved.

Um, now we would like to have a motion to reorder the agenda to hear items E1 and E2 last item G4 first and combine items G2 and G3.

Motion is made by Commissioner Rahn, seconded by Commissioner Krishna. Any objection or discussion on the motion?

Hearing and seeing none, motion passes. I will now read the procedure by which the public may speak to the Commission. After staff presentation is completed on public hearing items, the Chair will ask for public testimony on the issue. Persons who wish to testify will follow the time limits established in the Commission Rules of Procedure. Petitioners, including his or her representatives, will receive 10 minutes.

Part of this time may be reserved for rebuttal. Representatives of groups, community councils, PTAs, etc., will receive 5 minutes. Individuals will receive 3 minutes. When your testimony is complete, you may be asked questions by the Commission. You may only testify once on any issue unless questioned by the Commission.

Any party of interest wishing to appeal shall first file with the Planning Director within 7 days of the Commission's decision made on record a written notice of intent to appeal in accordance with AMC 2103-050(a)(4)(a).

Commission recommendations to the Anchorage Assembly are not appealable. Following approval of written findings of fact and decision, any party of interest may within 20 days file an appeal by filling— filing a notice of appeal and paying the appeal fee and deposit in accordance with Section 21-03-050. The notice of appeal must be filed with the Planning Director on a form prescribed by the municipality. If the appellant is not the applicant, the appellant's notice of appeal shall include proof of service on the applicant.

Moving on to staff presentation in case 2025-0102. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Amend Health Company, AK LLC, is seeking a conditional use permit for a new large rehabilitative care facility to be located at the southeast corner of East 5th Avenue and Gamble Street. The subject property is currently the Ikano Inn Hotel and Dami Japanese Restaurant located on Lot 1A and a surface parking lot on Lot 6B.

The property is currently zoned B-2C, Central Business District Periphery. A large rehabilitative care facility is a permitted use through the acquisition of a conditional use permit. AMC 2111 050 Use Regulations, Table 21.11-2. This CUP application is proposing a repurpose of an existing low-rise, 1-4 level hotel/motel into a large rehabilitative care facility. The purpose of this project is to help revitalize an existing underutilized structure in downtown Anchorage.

A pre-application conference with reviewing agencies was held on May 8th, 2025, in accordance with AMC 21 AMC 21080(C)(2). The petitioner advertised and held a community meeting on June 26th, 2025, in accordance with AMC 21080(C)(3). This was held in place of a meeting with the Downtown and Fairview Community Councils because they do not hold meetings in June. The petitioner did meet with Midtown, Downtown, and Fairview Community Councils on July 9th and July 10th of 2025. Attachment to application starting on page 10 of the staff report includes the petitioner's affidavit of posting, community meeting summary, and application submittal to the Planning Department.

The Planning Department mailed 129 public hearing notices on August 12th, 2025. As of this writing, the Planning Department has received no public comments. The Downtown or Fairview Community Councils did not provide comments. Other agency comments: Municipal reviewing agencies had no objection to the conditional use for a large rehabilitative care facility. The State of Alaska Department of Transportation and Public Facilities provided comments regarding encroachments into Gamble Street, which have been incorporated into the recommended conditions of approval for the conditional use.

Attachment 3, comments, starting on page 67 of the staff report, include all comments received by the Planning Department in their original format. The Planning and Zoning Commission may approve a conditional use application if, in the judgment of the commission, all 9 criteria have been met in all material matters. Planning staff.

Staff has found that all 9 approval criteria for conditional use have been met, and all 4 use-specific standards either do not apply or have been met for a large rehabilitative care facility. Therefore, staff recommends approval of this conditional use for a large rehabilitative care facility, subject to conditions 1, 2, and 3 found on page 6 of the staff report. I can answer any questions that the Commission may have, and the petitioner's representative is in attendance.

Any questions for staff?

Commissioner Rahn.

Thank you. Through the Chair, could staff please provide a little more context about the nature of the encroachment, understanding it sounds like a DOT issue, but if staff could provide some more background or information, that would be helpful. Through the Chair, Mr. Rahn, if you turn to page 7. Page 68 of your packet— sorry, it's on 71— 69, the second page.

It appears that there's some unpermitted encroachments. It doesn't— some bollards and some overhang of the existing structure into Gamble Street.

And then DOT is working on a the highway to highway or HSIP Gamble Street utility pole removal. So there's some encroachments there that they'll be working with the property owner on doing.

Anything else? Thank you.

Commissioner Polis. I had one just You know, we had a lot of reading for tonight's staff packet, and, um, I got a little confused on page 4, um, requirement IV there at the top. You know, it's 2, 3, and 4. Um, it says if the elements of the facility that are not directly related to residential uses, such as administrative offices, classrooms, blah blah blah, then the facility shall require conditional use approval. And then it says plans are not provided showing this stuff.

If this stuff exceeds 20% of the total gross floor area, this conditional use will approve this requirement. It's basically saying they gave us nothing, but if we approve this, would they get anything approved? Through the chair, Commissioner Paulus, that's correct. So if, if they had provided us plans and had this been in a residential area or some other application and it was more than 20%, then they would have— that didn't require conditional use, they'd have to go for a conditional use. But since they're going for a conditional use It just meets the criteria.

Okay. Hopefully I didn't confuse you too much with that. It's still a little weird, but yeah. It is. It is a very— it's a very weird caveat that yes.

Okay. Agreed.

Okay. If there's no further questions for staff, we will ask the petitioner for their presentation.

All right, good evening, Chairman, board. My name is Craig Bennett, it's B-E-N-N-E-T-T, with S4 Group. Staff gave a great, um, overview, or did the overview very well, and I agree with Commissioner Pluce. It is kind of confusing on how code works with the CUP and the zoning, but a manned health company is seeking a CUP for a large habilitative care facility. I'll be brief.

There should be a smooth, uncomplicated case. Planning and all the municipal reviewing agencies have no objection to this CUP. There are no public comments. Staff has agreed that all the approval criteria are met, and we agree with the department recommendations, and staff recommends approval of this case. And I can answer any questions now or after any public comment.

Question coming from Commissioner Krishna. Sure, I'd be curious about Um, the— not specifically the DOT, um, right-of-way encroachments. I understand they're redoing the electrical poles and lighting on Gamble. I'm not sure if it includes a full sidewalk reconstruction, but, um, if you have any, any additional information there. But then I'm also curious about how big the parking lot is and if the driveway is going to go directly onto Gamble.

Yeah, through the chair, I haven't seen DOT's plans. I know their encroachments The main encroachment they were talking about is an awning or two awnings, and those are, I believe, going away, and that's part of the permit process. And then for the parking, there's no visitor parking. This is only for staff, so the parking has already been all resolved with traffic saying, okay, this is— there's no visitor allowed here, it's just purely for staff. Did that answer it?

Yes, there was a note also on page 69 about driveway permits for access onto Gamble Street, but you intend to access off the alley, or—. Yeah, and that will also be part of the permit process moving forward, getting the final approval from traffic once we have the approved CUP.

See no further questions. You have I'm good. You have at least 8 minutes for rebuttal. Thank you.

Um, okay, anyone from the public wishing to testify on this matter?

Going once, twice.

Public hearing is now— well, wait, would you like to use your rebuttal time? I just want to say, um, Planning supports this, and I ask you to vote in favor. Thank you.

All right, now we will close the public hearing.

What is the will of the body?

Motion by Commissioner Krishna. Would you like to state your motion? Yes, I move in case 2025-0102 to approve a conditional use for a large rehabilitative care facility subject to conditions 1 through 3 as shown on page 6 of the staff report. Thank you. That's seconded by Commissioner Winchester.

Commissioner Krishna, would you like to speak to your motion? Sure. And I, I think I'd like to emphasize that this is a big facility that will have tens and tens, I think close to 100 beds when fully operational, and goes a long way towards meeting a really, really, really important community need. That I'm sure we're all aware of. I think that, uh, for those of you who are familiar with the history of social service facilities, um, which I, I know this one isn't quite that within downtown and Fairview, I think you'll know that they can be controversial because they're very, very frequent in those areas.

I, I think having, um, seen a tiny bit of the public process, I will say that The lack of objection and comments from both neighbors and from the Community Council is a sign that this operator has really developed and communicated their plans to make sure that this has very minimal impacts from a, you know, pedestrian frontage and street perspective, but also that this goes a big way towards providing services to individuals experiencing homelessness or incarceration or behavioral health challenges, which we need. So, uh, yes, I think I'll just say for those reasons, I, I think this is a very important facility, um, to have in our community, and I intend to support this application.

Anybody else wishing to speak to the motion?

Commissioner Pullis. Yeah, I intend to support the motion. I'll just add a couple more findings. Um, there was no public or agency opposition. The conditional use criteria is met as noted by the department review, and this project reuses existing infrastructure in a positive manner for the municipality.

So anybody else?

Hearing, seeing none, we'll call for the vote.

Mr. Strike, how do you vote? Yes. Thank you.

The motion passes.

Moving on to case 2025-0087.

7. May we please have the staff presentation? Thank you, Mr. Chair. The property owner is requesting— sorry, sorry, jump in again for the next case.

Um, so this is a design study report abbreviated as a DSR for the Seward Highway milepost 98.5 to 118, uh, also called the Safer Seward Highway Project. This segment of the Seward Highway is fully within the municipality. Uh, there is a portion from milepost 112 to 118 that is within the Anchorage Metropolitan Area Transportation Solutions, or AMATS, boundary. Uh, the Department of Transportation and Public Facilities, or DOT, maintains the Seward Highway. There are 13 topic areas listed in Title 21 for the Commission to be included, but not limited to, in your deliberations tonight.

Those topic areas are existing conditions, design standards, alternatives, compliance with Title 21, long-term and short-term impacts for land use and right-of-way acquisition, utility and infrastructure impacts, street illumination, maintenance, environmental constraints, non-motorized access, public involvement, and cost. Uh, the planning department found the selected alternative in the DSR, so that's the 4-lane divided highway concept, is inconsistent with the following municipal plans. The Long Range Transportation Plan adopted in 2025. Anchorage 2020 Anchorage Bowl Comprehensive Plan adopted in 2001. The Anchorage 2040 Land Use Plan adopted in 2017.

And the 2040 Metropolitan Transportation Plan, or MTP, for the Anchorage Bowl and Chugiak/Eagle River adopted 2020.

Uh, public comments received by the planning department were in opposition to approval of the DSR. Those comments included submittals from the Rabbit Creek Community Council and Bike Anchorage. Reviewing agencies, uh, including, uh, including the Long Range Planning Division and AMET submitted comments with concerns for project costs and funding allocation impacts, impacts on staffing and maintenance, and concerns about the design of the preferred alternative that was presented. There is a supplementary packet 1 that the commission received tonight, uh, that does show, um, comments that were mostly written, uh, in support of the RISE grant application for the project. Uh, so those included Turnagain Arm Community Council, uh, State of Alaska entities, Gridwood Fire and Rescue, APD, City of Seward, Anchorage Park Foundation, the Alaska Trucking Association.

So again, those are in supplementary packet 1 and were received by the department after the staff report was finalized. And they— most of them didn't, didn't seem to fully look to a specific alternative, but they were in support of the RAYS grant application that that would make improvements to this stretch of the Seward Highway. Based on the 13 topic areas and information in the DSR, the Planning Department is recommending that the Commission vote to return the application to the project management team for additional work to address the topic areas. I'll just note that there is no, like, deny option, because some cases you see where you can, like, approve or deny. That's the option to, in code, given to not approve it.

There's not, the department found there's not enough evidence in the DSR to support the 4-lane divided highway concept for the Seaford-Seward Highway project. I'll throw it now to Daniel McKenna Foster with the Long Range Planning Division. He's just going to speak to some some of the comments that were submitted for this case from Long Range Planning.

Thank you, Elizabeth. Daniel McKenna Foster, Long Range Planning. Yeah, our— so our comments are in the comments packet. They're on page 18 of 39. I'll go through some of them quickly.

We identified 14 things that we, we think merit consideration. And again, just thinking about the intent of the CSS process is to ensure that projects are context-sensitive and appropriate for their environs. And, and as presented we, we didn't see that this proposal necessarily met that. One is just making sure that the project design was not predetermined before it went through the standardized federal process, which is a rule. Another piece that this— it, it looks like based on the project materials that this road project would have a significant impact on the area, including taking a lot of land from both the cliffside and the waterside.

That could have serious adverse impacts to that area to the byway designation. You know, part of that— that's one of Alaska's great scenic byways, and part of the byway is that it kind of is curvilinear and it has these views. And so it seems like some of these designs could adversely impact that. Another piece is the cost. This was originally scheduled to cost around $600 million, and now it seems to be around $1.5 billion.

And then as scheduled, this would require either 24 to 25 years of $65 to $75 million per year, or 10 to 12 years with about $150 million per year. So just looking at that in the context of Anchorage and all the other needs we have in Anchorage— again, Anchorage is, you know, the most populous area of the state. We have a lot of traffic issues. We have a lot of traffic fatalities. Last year was the most dangerous year, I believe, for Anchorage.

We had something like 15 pedestrian fatalities. There are a lot of needs on the system. So in a climate of limited financial availability, it, it's worth looking closely at how we allocate funding and whether— where we're putting funding so it benefits the most people in the most way. Maintenance, of course, is always a discussion. So we're always asking about— because we always hear from people, well, how are you going to maintain it?

Is the funding there to pay for the long-term maintenance? We would love to see a little bit more detail about that because, as we've seen, it's harder to fill positions, it's hard to get people maintaining the road. So every time you build new facilities or expand new facilities, you're creating a larger maintenance obligation. And again, that, that might be provided for somewhere, but it just seems like something that would be useful to be, uh, to include in here. Um, another thing too is the, the rationale of this project is about safety, um, and so it seems to be expanding capacity in, in order to address that safety issue.

But if you look at the numbers in the report, most of the crashes happen in the winter. I think it's in December or January when the capacity is actually at the greatest. So there seems to be a disconnect there between The times when the road has the fewest people on it seems to be when the time the road is most dangerous. And that gets into the question of speed, right? As we've seen that speed kills, speed is a major factor in deaths and injury and safety.

And so increasing speed or reducing obstacles to speed, such as curves or things that slow people down, might have the opposite impact on safety. There's some other issues with the design. The multi-use path seems to be in the clear zone. We've heard from people that, that You know, that it's kind of contradictory to a safe traveling way for a non-motorized user. Some of the diagrams we would— might need a bit of clarification about scale.

And additionally, one thing about traffic growth, or is this project predicts significant traffic growth over time, but according to the numbers in the report, there's actually not that much traffic there, especially compared to other parts of the system. So this would be a pretty significant investment, over $1 billion, in an area that doesn't have as much traffic as other places in the system with more crashes, more pedestrian fatalities. And also in the research we've done, we found that a lot of times traffic projections do not pan out, and they're actually a little bit bigger than what ends up. And so that ends up with a lot more costs. And again, we're really just focusing on long-term costs here.

Finally, just some talking about speed. Again, focusing on speed is a major factor in crashes and safety, and so any sort of designs that lead to increased speed seem like they might be likely to go in the opposite way of that. I mentioned the byway, and this project was removed by— from the 2023-2026 TIP and 2050 MTP by the AMATS Policy Committee for that section that is within the AMATS boundary. And then finally, the, the Long Range Transportation Plan, which was adopted this year by the Assembly and is the policy guidance for the municipality, really looks at making the most of what we have, fixing the problems on the infrastructure we already have, not expanding unless we really have to kind of being targeted with our investments and thinking about creating a much safer system. And so there are a few pieces that don't quite address that.

So thank you for the time. I'd be glad to answer any questions. Thanks.

Any questions for staff from the Commission?

Commissioner Polis. Did the traffic department have any comments on this? They said they didn't in the back. Did someone help write this long-range transportation? Did they review this?

Through the chair, we, we worked on our comments with a number of our colleagues, some from traffic, some from AMATS. We circulated them around because again, we wanted to make sure that, you know, we weren't missing something. But especially a lot of the stuff on the speed that we wouldn't have known about, or the insight that looking at most of the crashes seem to be happening in the winter when the traffic counts are actually the lowest. That's another thing that we wouldn't have picked out without the help of our colleagues.

And just the only other thing I'll add is the traffic engineering comment just kind of kicked the can forward, said that they don't have comment at this stage of the project.

Any other questions?

Hearing, seeing none, we will ask for the petitioner's presentation.

Thank you. My name is Chris Hughes. Chras Hughez. I'm here with my project team. I would like to— can I introduce myself first before I start?

Sorry. I just want to introduce my project team. I've got Edith McKee here as well as— as well as Paul Grace Pantalone. I'd like to present for 7 minutes, reserving 3 minutes for rebuttal.

Ready when you are. Thank you.

As the staff mentioned, we're here to look at the Seward Highway starting at milepost 98. That's down there in Bird Flats, traveling all the way north to milepost 118. That's north of Potter Marsh at Rabbit Creek Road. This is a 20-mile corridor where we're looking at ways to improve it. It's been a safety corridor since— designated safety corridor since 2006.

You can see the red lines on the map showcase a lot of the crash density areas, and they occur throughout the corridor. As mentioned, we've also noticed crashes that happen in the wintertime quite a bit. And also in July is a pretty high month as well. Where we are in the process, we started the NEPA process for FHWA funding on this project almost 3 years ago now. We started off with a bunch of ideas.

We slowly filtered them down, looking at different things from purpose and need, how they address that. To, to, uh, different impacts. And we finally are where we're at today, where we're looking at both a build and a non-build alternative. Uh, after this point, we will be in design phases, so there's a lot to come after we get through this environmental document. Where we are today, we're going through the CSS process.

Uh, we finished the first part, the pre-application. We've provided the design study report. That's where we are tonight. Um, once again, after this, we'll take the recommendations, uh, from the commission and move forward. As we do this project through different segments— again, it's a 20-mile corridor, it would be built in segments— each one of those segments will come back to the commission, uh, to try to address concerns in the third phase of the CSS process.

Uh, public engagement on this project has been extremely significant. My 20 years in Anchorage, uh, this is the most public involvement I've ever seen on a project. Tons of stuff from table tents to, you know, listening posts throughout the corridor. And in your packet also was provided a public opinion survey done by Dittman Research. That's a third-party company who made telephone calls just to try to access people that don't normally come to public meetings.

Lastly, on that, on that page is a stakeholder working group. We put this together at the very early stages of the project. We met every single month with this group, and we even took some time, some of those meetings, and instead of meeting as a group, we just met one-on-one with every different agency or, or people you see here strictly so we could hear their concerns one-on-one for the project team. This included both agencies and groups, but then it also included members of the public. Turnigant Arm Community Council, Rabbit Creek Community Council, Bike Anchorage, as you heard them, they were all part of this group.

We started meeting probably a year and a half ago with this group and started in the beginning developing the purpose and need. So the purpose and need that we created, really what the problem is we're trying to solve, was really to reduce crash rates and crash severity. As I mentioned, it's been a safety corridor since 2006. This project started as Windy Corner and was worked on for a long time. And to this day, nothing has been built out there.

Nothing has been done to improve safety. We recognized that all the conditions that were out there were really true, not just at the Windy Corner section, but really throughout this entire 20-mile segment. And that's where this project got reworked into Safer Seward Highway. Second, improve mobility and reliability. This is really focused on people on the Kenai trying to get to Anchorage and having a reliable source to do that.

Mobility was really focused on the pathway. We have a 20-mile pathway for the entire segment. And lastly, safely accommodate mixed use of the corridor. There's a lot of people traveling through there that are trying to see Chugach State Park, and then there's a lot of people that are trying to travel through. Um, we looked at a lot of different alternatives, different ways to do the alternatives.

Some of the things we noticed, we really got to the point where we looked a lot at a 3-lane, which is an alternate passing solution, and then a lot of the 4-lane alternative. As you can see, future crash rates are reduced significantly under the 4-lane alternative. From a mobility standpoint, really that 3-lane has limited passing opportunities. And what we find in that scenario is that people speed extremely fast to try to finish a maneuver at the end of a, at the end of a passing zone. And that leads to some of the safety concerns.

That goes away with the 4-lane. As far as mixed uses in the summertime when we have tourism and the people who aren't as used to the corridor and they're taking in the scenic views and they want to get to a trailhead, They're not intermixing with traffic that's trying to get down to the Kenai to go dip netting or something. So it really kind of facilitates that. There's a couple other considerations I want to touch on that aren't really top of mind sometimes when you look at these alternatives. But from an emergency response standpoint, that 4-lane extremely helps.

We heard a lot from EMS and GRR Wood in Anchorage about their ability to access a crash site. That really lends to the reliability piece where we can maintain this road open. You know, as we talked to the mayor of Kenai, one of the things he said was that, uh, without this road, they would be Kodiak. This is their way to get to medical facilities or get to airports. So the importance of reliability on this road, because there's no other options, I think becomes more paramount.

Again, driver confusion when markings aren't as available, aren't as visible. And then the other thing is on maintenance. Maintenance comes up a lot, and You know, in the sense of a— on a 3-lane alternate passing solution, especially when you divide the highway to try to address the head-on collisions, in that 1-lane section, if you're doing any kind of maintenance, if you're fixing a barrier or a guardrail or repainting, that kind of thing, you're essentially closing that lane of traffic. You almost have a moving closure. And that again lends to the reliability of the facility for everybody.

Let's see. And so what you'll see is that our proposed action, or through the environmental process, we're developing what is a proposed action to try to address the problems, the purpose and need. And then we're also looking at that compared to a no-action alternative. So again, that, that proposed action right now, 4-lane divided, the dividedness is to try to address the head-on concerns. And then the separated pathway, currently bikes and ped users are using the shoulder of the roadway.

And so this separated facility provides a separated 10-foot paved pathway for the entire length connecting to the current bird-to-gird pathway that everybody is familiar with.

These are a couple renderings here at the end just to kind of show what they look like. We've used these in public meetings. We have public meetings, we always have them in Anchorage, we have them in Indian, and we have them in Girdwood. On the bottom is Potter Marsh, what it is today on the right, and on the left, what it would be in the future. And then above, you can see some of the alternatives with pathway and frontage roads in the Byrd area.

And that's it. Thank you.

Question from Commissioner Krishna. Yes. Just for a little bit of context, could you share with us the the average amount or the amount of FHWA funding that the Anchorage Bowl has received for the last couple of years?

Through the chair, Commissioner, I don't have in front of me what the Anchorage Bowl has received in funding. The focus of this project was to develop alternatives and solutions that meet the concerns within this corridor and look at this project individually. So I don't have the numbers of what Anchorage has received in funding.

I see no further— oh, Commissioner Pullis. Um, my first question is, I don't know if you know the answer to this, it might be a staff question. What impact does the project being pulled from the TIP have on this situation? I, I might be able to answer that, uh, through the chair.

Without it being in the TIP and not supported, anything that is in the STIP has to be within the TIP for it to be funded.

[SPEAKING SPANISH] So this project was started as an environmental document from FHWA from milepost 98 to 118. As we work through that process and it got removed from the TIP and removed from the LRTP, the DOT can no longer fund 98 to 118 because it's not supported in the local documents. So what DOT did is they went back to FHWA and they said, we still have a safety concern in this area. We still want to move forward. It's a 20-mile corridor.

We're not just looking at one section. And so the project has been reformatted into the STIP from 98 to 112. And the focus is we have funding and we have backing to start to continue the project forward, at least from a funding standpoint. And if you notice, those are Phase 2 funds to get to design in the STIP. So that's to focus on that part of the corridor.

But the original approval for this project from FHWA was for a project from 98 to 118. So we're continuing the effort to finish this document. I like to say this is real similar to the Seward Highway in town, where there was an environmental document from the Seward Highway from Tudor to Rabbit Creek. But that's been built over phases through time. So a lot of times there's these corridor-long EAs, but then you build those things in segments through time.

So right now what DOT is doing is they're saying, we still have a concern here, we still want to build improvements to this corridor, what can we do to continue to move this forward? And if I can add one more thing, it's always been a concern to try to do something within this corridor even as soon as we can, even without waiting for this document. To that end, we've had what we've called Safety Express projects. There was one installed this last summer where we put out a bunch of signage, larger signs, signs at pullouts, because we had heard from Girdwood EMS that people were pulling over at those pullouts, calling for help, and using mileposts from the railroad rather than mileposts from the road. So if you drive there today, you'll see a bunch of milepost signs to try to give people a better way to call in where their location is.

So that's one example of a Safety Express project. We're looking at another one to put a left turn lane in at McHugh Creek. Right now, that's just finished design. We're looking at another one to do some more of that rockfall protection that's out there. So it's kind of been an effort to say, what can we do today to improve safety, improve safety?

And that's a little bit behind the logic of saying let's find a way to continue to move this project forward even though it's not in the TIP and the STIP. Let's control what we can and continue to address some of the safety concerns. Okay. Can I ask one more question?

Um, you can say no to this question. Do you have any responses to the Long Range Planning document with their comments that they've released? If you don't have them prepared, that's fine. I'm just I'm thinking that needs to be discussed. Yeah, I mean, there was a couple that I wrote down that I might mention real fast.

You know, in the concerns about appropriate for the context, I think one of the things that was taken into account a lot with this project was access to Chugach State Park. Certainly going through all the permitting needs for wetland fill and for beluga critical habitat, We've done all those consultations within that component of the context. But this project is within a really tight corridor of Chugach State Park. It's actually both on the mountainside and on the waterside. So appropriate for the context, we've really looked at ways to access Chugach State Park better.

For instance, one component is a grade-separated walkway at Beluga Point. Right now there's a lot of pedestrians that cross the railroad at grade there. There's been people that have been impacted by trains, unfortunately, and so to have a safe way for them to access that side of the park, just one example. So a large part of the project has been, you know, that plus the pathway, a large part has been figuring out how do we access the area that we're in. I hear straighten a lot, straighten the roadway.

There is some flattening of curves, but I think that there's a big distinction there. The intent of this project isn't to come in and just straighten it to allow speeds to increase. There's been a lot of interest lately in how you design roadways from a safety standpoint, from a— from a— I can't think of the term, but where you're slowing cars down with your design, right? And so we've really looked at designing these curves to match the speed limit. Today out there, there are curves that are designed at 80 miles an hour, maybe even 90 miles an hour.

There are some that are designed at 50 miles an hour. We've really looked at maintaining the speed limits that is out there and then looked at having the curves that we create in the end maintain that 55-mile-an-hour speed. So it tends to allow the driver to try to drive the speed limit more than have an 80-mile-an-hour curve where you're comfortable going 80 miles an hour. So those are some things that we're trying to do to try to maintain the speeds as best we can, at least through the design. Um, you know, the, the long-term cost, I know that comes up a lot.

I'm definitely aware of that, and that's really the reason why, uh, this would be built in segments. It just— there's no other way to do it and try to balance all the needs of the state that are going on. Um, uh, and then, you know, the, the idea of fixing what we have, um, that context within the planning documents Since this has been a safety corridor since 2006, there's been a bunch of projects. There's actually been over $100 million spent on small spot improvements within this corridor. That includes centerline rumble strips, that includes rockfall protection, that includes slow vehicle turnouts.

Within that $100 million that's been spent to date, there's still not the level of reduced crashes, reduced severe and fatalities that we're seeing to remove this as a safety corridor designation. So it's kind of come to the spot where there's been almost 20 years of time spent trying to improve the existing infrastructure, and without a large project, we're really not going to see those improvements from a safety standpoint. So yeah, do you want to add? Sorry, um, we got a question from Commissioner Gardner. I think you exhausted Commissioner Pullis's question, so we're We're good there, but we'll see what Commissioner Gardner wants to hear.

Oh.

Sure. Thanks. I was curious, I guess, you mentioned at the start of your presentation kind of the robust public process. And I'm relatively new to this project. I don't, you know, I haven't been paying attention to it throughout.

And coming at it relatively cold, I guess, and I'm sure you're familiar with the packet that we received, there's a lot of concerns that are raised in the comments. Included in this packet, and I'm wondering if you can speak to a little more detail about the process and ways in which— I mean, I'm assuming these types of concerns, this isn't the first time you're hearing them, and ways in which the concerns, you know, that we're seeing here in the packet maybe have informed the process as you've gone through it and changes that may have been made to implement or address those types of concerns.

Um, I guess from the public involvement standpoint, you know, when we, uh, when we started out and we had this stakeholder working group, um, what we really showed them was stuff that we weren't even showing to the public yet. It was brand new stuff that the team was working on. So in a sense, the goal was to kind of bring them behind the scenes and get input from them to help shape the project. And that started off with the problem and developing that purpose and need. We probably went through that for 4 months.

We even— we had 4, we changed it to 3, we removed some, we changed the language a little bit, and that was all through that input. Generally, that's not done in a public forum. Generally, the project team puts together that and then goes out for public comment. But usually that's all done in the beginning before you go out to public comment. That wasn't the case here.

We kind of used that group to help shape what the problem was we were trying to fix. So that might be one good example there.

I was gonna speak to the comment that was made about that the design was predetermined and how we involve the stakeholders in coming up with the solution that we've preferred as our preferred recommended alternative. And it's that at the onset, we had several concepts. We had 8 different concepts. We looked at different speeds. We looked at different degrees of separation.

We looked at undivided and divided. We looked at that 3-lane concept both at 55 and 65 miles per hour. And then working with the stakeholders, we looked at one point putting the entire alignment on the existing alignment and doing all the widening out to Turnagain Arm and listen to the impacts that that would cause. And then we, you know, held it in one particular location and had all of the impacts to Chugach State Park and listen to what those stakeholders had concerns about, what those impacts. And so the design that we're recommending now is really a balance of all of the feedback that we heard from the different stakeholders, looking at all of those different concepts and what those areas impacted and their input, and then revising the design to take into consideration a lot of the feedback that we heard.

Another one of those comments was by Gancrich about the multi-use path being within the clear zone. So Bike Anchorage is part of that stakeholder working group. And at one point, we looked at a 25-foot offset and the significant impacts that that would either have to rock cut or fill within the Turnagain Arm and the linear miles of railroad that would have to be relocated to facilitate that versus having the bike lane right on the back of the shoulder. And working with the stakeholder group and all of the input and balancing those impacts to these really sensitive habitats, we came up with that 10-foot offset. So it's a 10-foot paved pathway with 2-foot gravel shoulders with a 10-foot offset from the.

Shoulder. So I feel like there's a lot of design considerations that were incorporated into this preferred alternative based on stakeholder and public involvement comments.

Thank you. I see no further questions. Oh, Commissioner Aran. Thank you, through the chair. Follow-up to the response—.

I, part of the response I think I heard to prior commissioner's question Mr. Hughes, did you say that, um, 4-lane, 3 lanes was used to develop the purpose and need? Uh, and I may be getting a little too technical here, but I just want to make sure I understand the process you're trying to describe. Yeah, uh, through the chair, Commissioner Aran, no, I would say not at all. Um, we started off with no alternatives, and, uh, we started off with the purpose and need to develop what the problem was we were trying to solve Once we started to develop the problem, we tried to develop the problem, then we started to come up with different alternatives and look through different areas.

So no would be the answer I would give to that question.

Thank you. I think we are done with Commissioner comments. You do have your 3 minutes for rebuttal, and we will open up the public hearing. Or invite the public up to testify. Anybody from the public wishing to testify, please step forward.

Stick my neck out here. I'm a longtime Anchorage, Alaska resident. My name is Brad Nugebauer. Been living here since 1984 and have used this highway many, many times. Appreciated the improvements that have made to it.

Just some of the things that I heard tonight— $1.5 billion sounds like an awful lot of money, and I agree with the concern of how we're going to maintain this. You're going to double the amount of asphalt that has to be cleared of snow, sand, everything repaved every few years. I see how they're always having to repave that highway all the way down to Seward, crunch off the top and repave it. It's a lot of money. One of the concerns I see now, and I'm not sure if the mileage even addresses it, is just all the people coming and going from the Girdwood Gas Station there at the corner.

That is the worst intersection there. And you throw in the Girdwood Forest Fair and you got an accident waiting to happen right there. So if you want to talk about safety that weekend, and just in general weekends in the summer, that service station and all the stuff coming there, that is a really bad intersection. Um, let's see, one thing is where we've added all these extra passing lanes, what happens is you're trying to pass a guy and he speeds up as you're trying to pass him. Why don't we make a limit there when you create a passing lane that now instead of 55 or 65, make that guy slow down 10 miles an hour so I don't have to speed up 10 miles an hour to pass him?

Does it make more sense to have the one guy slow down than the passing person to have to speed up. I mean, that's a simple change that should increase safety. Uh, what wasn't clear tonight was what percent of the $1.5 billion for this project is going to be federal dollars versus state money. I didn't get that. And, uh, the work that was done at the Wildlife Center to address the bus fatality crash that happened there, what, 10 years ago?

It's awesome what y'all have done there. I still question these last 20 miles. If you're going to shave off a couple minutes of time by, you know, changing the speed a little bit or something, is it really worth $1.5 billion? You know, I don't know. I just— like they said over here, we have so many needs in this community.

You know, the roads on my street are crumbling. You know, there's crumbling highways all in this town. And if the muni is going to have to maintain— I guess the state will be maintaining this expansion, but still, we are strapped for cash in this state, and that should be considered in whatever y'all do. Thank you. Thank you.

Ready? Uh, yeah, please state your name and let us know if you're representing yourself or a group. Okay, um, my name is Alexa Dobson, and I'm testifying in my capacity as the executive director of Bike Anchorage.

Uh, thank you. So we urge the commission to reject this proposal to widen the Seward Highway for the reasons that we detailed in our letter to this body. But in my testimony tonight, I'd like to expand on the core issue of safety on our roads. Traffic violence is high and rising in our city. 15 Pedestrians were killed by drivers last year, and this year is on track to be even worse.

Almost all of those deaths occurred on state-owned roads. Most recently, on August 29th, a pedestrian was hit by a driver and left to die on Northern Lights, also a state-owned road. Just yesterday, an intoxicated driver on DeBar, a state-owned road, crashed into a motorcycle rider and sent him to the hospital with life-threatening injuries. The state has indeed taken action in the wake of these tragedies. This summer, quietly and with no public process or accountability, they implemented an internal policy to make road diets difficult or impossible to implement on state-owned roads in Anchorage.

Road diets are a Federal Highway Administration-endorsed proven safety countermeasure, and 4 such projects are currently programmed and matched with federal funding. This policy will kill those projects and prevent others from taking their place. The policy gates road diet projects behind hard cutoffs for level of service, which the commissioners will recall from our letter on the Seward Highway widening project, is a measure of driver convenience. Level of service has nothing to do with safety, takes into account no perspectives other than that of the driver, and the Federal Highway Administration itself itself affirms that level of service is not a practical metric in urban settings where many types of transportation—driving, riding a bike, walking—are all happening side by side. In other words, this policy is justified against FHWA guidance on the basis that road diets might, in some projections, have the future effect of making drivers have to wait a few more seconds.

This is apparently unacceptable to the DOT, even if it would also save lives. So here we are. The state is asking to spend $1.5 billion—probably more, as the cost, you've heard, keeps rising—to widen a highway under the guise of safety, while behind the scenes, it secretly sabotages real work to make our roads safer. I don't often quote the Bible, but there is a line that keeps coming to me when I think about this, and it's, "You shall know them by their fruit." In other words, don't look at the claims and the appearances, look at the actions and look at the outcomes, and that tells you the true story. So to wrap things up, we ask that you reject this proposal and ask DOT to return with a safety-first package.

That means speed management, protected crossings, and proven safety countermeasures on streets in Anchorage where they are truly needed. Thank you.

Thank you. I see no questions.

Good evening, uh, Tim Alderson from— representing Rabbit Creek Community Council.

Uh, Commissioners, as I stated, I'm here on behalf of Rabbit Creek Community Council. I am providing oral testimony, but my testimony today is based on written comments that we submitted and were approved by a vote of 15 to 1 at our July 24th meeting, reflecting significant community feedback. We've been following this project closely for 3 years. We have 2 of our members that sit on the Stakeholder Advisory Commission. Rabbit Creek Community Council is one of only 3 community councils with portions of this project within its boundary.

Our council strongly supports efforts to improve highway safety, but we are deeply concerned about the scale, cost, and environmental impact of this proposal. From the start of this process, community councils, conservation groups, recreational users, and residents have consistently asked that this project minimize its physical environmental footprint. Instead, the current design has, uh, has grown in scope and intensity in a way that does not reflect that feedback. We have 6 key concerns. The first concern is the escalation of scope and costs.

The scale of this design will dramatically increase long-term maintenance costs even as the state struggles to maintain the existing smaller road. Our second concern is the benefits seem disproportionate to the costs. This billion-dollar project focuses on expanding capacity rather than addressing the key factors in winter crashes: weather, driver behavior, and maintenance. Many of these resources could be redirected to smaller, more effective safety projects. Our third concern is environmental and scenic impacts.

This highway is part of the National Scenic Byway and borders the Alaska Coastal Wildlife Refuge. Yet the design includes major quarry cuts, 5 to 6 traffic lanes, and vertically separated roads that would carve into Chugach State Park. This threatens the corridor's ecological integrity and scenic value. We're also concerned about inadequate consideration of alternatives. The 3-lane alternating passing concept was dismissed too quickly.

Quickly, in our opinion. It should be revisited, especially in areas where four-lane design would destroy parkland and trail corridors.

Narrow medians with physical barriers like those south of Byrd would also reduce impacts. We're concerned about community and access impacts. The loss of highway access points near Byrd and Indian would harm local businesses and isolate these communities. Recreational trail access must also be preserved and enhanced. We also believe that this— the current plan is misaligned with local plans.

The Anchorage Long Range Transportation Plan prioritizes safety over high-speed, high-volume roadways. The current proposal does not align with those adopted policies or the values of local residents. Having followed this project closely for 3 years, we have 3— 4 requests that we'd like to see incorporated moving forward. We'd like to see the project scaled back to better reflect public input and fiscal realities, to reconsider the 3-lane and barrier-centered designs to minimize environmental damage, We'd like to revise the plan to better protect scenic, recreational, and wildlife values that make this corridor unique, and further revise the plan to focus investment on practical safety measures and responsible long-term maintenance and planning. Again, as one of only 3 community councils with this project in its boundaries, we're deeply invested in finding a balanced approach that improves safety without fundamentally altering the character of this iconic corridor.

Are placing an unsustainable maintenance burden on the state. Thank you for your consideration. Thank you.

Anybody else wishing to testify, please step forward.

Hearing, seeing none, we'll invite the petitioner up for your 3 minutes of rebuttal.

Thank you. It's been a fun project to work on, as you can see. A couple things I'll mention to answer— you know, the Girdwood intersection, there's another project that's focused purely on that intersection at Girdwood. The question about percent of federal dollars versus state dollars, this is a National Highway system facility, NHS facility. So 10% of state dollars return 90% of federal dollars to build this project.

Um, on that note, there's a lot of discussion about the ability to remove money from this project and put it to projects in Anchorage. Um, I don't know all the details, but if they don't fall in the right bucket, uh, you can't necessarily take $1.5 billion and put it towards projects in Anchorage. That, that one that we put forth 10%, we get that return on a capital investment, but that doesn't mean that's the same for Anchorage. So, and the other piece of that is even if that money is not put into this facility, it would likely be put into another NHS facility. Very well could be in Anchorage, very well could be in Fairbanks, very well could be somewhere else.

So just to provide some clarity there, I know there's a lot of talk about level of service, and that's a tough one to get to. That was never a component of our purpose and needs, so it wasn't the main— any of the main pieces we looked at or the problem we were trying to solve. There's a ton of projects in Anchorage, and there's a whole committee focused on the pedestrian concerns in Anchorage. This— what we're bringing here tonight is a way to look at this safety corridor. So all these projects are going to move forward at different paces, at different rates.

And as this gets environmental approval, it might have sections where we can improve safety here. And if sections and anchorage move forward, money is going to be spent to move those forward. So I think that's what this really shows and what you're hearing from everybody tonight is that this is a difficult problem. And we're really trying to balance what would be a solution to fix this one. We've really looked at a lot of small spot improvements within the corridor for a really long time.

And what we're noticing is that's not, that's not the solution. We— it's still a designated safety corridor, and that's reviewed every 3 years to make sure it still meets that criteria. So with that, I think we've come, come up with the best solution to try to take into account the— and balance all the impacts within this really tight corridor. So thank you.

Any, uh, further questions from the Commission before we close the public hearing?

Commissioner Gardner. Thanks. Um, with respect to the 3-lane options, I was just wanting to make sure I understood what information is available in the report. And I see— so I don't know if you have it there with you or not, or if I'm going to be spitting off numbers, if that will mean anything to you or not. But maybe the easiest way to get at it is, as I see kind of a reference to it at one spot, I see the table that I think you included in your initial presentation with the percentages of reduced crashes.

And then I see in one of the appendices, maybe a page or two about what I assume is that crash report. Is there— are there other, other elements in there that talk about the 3-lane option and kind of considerations and the reasons for rejecting that? Yeah, I think both Edith, our engineer, can probably speak to a lot of that.

So when we did the When we did the traffic analysis, we did model it for both the 4-lane and the 3-lane facility. And in the crash reduction, you see a 68% crash reduction in fatal and significant injuries with the 4-lane facility. And you see about a 35% crash reduction in fatal and significant injuries in the 3-lane alternating passing lane. And we looked at that both divided and undivided when we did that traffic analysis. But what's in the final presentation is the 3-lane divided and the 4-lane divided facility.

And then when we— and when we look at crash data, we look at significant injuries and fatals, as any significant injury could just as easily have been a fatal crash. So that's why fatal and significant injury are grouped together. And you asked about other stuff in there about the 3-lane. The other stuff in there, uh, is some level of service analysis to try to see if it functions. Right?

And if you— what you notice in there, and it was referenced as follower density, is that the amount of vehicles that are out there, especially in the summertime, obviously, you don't really get rid of the queue. So you kind of have a queue of vehicles, you open up for a passing lane, people try to make their pass, and then, and then they end that passing lane and there's still a queue of vehicles. If that's not the case and that follower density is below a certain level, that's when that level of service is a higher value. And so really what that's showing is like, how well is the facility functioning based on the inner, the, you know, the different turnoffs that are there, based on the speeds, based on the number of vehicles, all those different things that factor into there. And so because you see that lower level of service, it doesn't function very well within this corridor to just have alternate passing lanes.

That's why you'll see those lower scores. Okay, thank you. And then just as a quick follow-up, With respect to the crash data, um, or the analysis that was done, is there— I guess I see on in this appendix that it kind of lays out those, those numbers, but is there more information in here about kind of how that analysis was performed? Um, so we get the crash data and we, um, so we have the crash data that we utilized was from 2017 to 2021 and we plot it. So we look at where all of the crashes occurred.

We looked at the types of crashes that occurred, the demographics, the conditions, the weather, the lighting, the time of the year, the time of the— you know, we look at all of that data and plot it out. And then we look at, you know, could this type of crash have been mitigated by a particular type of solution? And so, you know, we look at all of that data when we consider the potential solutions that could address that, which is why we said, you know, is this a corridor-wide issue, or is this a location where a spot fix could be addressing the problem and alleviating the crash history? And I think on one of the first slides in Chris's presentation, it's not really clear, but that is a crash cluster map. And so what you see really clearly is that there are large crash cluster densities throughout the entire corridor.

Which leads us to believe it's a systemic problem throughout the corridor that wouldn't be addressed by any one particular solution in any one particular location. Thank you.

I have a question for you. I have a motion prepared here by staff that says, I move to postpone 2025-0087 to a date undetermined to allow Alaska Department of Transportation Transportation and Public Facilities project management team the opportunity to address topic areas 1 through 13 and provide evidence supporting the proposed 4-lane divided highway concept for Safer Seward Highway project. Um, would— have you— has staff shared their intent to push this motion, and what are your thoughts on this motion? I guess that was also for the commissioners as well to Here, that what kind of motion.

Has been proposed by staff and is sitting in front of me. So go ahead. Uh, I have not heard that proposed motion for this project to push it. I, I know, uh, there'll be another opportunity to come in front of the commission with each segment that gets moved forward at the 65% design level. So a lot of times these projects, uh, come in front of the commission when they're in design.

And one of the things that the DOT and the muni has talked a lot about is getting this kind of input earlier on in the process. So here we are during the environmental phase. We haven't started the design of any one of the phases. And so it is a little bit of new ground, I guess, for both agencies to navigate. So I think the intent would be to come back once we are in final design at a 65% level and showcase why or why not those things are connected or be able to address any of the comments from the Commission.

Thank you. I see no further questions. Last call, people. Okay, we are going to close the public hearing.

What is the will of the body?

If anyone wants to propose a different motion, go right ahead. Commissioner Rahn.

Thank you, Chair. I move in case 2025-0087 to return the application to the project management team for additional work.

I think—. Would you like to maybe move to postpone? That—. Would you like to review the—. If you could pass that on down and I can see if I can read it.

Yeah, or I'll just give a point of information, uh, just so the, the commission may choose to, to postpone. Um, here, I'll just read that from code. So you can, uh, you can act to approve, approve with conditions, or return the application to the project management team for additional work. Postponing, um I guess it is similar to one of your choices, but it kind of delays— it doesn't— you're not making a decision, you're just postponing your decision, if that makes sense. Thank you.

And I apologize, it sounds like returning is one of the options. I hadn't yet heard of that. So, well, Mr. Chair, I'm happy to add on to that motion that I made. Um, so return, uh, the application to the project management team for additional work in accordance with department recommendations stating addressing the topic areas 1 through 13, as indicated on page 12 of the staff packet.

Commissioner Rahn, would you like to formally state your motion now, the second time, maybe?

For clarity, uh, I move in case 2025-0087 to return the application to the project management team for additional work in accordance with the Department recommendations addressing the topic areas 1 through 13. Thank you. That's seconded by Commissioner Gardner. Would you like to speak to your motion? Uh, thank you, Chair.

Um, I'll start by saying that I, I don't envy the project team, um, in this situation. Um, uh, understanding a lot of work has gone into this, um, you know, I appreciate the presentation here tonight. But overwhelmingly, you know, not taking away from the work that's been done, overwhelmingly, uh, what I heard tonight doesn't meet muster. Um, I, I heard the words, you know, we've come forward with the best solution, and my motion is intended to say, well, go do better. Um, and I trust that your team, the department, you know, has the skilled professionals necessary to do so.

This isn't the end of the project or the story, but an opportunity to perhaps check ourselves and yourselves and say, okay, here's what we've heard, now we go out and, and do better. I appreciate the work that the department did, both long-range and current planning, in lining things out against where the municipality has been, is, and wants to be on this project. And I appreciate the comments from the public, um, really putting in perspective for me as a commissioner where they think this project needs to be. So a lot of data points for you all to pull from as you go forward and do more work on this. Thanks.

Anyone else wishing to speak to the motion?

Commissioner Polis. Um, I 100% intend to support this, and I see this as a great thing for, um, this project. Um, as a civil engineer, I can pick some of this stuff apart that Long Range Planning has put together. This is math, and there's some wordplay in here, and you guys need to respond to that. I think the community needs to hear that this is a federal highway.

It's not a local road in Anchorage. Um, there's a lot more going on here than AMATS picking what projects goes next. Um, for those of you that don't know, AMATS can select projects in this town to go forth. So there's a good table in this now that says they can go and fund these projects. Um, in 2019, a $600 million project, um, is now $1.1 billion.

COVID happened. Um, there's a lot going on here that nobody's talked about. I think you guys need to respond to that stuff with math, with data.

Commissioner Gardner.

Thank you. I think I share the general comment that this is a hard issue to manage, and so appreciate the work that's gone into it and don't mean to detract from that in any way. I think I agree generally with a lot of the concerns that were raised and identified in the staff packet and from the public today. The one point thing I wanted to just comment on specifically is the concept of a 3-lane road. I think from my perspective, reading the materials here, I don't see enough to kind of give me comfort that that was fully evaluated and adequately rejected given the significant impact and cost associated with the divided 4-lane concept.

And it looks— it looks like the primary factor that's gone into it is kind of this analysis on crash data, and I can certainly appreciate that a 4-lane divided highway is, um, could probably be expected to more easily avoid crashes than a 3-lane road. But this is a, you know, a context-sensitive analysis. There are a lot of considerations there, and I think ways to evaluate and consider to improve safety even with a 3-lane road, given some of the factors that we've seen even in the report that affect crash— weather being one of them, right? That's not going to change depending on the size of the road, and fully understanding those impacts as well.

Commissioner Gardner— or Krishna. Thank you. I'll just add that this was some of the most eloquent, well-reasoned, and frankly, some of the best testimony we've received on any case I've seen in many, many years. And so I would really, really like the project team to directly engage and respond to the testimony that we've heard today, especially each of the points that the Rabbit Creek Community Council put forward. You know, my last comment that I don't really think has been touched on, so I'll touch on it, is that every single person who visits the state drives that highway because of the viewshed, and any change that makes that highway look like a ring road around any city in the country is going to be a significant detriment, not just to the local community council, but to the state of Alaska and the economic benefit that that highway and that road brings to us.

So there's a lot of really, I think, well, well-researched.

In testimony that you heard tonight, and so I'd like to hear responses to those.

Uh, seeing no more comments in the queue, call for the vote.

Mr. Streich, how do you vote? Yes. Thank you.

That motion passes.

Um, are we good to keep going? Does anyone need a break?

Keep going. Okay, uh, now we will move on to the, uh, cases 2025-0098 and S12 8-4-6.

May we please have the staff presentation? Yes, uh, these are, uh, two cases, a rezone and a subdivision. The property owner requests a rezone of a 2.5-acre tract of land from the from the R-10 district to the R-7 district.

None of the state and municipal reviewing agencies object to the, the rezone, and we received 5 written comments from the public. With staff packet, all were opposed to the rezone. No comments were received from the Eagle River Valley Community Council. We did receive 2 additional public comments that are provided in a supplemental packet, the G2 packet, supplementary packet number 1. Um, with regard to the approval criteria for rezone, the proposed rezone conforms to the residential density, uh, specified in the Chugiak/Eagle River Comprehensive Plan update.

The land use plan map identifies the site as residential 1 to 2 dwelling units per acre, and the implementing zoning district is the R7 district. The Mayor Suzanne LaFrance's housing strategy of 10,000 homes in 10 years calls for 1,000 new units or rehabilitated units per year on average over the next 10 years. The rezoning to the R7 district will facilitate the subdivision of this property and potential new homes. Um, with regard to Approval Criteria 2, uh, the proposed rezone to the R7 district will not result in an objective risk to health or safety. And Approval Criteria 3— Criterion 3, the rezoning does not conflict with the— with municipal, state, or federal codes, regulations, and ordinances.

With regard to the rezone, the department finds that all 3 approval criteria were met and recommends approval —of the rezone. Enclosed is a draft assembly ordinance on page 7 of your packet. The public comment section in the packet is on page 27. And now, I'll turn to Shawn for presentation on the subdivision. Thank you.

So in the case of S-12846 subdivision, so it's a preliminary plat request to subdivide one tract of land into 3 lots. And vacation of the Stewart Drive remainder portion of right-of-way that was dedicated per plat 76-179. So the rezone of the property, as stated, will allow the minimum lot size of 20,000 square feet. Proposed lots 1 and 2 have 40,000 square feet, and lot 3 has approximately 39,800 square feet with the inclusion of the vacated right-of-way. So staff has requested a conditional approval for effectuation of the rezone first thus not creating lots that do not meet the minimum lot standards of the CER-10 District before final plat approval.

Any easements requested by the utilities will replace the vacated right-of-way. No municipal, state, reviewing agency had objection to the vacation or the plat. The subject property meets the minimum lot size and width required by that zoning district. Proposed Lot 1, 2, and 3 have access to Stewart Drive as it loops around. Traffic Engineering has stated in their comments to provide a common access point or to provide information that driveway access will not exceed the slope percentage allowed for a driveway.

So Planning has recommended a conditional approval to resolve with Traffic the need for information that ensures all proposed driveways can meet current code and municipal driveway standards from Stewart Drive. In the matter of the roads and right-of-way vacation request, the proposed platting action is creating 3 lots from the existing tract and requesting vacation of a portion of the undeveloped Stewart Mountain Drive. So Stewart Drive— Mountain Drive is a local road per the official streets and highways plan. Local roads require 50 to 60 feet minimum right-of-way width, and Stewart Drive has previously dedicated 60 feet of right-of-way, so no further dedication or additional improvements are required. So in the matter of vacating the right-of-way, the municipality must consider the following Following criteria for any vacation, staff finds that Condition 1 has been met.

The right-of-way is no longer— serves as access to surrounding unsubdivided property as it was in 1979. So in 1983, there was a subdivision of the surrounding area which determined the final location of Stewart Drive. The new location and construction made this portion of right-of-way in excess of municipal need. Staff finds Condition 2 has been met. The portion of right-of-way is not a part of the official streets and highways plan.

Staff finds Condition 3 and 4 has been met. It's not lying in the half-mile or quarter-mile grid. Staff finds that Condition 5 has been met. This vacation will not have impact on traffic circulation. Other dedicated rights-of-way provide access to the surrounding properties.

And lastly, staff finds Condition 6 has been met. The vacation will not result in realignment of any existing right-of-way and does not impact traffic circulation. So with that being said, agencies have expressed no objection to request that vacation portion of the right-of-way on Stewart Drive outside of the constructed right-of-way area. The utility companies will have opportunity to review the proposed plat and request easements as necessary. This does include Anchorage Water and Wastewater Utility, which has an existing water main in the right-of-way.

So therefore, the Planning Department recommends approval of the vacation subject to the conditions approval and approval of the Preliminary plat found on page 6 of the staff packet, A and B, 1 through 6. Thank you.

Any questions for staff?

I was reading through some of the comments.

One of the neighbors is concerned about duplexes being built on these lots.

Can you confirm that the lots are sized that would allow duplexes if it was rezoned R7? CER7?

Um, yes, Mr. Chair. Two of the lots have 40,000 square feet and one has less than 40,000 square feet. The R-7 district allows one house on 20,000 square feet and a duplex on 40,000 square feet.

So approximately one house on half an acre or two units on one acre. Thank you. Any other— Commissioner Krishna? Yes, I have a question for staff. Some of the testimony or public comments have suggested alternate rezoning options.

Just before we get started today, I'm wondering if you could provide an opinion on the Commission's scope here. Is the Commission only to consider the proposed zone that's being requested, or is it within the Commission's purview to evaluate whether other zones might fulfill the, you know, the desires of the property owner as well. Thank you. Through the chair, Ms. Krishna, the code says that the Planning and Zoning Commission action, they shall recommend approval of the application or request, or approval with modifications at least as restrictive as submitted, or denial. Those are the three options.

So the commission could recommend a different district than what the planning department is recommending, if that's kind of the bottom line question you're asking.

All right, um,.

Any other— I see no further questions for staff. We'll invite the petitioner up. I'll remind everybody, time allotted for testimony will be doubled, so the petitioner will receive 20 minutes. Take it away.

Thank you. Good evening, Chairman, members of the board. My name is Craig Bennett, B-E-N-N-E-T-T, with S4 Group, and staff did a great job again and appreciate their effort. I'm going to keep this short, and I'll start with the rezoning case first. This property is located up the Eagle River Valley and totals approximately 2.8 acres with the land and the vacation of right-of-way.

We are requesting a rezone from CER-10 to CER-7, which is Chugiak Eagle River Medium Density Single-Family Residential District, is what it's called. The surrounding properties are zoned CER-1A SL. However, the site's not eligible for that zoning. Um, the comprehensive plan designates the area as residential 1 to 2 dwelling units per acre, and the CER-A allows twice that density. Therefore, the proposed CER-7 zoning is the most consistent with both the comp plan and the surrounding lots.

We held a community meeting, um, June 11th. It's not required for this rezone, but we held it anyway, and planning staff and all reviewing departments support this request. It aligns with the comp plan, meets all the required standards, uh, staff has detailed the planning case S12846. The proposed plat will create 3 lots from an old homestead parcel as shown on page 20 in the packet. It will also vacate some undeveloped right-of-way on the south side.

These lots will be significantly larger than most of the surrounding properties. No municipal or state agencies submitted any objections, and all the approval criteria are satisfied. Staff recommends approval of both cases. And we agree with all the department conditions. And with that, I'll pause here and let the community speak.

One question. Yeah, are you— do you have water and sewer, or no water, no sewer? Good question. There's city water, there is no sewer, so lots all have to be on septic in this area.

They will be community water, correct? All right, thank you.

Um, opening up public testimony unless there's any other questions from the commission. Seeing none, please let us know if you're testifying on behalf of yourself or a group.

Oh, come— the mic's not on. We gotta wait till you see— push things till you see the red button. There you go. Okay, my name is Adam Schicks, S-H-I-C-K-S. I'm speaking on behalf of the Highland Crest Homeowners Association.

Okay, thank you. My intent is to talk for 5 minutes and then open it up for questions after that. Perfect. Good evening, my name is Adam Schicks, Lieutenant Colonel, U.S. Air Force, retired. I'm speaking on behalf of the Highland Crest Homeowners Association as a vice president of that association, and I own the adjoining property northeast of Mr. Martin, uh, the petitioner's property.

I am also the neighbor who's collected 32 zoning protest petition signatures on behalf of the community. That's 32 signatures of 35 contacted around the area within 300 feet based on your limitations for what is a valid petition. Um, as a community, we are asking you to allow Mr. Martin, the petitioner, to rezone and subdivide his property in the manner he originally requested from the planning department. So I'm gonna say that again so that we are clear as to where we stand with this. As the community, we are asking you to allow Mr. Martin to rezone and subdivide his property in the manner he originally requested from the Planning Department, a request of CER-1 Alpha, which was denied in error because of an overreliance on a 20-year-old land use map intended to guide decisions, not be the primary source for plot-by-plot zoning decisions.

This should be the easiest decision of the evening for you if you vote to allow Mr. Martin to rezone the the land as originally requested, R-1 Alpha. Mr. Martin wins. The community wins with an R-1 Alpha because we want Mr. Martin, Martin to zone the property as he originally requested and in the manner that very closely matches the rules of how we are zoned. The Anchorage Assembly wins because Mr. Martin, who is an accomplished builder, can add 3 more single-family homes and ADUs to the housing demand the assembly is attempting to address. And you, the commission, win because you will be in compliance with the Chugiak/Eagle River Comprehensive Plan in its entirety, not just the map guidelines for growth, land use directives, and the desires of the community.

This is a contested issue because Mr. Martin's original request to rezone as R-1 Alpha was denied by the planning department due to a land use map on page 61 of the comprehensive plan, a map color-coded to limit an area to 1 to 2 homes per acre, a map with an explicitly stated purpose— explicitly stated purpose within there— to be a framework for growth between 2006 and 2025 in a community that is now 99% complete in its growth as a 1-alpha. It's already grown. It's there.

A map— excuse me— these guidelines for growth have no less than 13 explicit goals, objectives, and strategies that support this. And that's what I mean by you could be in compliance with the entirety of the comprehensive plan. 3 Examples of those: preserve and enhance the identity of established communities, consider the character adjacent development, complement the scale and character of existing and planned development. I could go on, but I don't want to take your time reading the entire plan to you. These are the non-map guidelines for growth that reinforce Title 21, TAC 03, Section 160, rezoning purpose and scope, which says— and again, I'm sure you're familiar with this, but I want to say this out loud so that we all hear what it's saying— Zoning is intended to provide a degree of certainty that is important for long-term investment and neighborhood cohesion and stability.

So that is an explicit statement of the purpose of zoning. I believe the Planning Department's denial of R-1 Alpha for Mr. Martin came from an over-reliance on a land use map in its last 6 months of utility. For rezoning a plot of land in a community that is fully matured as an R1 Alpha. I introduce myself as Lieutenant Colonel Adam Schicks, retired. I was an E-3 AWACS navigator for 23 years, so I have extensive experience in building, interpreting, and using maps and charts.

On my first annual flight evaluation, we were en route for a flight for a night air refueling over Minnesota. I was busy at work with my map and log and called a 30-degree right turn for the pilots toward an air refueling initial point. My evaluator smacked me on the back of the head hard enough to knock my hat off and pointed out the window 30 degrees off to the right where I had just called the turn and asked me if those thunderstorms were on my map. Clearly they were not. The point he was trying to make to me is don't get map-itis.

Don't get your head down in the map and lose the bigger picture of what's going on. And that's what I'm asking the commission to do. My job as a navigator, and your responsibility here, is to look beyond the map at the big picture and call the turn that makes the most sense. Zone this land as a CER-1 Alpha, just as the way the petitioner originally wanted it, the way the neighborhood desires it, and allows the Anchorage Assembly, Assembly, to get closer to solving its housing problem with 3 beautifully built Martin Construction Company single-family homes. I look forward to and highly encourage your questions.

And if I could be specific on areas that you might ask questions on: equal application of the code as it relates to neighbors, and I can give you a vignette on that; historical nature of the comprehensive plan and amendments; weight of effort or apportionment of the comprehensive plan and what they say when it says one thing one place and another thing someplace else. What— how do you weight what's more important? The petitioner wording intent as originally put into that staff summary. Those are just some examples that I would encourage some questions on for this, and I'll cede the rest of my time for questions. Thank you very much.

Um, you don't need to cede your time. You have 3 minutes and 47 seconds for rebuttal, um, and Or no, you don't get rebuttal. Sorry, I'm not the petitioner.

But also a point of information.

Either you, you lose it or you lose it in this situation. Nope, that's fine. I will stand here and take questions, hopefully, uh, from each of you.

I see no questions.

Uh, Commissioner Pullis, the main thing you guys don't want to see is a duplex built on these lots, right? Correct. Okay. And, and in that effort, we've explored various options for this. So I had 3 meetings with the planning department last week talking about how we could approach this.

They gave me one alternative. I did speak to the petitioner about that, that alternative, but that would require him to change his original plan for dividing up the 3 lots, and he does— he's not interested in that. And quite honestly, I don't blame him for that. I was just looking for those options for that.

Question from Commissioner Rahn. Uh, thank you. Through the chair, um, I'm going to cut to the chase. Mr. Schick, I appreciate your testimony tonight. Um, why are you afraid of duplexes?

I am not afraid of duplexes. There is a— there's a nature to the community that exists, uh, there. The comprehensive plan, I think, is, is looked at incorrectly, and we want to maintain the nature of the community. Thanks for your response.

Question from Commissioner Krishna. More of a comment, really. Um, I appreciate your testimony. I'm uncomfortable acting upon it unless I hear from the petitioner or the property owner directly that there is an alternate zoning that they originally preferred and might still prefer. But I, I'm not comfortable acting on the information from a third party unless I hear that directly from either the petitioner or their representative.

Okay, and I think you might also be able to hear that from the planning department as well, from the initial discussions. Sure, I'll, I'll ask if anyone wants to corroborate what, um, the testifier is saying, either from the city or from the property owner, that, um, I'd be interested in hearing that later.

Thank you. See no further questions. Anyone else wishing to testify, please step forward.

Hi, my name is Royce Martin. I'm the petitioner. I'm sorry, you, uh, you do have time for rebuttal, so you'll be able to speak at that time. Anybody else wishing to testify, please come forward.

Not you. I understand. So she was asking specifically within my time. You're— yeah, we're good. Okay, anyone else wishes to testify, please come forward.

Yeah, my name is Nick Weber. I'm a local resident. I'm about 4 parcels down, so I'm not part of the HOA, but I am part of the local neighborhood area. Um, this topic came to my attention a few days ago just before the weekend, and I thought it might be useful for me to come here and learn a little bit more about what was going on in my neighborhood. Neighborhood.

I kind of prepared a speech and everything, but after hearing all the testimony, I'm not going to go through all that. I think Mr. Schick had quite a bit of information there. I share the same opinion as far as the R7 classification. If you look at a map, Mr. Schick said don't, don't look at the map, but I'd say look to the map and look at this hillside neighborhood community, and you'll find that Most of it is R-1A SL. My understanding since doing a little research over the weekend is the SL designation is no longer available.

You won't find any R-7s anywhere on that hillside, north, south, east, or west. So it creates— if you were to move forward with an R-7, in my opinion, it would create kind of a zoning island. This is a unique piece of property. This is a unique part of Anchorage. The Eagle River Valley has Chugach State Park to the south side and to the north.

It's the second largest state park, to my understanding, in the state. We have Highland Crest Park that's just above that. It's a scenic road that people travel down to the nature center, you know, thousands of visitors every summer. Maintaining that hillside is really important. And I think the zoning that we choose to— what you all choose to put on that, that parcel is really important.

And as I did more research, I started to ask myself, you know, how important is it to change it from the current classification? Why does it have the current classification? So I dug into the R-10. My property is actually an R-10 as well. That's alpine sensitive slope area.

And while I may not be on a slope, a steep grade, this property is more located on a steep grade. I went out and looked at some of the elevations, and, you know, down on the, the southern property line to the north property line, there's over 110 feet of elevation. So when you look at R-10, there's probably, you know, R-10 allows for subdivision. But it's just saying you have to look at it and you have to look at each property individually and you have to apply the calculations of how far can we subdivide this? What do we need to take into consideration as far as, you know, any detriment to the property, the people that live there, or the surrounding parcels that are impacted?

Erosion. You know, if you travel up and down that street, you start to see the road is starting to slide down. You know, those are things that we have to look at. And I think that's what R-10 is saying is, is that Not that you can't do these certain things, but we have to take into consideration this, this particular, particular parcel and what's going to happen to it if we decide to develop it or subdivide it. Yes, there is public water available in the neighborhood, but another concern is the septic system availability or the management of that.

I too, you know, I'm not opposed to subdividing the property. I say we do it smartly. With some research and that maybe R-10 is still the most appropriate classification for it. Um, I would prefer not to see duplexes there as well. I don't have an aversion to duplexes.

My family owns multi-family properties that we rent out in other states. Um, however, the, uh, my opinion for this is that you have an established neighborhood all around on all four sides of this parcel. It used to be the homestead there. It's unique if you make it R-7, and if they're, you know, in the future, if these parcels again get subdivided and a duplex gets put there, it changes the character of the community. And this is not just a community of, you know, single-family homes, but it's part of that Highland Crest HOA neighborhood association.

So it makes it really— it makes it really unique, and it's different to have some kind of property right in the middle of an HOA that isn't part of the HOA has a totally distinct classification, zoning classification of R-7, where you can look up and down the valley and anywhere north of Eagle River doesn't have an R-7 in it. So I asked myself, well, why, why doesn't everything have an R-7? There's a lot of R-6s to the south, excuse me, to the east and to the northwest, and then all the adjacent properties immediately around it are 1A SL or 1A. So I would ask you to probably evaluate your options and before approving it, go back and see if there's a better alternative. I know that's a possibility as I listened to the, the sewer improvement, which I thought was really interesting, and that's what I think is probably the best case here.

Is there something better that we can do? Can we look at this a little bit different because this is such a unique property in a unique part of Anchorage? I think it deserves a second look. Thank you for your time. Thank you.

See no questions. Anybody else wishing to testify, please step forward.

Yes, uh, my name is Vern Rolfs. I'm one of the neighbors. I live across Stewart Drive to the northeast corner of the subdivision. My comments, mainly I'm going to center them around septic systems.

I— my concern is the possibility of building duplexes, which would increase the loading on the lots.

The subdivision, Main Highland Crest subdivision, was developed in the 1980s. At that time, you could subdivide where you had public water available. You could go to 20,000-square-foot lots, which they did. The whole subdivision has been developed.

This one section in the center is, of course, 2.5 acres, and that was reserved out by the original property owner. The soils in the area are glacial till. Silty gravels, some shallow bedrock. I'd say we're getting along with the septic systems here over 40 years approximately. Probably a third of the septic systems have been replaced.

The couple places around, there's.

There's groundwater that's surfacing. One is down gradient of this subdivision, proposed subdivision.

In 1990s, early '90s, there was some research done by state and municipality, and they determined that you needed to have 40,000 square foot for septic system for single-family dwelling. That's Municipal Code 1565.410.

If, if zoning is put in place that would allow duplexes on these lots, you'd be back to the higher higher density development. Right now there's one, one dwelling on the 2.5 acres right in the middle of the subdivision. I, I don't really have a problem if, if it were developed in 40,000 square foot lots, but allowing duplexes on that, I'm thinking that's going to be a problem, and I think that should be avoided. I think there are some zoning options that would limit that so you wouldn't have the duplexes.

That concludes what I have. Anybody have any questions?

Um, I see no questions. Thank you for your testimony. Anybody else wishing to testify?

Hi, my name is Clay Davis. I'm not a neighbor, but I'd like to be. I'm a local resident. I'm 30 years old. I have a master's degree in engineering.

I currently rent, but I'd like to buy a house someday.

Duplexes are affordable, and Anchorage needs affordable housing. I'd love to be part of this community. It sounds awesome. All the neighbors care enough about it to show up tonight. Which I think is really great.

And lots of other people like me would love to join this community. Plus, it sounds like you guys need more housing if you're trying to build 1,000 units a year. I know you're a math guy, Commissioner Polis. Sounds like we'd go from 3 to 5 if we build duplexes instead of single-family homes. I think that at least gets toward our goal of 1,000 a year.

For that reason, I recommend that you approve this zoning change to CR-7 in this lot. Thanks. Thank you. I see no questions. Anybody else wish to testify, please step forward.

Hi, my name is Hannah Fletcher. I am testifying on behalf of myself. I live right down the street. Right across and then one house down. My husband and I moved up to Alaska last February.

We had saved money for a long time in order to buy a house, and we were ecstatic to find where we live now. The number one thing that drew us to the neighborhood was the character. I grew up on slightly larger lots, and finding the half-acre lots that backed up to such a beautiful park was fantastic. Every day I wake up and I'm just in shock that I live in this beautiful neighborhood. But the concern I have— I look up the driveway, um, A, it's a very steep lot, and I am concerned about the potential of having multiple dwellings, specifically if you have duplexes on it and you're adding up to 6 additional houses.

If there was a variance added for the third lot, we're talking up to the addition of 6 dwellings, which at 2 cars per person would add another 12 cars that would come speeding down our hill every day in front of my house. They've already put in a speed bump to address the speeding concerns. The biggest thing I'd like you to consider is the fact that since character is such an important part in the zoning process in Alaska, that we at least consider the character of the neighborhood that we're building in CyberQuest there, be it be zoned back to the R-1 Alpha in order to not have duplexes. Any questions? Um, I see no questions.

Thank you for your testimony.

Hi, my name is Shane Taylor. I live probably within 300 feet of the property. Uh, and to address Commissioner Rhone's comment or question about, you know, what do you have against duplexes, I don't think we have any problem against duplexes. But if you look at the surrounding area in this G2 document, it says north, south, east, and west, single-family residential. And this is right in the middle of the neighborhood, right smack dab in the middle.

And they're not going to be part of the Homeowners Association either, so there's no control over what goes on there. So any kind— I mean, we don't have any problem with this, as Adam said, with subdividing, putting 3 single-family homes there, but we do want to maintain the character of the neighborhood. So we, we would like to see that the zoning reflect that if possible. Thank you.

Commissioner Gardner.

Sorry, I was late getting to the queue. I had a question for the last speaker. Yes.

Um, with respect to, uh, the comment about, um, duplexes and the preference for single family, um, I meant to kind of ask this earlier, and I might be thinking about this wrong. I'll probably need to clarify my thinking with staff, but, um, but as I understand it roughly, I think that the parcel currently is large enough to, in theory, be subdivided into more than just the 3 that are currently contemplated. And what would your thoughts be be if it— just hypothetically, if it were subdivided into, say, 5 lots with single-family homes on those 5 lots? So you still have, you know, 5 units, um, which would be comparable to what you could have now if, if duplexes were in fact built. Well, I think that still would, would be, uh, within the character of the neighborhood because a lot of the lots are half-acre lots anyway currently.

So, um, personally, I don't see a problem with that. Okay, thank you.

Anybody else wishing to testify, please step forward, otherwise we're going to go back to the petitioner.

Okay, my name's Greg Warnick. I live at 10219 Silvertip, which is a property adjacent to both the variance that's being requested and the property being rezoned. I believe I'm the only one that's affected by the variance, and basically if The variance is granted as proposed, my wife and I lose direct access to Stewart Drive. I would need permission to clean up that hillside, uh, go down to that street or whatever, or I would be trespassing. His property.

So that's my main concern that I don't think anybody else is affected by. So if that variance could be slightly redrawn in such a way that anything south of, uh, our property, uh, either stay a variance or— or not a variance, but, uh, right-of-way or deed it to our property, uh, that would be preferable. But I hate to lose our access to Stewart Drive.

Do you currently have access to Stewart Drive, or like an improved driveway? No, through the right-of-way. But if you— but yeah, but do you have something built that you drive in and out on? No, but I do have a piece of property that goes into the right-of-way that I believe— I don't know for sure, but when these property, uh, was originally laid out, when the plats were laid out, in order to meet the requirement to be able to build a single-family home on that property, that little jaunt was put in there. So effectively, I would lose access because Next to it, between my property and the proposed, uh, properties that Mr. Royce is developing, there's also an easement there with a drainage and a walkway, which I'm prohibited from doing anything on.

But that little piece of property then would become an island that I really couldn't develop or do anything with. Gotcha. Um, and so, but currently you have no driveway, or you're not accessing that right away, but you're trying to maintain future access. There is a slight trail that you can walk directly from the point of my property to, uh, Stewart Drive. Okay.

So there's— but there's nothing—. Okay, yeah, strictly by foot. Okay, gotcha. I just want to understand, right? Thank you.

But if I had to move my, uh, septic field, and it's over 40 years old, and I've had it aerated once about 20 years ago, if I have to move it in the future, that would be the only place that I can move it to. Well, I don't definitely think they would let you put it in the right-of-way, but We don't need—. Well, no, not in the right-of-way, but it would give me access to that. I have, uh, staff wants to chime in here. Okay, Commissioner— or Mr. McLaughlin.

Uh, Chair Spinelli, I'm sorry, um, my request to speak was to, um, clarify something with, uh, Commissioner Gardner, not with the current speaker, if you want to come back to me later. Well, I have Commissioner Gardner. I think we're done. Oh, okay, Commissioner Gardner, go ahead. I think this will be quick.

Just to confirm the property you're referring to, are you— you're on the corner of Silver Tip and Stewart? Right now it's a corner lot. If that variance is granted for the right-of-way, it's no longer a corner lot, effectively. Okay, thank you.

I think we're good. Okay, thank you. Thank you.

Mr. McLaughlin. Yeah, thank you, Chair.

Mr. Gardner, the— with your last question, you were saying if there were many lots, then would you be comfortable with that? If they're all single family, something to that effect. And I just wanted to clarify that the R-1A district only allows single family detached houses on lots that have a minimum of 8,400 square feet. However, because this area is all on-site septic systems, you need a minimum of 40,000 square feet in order to subdivide here. So it's this interesting sort of— there can't be lots with less than 40,000 square feet because they all require on-site septic.

So that would govern even if R-1A allows smaller lots. And I just wanted to clarify that point. It seemed like it may relate to the question that you were discussing. Appreciate that. Thank you.

Okay.

Anybody else that has not testified from the public that wishes to testify on this— these cases, please step forward. Okay, petitioner, you have your 17 minutes, 56 seconds of rebuttal. Craig Bennett. Um, first I want to thank the community members that came out tonight to speak. Um, I'll do my best to try to address some of the concerns that were raised in our early meetings with staff.

We did bring up both SLs and the CER 1A options, and SLs are no longer allowed. And the CER-1A didn't match the comp plan, so it was a kind of a no-go right from the start. And staff recommended— not just recommended, said, hey, CER-7 meets the comp plan and meets the area, and it fits the neighborhood the best.

Heard septic systems brought up, and that's obviously before anything can be built, it has to go through on-site and have a septic review for the amount of bedrooms prior to anything that gets developed. But it sounded like duplexes were the main issue that I heard, and CER 7 does allow two-family dwellings if the lot's over 40,000 square feet. I'll add that the SL And the surrounding properties is 19,000 square foot minimum, so about half the surrounding lots are generally about half in size. So this, even if a duplex was built, it'd be the same density as that's existing. But all the existing lots can basically have a duplex because you can have an ADU on all their lots anyway, and that are in existing Um, not that these lots are proposed to have duplexes, it's just a single-family home.

There's no plans for a duplex anyway. And I live just down the road and I just had an ADU built on my property. So with that, I'd like to— is there any questions for me?

Commissioner Krishna, this is likely not helpful at this stage in the process, but Um, I will just note for you and for the petitioner that probably actually well, well over half of the rezone requests that this body has heard also include a comp plan amendment. So I will say that I don't believe that's a significant, um, barrier. So, um, do with that information what you will.

If there was sewer, public sewer in the street, I think a comp plan amendment would be supported. But with only water. And I'll leave that up to planning too. And if planning wants to chime in on, I guess, the mechanics of how Tile 21 and the comp plan are determined. But if there's any questions on that.

I got a question for the petitioner and staff. Special limitations are no longer allowed, but plat notes are still a thing. Is there an option, staff, with support, or the petitioner with plat notes, to eliminate the ability to build duplexes on these lots?

Through the chair, Mr. Tschisman, or actually, Mr. Chair. On the subject of the plat, you can put a plat note if the—. If that's the will of the commission acting as the platting board. I tend to resist any plat notes like that, but it is up to the body.

I agree, just throwing options out there.

Any other questions for the petitioner?

Um, Commissioner Krishna?

Uh, okay, no more questions. We will close the public hearing. Thank you.

What is the will of the body? We'll need two separate motions, one for each case.

Commissioner Rahn, you've made a— would you like to state your motion? Thank you, Mr. Chair. I move in case 2025-0098 to recommend the Anchorage Assembly approval of the rezone from CER-10 Chugiak/Eagle River Low Density Residential Alpine Slope to CER-7 Chugiak/Eagle River Medium Density Single Family Residential District. Thank you.

That's seconded by Commissioner Krishna. Commissioner Rahn, would you like to speak to your motion? Uh, just briefly, um, we'll be interested in input from other commissioners. Um, I concur with staff's findings. Um, I appreciate the history given and input from the petitioner.

Um, uh, I think a moving point for me is that this opens the potential for the development of a duplex on the site, but does not require it. I heard a lot of concern from the community around character. Obviously, those who were heard from tonight are very engaged and care a lot about their neighborhood and community, which is amazing, you know, but that we should all approach our neighborhoods and communities in, in that way. But at the end of the day, for me, I believe this alignment with the comp plan And the flexibility that's offered in achieving development that fits our community's needs, our broader community's needs, will be achieved through the approval of this motion. Thank you.

Commissioner Krishna. Sure, I'd like to add a few more comments. Um, first I'd like to really commend, uh, the entire community that came out. This is a significant amount of public involvement, um, on a Monday night. Um, I have a few other comments which may not be incredibly compelling to some members of the audience, but I do feel the need to say them.

As somebody who lives in a duplex I just want to encourage folks to not just think about duplexes as being only for renters or necessarily high intensity. I've lived in a duplex as a single person in a household of two. Household sizes are getting smaller. A duplex or half a duplex might not necessarily be that much higher density than a single-family home containing a family of four or five or six. Duplexes can also be a really useful source of multigenerational living.

I'm purchasing a duplex right now so I can live next to family. There are lots of reasons why someone might want to have multiple units on the same lot to support all kinds of benefits to their lifestyle. So I just encourage everyone to think about the range of housing that might be important to somebody to stay in your community as they age or as they grow their family or as other things happen throughout someone's life. So, um, I feel the need to mention all of those things. Um, ultimately, I think I will vote for this because although we've heard some thoughts about alternate arrangements, um, not having heard directly from the petitioner that they have an interest, um, or find any alternate, uh, zoning to be viable, I think it's the Commission's duty to respect the property rights of a property owner and not to impose some alternate zoning designation without directly hearing that that's something that a property owner is choosing to do.

That's not the role of the Commission. I believe that would be overstepping. So with this being the option that's in front of us, I'm inclined to vote yes.

Anybody else wishing to testify? Or I mean, anybody else wishing to comment? Speak to the motion.

Hearing none, we'll call for the vote.

Mr. Stryke, how do you vote? No. Thank you.

That motion passes.

Okay, now we will move on to— Mr. Chair, we do have the plat. Sorry.

I'm ready. With two motions. A, gotcha.

Commissioner Winchester, would you like to state your motion? I move in case S12846 to approve the vacation of a portion of right-of-way, Stewart Drive portion, dedicated to plat 76-179, subject to recording a suitable plat within 24 months of its approval and any time extensions.

Just looking for a second here, folks.

That's seconded by Commissioner Aron. Commissioner Winchester, would you like to speak to your motion? Yeah, this has been a difficult case to hear. Um, I'm encouraged by all the public participation of the neighbors, but in the end, I think it was well stated by, uh, both Commissioner Rahn and Commissioner Krishna about the need to respect the overall needs of the community, and therefore I support this action.

Anybody else wishing to speak to the motion?

Seeing none, we'll call for the vote.

Mr. Stryke, how do you vote? No. Thank you.

The motion passes.

So I have the main motion on the plat, I believe.

Okay, we have a main motion for the approval of the plat up here.

Commissioner Rahn, would you like to state your motion?

I move in case S12846 to approve the plat for 24 months, subject to conditions 1 through 6 as shown on page 6 of the staff report.

Seconded by Commissioner Winchester. Commissioner Rahn, would you like to speak to your motion? Just briefly, I concur with staff's findings. Items 1 through 6 in the staff packet, um, we've incorporated the recommendations. I intend to support the motion.

Anybody else wishing to speak to the motion?

Commissioner Pullis. I guess I'll just speak to the dissenting voice. I am so on the line here. It is a very hard call. I support the move to provide housing.

I do. I just know we've taken some moves recently that will impact R-1s. And, you know, based on the fact this whole neighborhood is R-1, there's not a single duplex in it. You know, it just, it just barely gets me over the line to go against this. So that's the dissenting side.

Oh, just final comments in support of the motion. As a home builder, I am doubtful that duplexes would actually be what the market would choose for these lots. So I favor moving the petitioner through the process the municipality laid out as quickly and affordably as possible. That's why I'm voting in favor. Call for the vote.

Mr. Stryke, how do you vote? No. Thank you.

That motion passes.

Now we will move on to our final two unfinished cases of the night.

Mr. Chair, request for a brief recess. Sounds good.

We are gonna call this meeting back to order.

Can we please have the staff presentations in cases 2025-0030 and 2025-0034?

Thank you, Mr. Chair. This is Daniel McKenna Foster, Long Range Planning.

Good morning. So we had a request from the sponsors on the TSDO to— that the commission consider continuing this to October. So we don't have a lot prepared. There's a new version that's come out of a series of sort of public meetings and public outreach we've done. We continue to meet with anybody who wants to meet with us.

We went to University Area Community Council last week, Downtown Community Council. I went to Turnagain Community Council. We went to Rogers Park Community Council 2 weeks ago. We had a series of focus groups. We're putting out information on our newsletter.

Excited to say that we're getting more and more people subscribing to the newsletter, and with that, we're able to track how many people are opening it. We're getting more and more people, so the information progression is improving. But other than that, I, I think the, the major thing to report is that at this point, the proposal has been split into 2 concepts. One is an AO based on sort of allowing all the residential and dimensional standards, and then the second AO is about considering the mixed uses separately. That's a bit of a bigger conversation.

We did hear a lot in the public comment that some people loved more mixed uses, some people didn't, and then the question, of course, you know, do you have 2,000 square feet, 10,000 square feet? So all of these ordinances continue to evolve as we get more feedback, and we We did have a request to continue that, the discussion into October, at least at the Planning and Zoning Commission level. So I'd be glad to answer any questions. [SPEAKING SPANISH] Yeah. And I guess I will provide a quick maybe overview of where the current version is, the sort of, let's call it version 1, which is the main dimensional standards and the residential, not the mixed-use version.

Um, basically, I think we ended up with, um, there's a restriction on driveways, so driveways would be limited to 20 feet. All the residential would be a permitted use. Lot size would be unrestricted, minimum area, minimum width unrestricted, maximum lot coverage 100%, and setbacks would be 5 feet. And the heights— this is a pretty significant change— the heights are no longer 75 feet across the board. Actually, it's been two versions since it's been like this.

But the heights are based on the street classification. So on a local road, it's 40 feet. On a collector, it's 55 feet. On an arterial, it's 75 feet. And a freeway or expressway is 75 feet.

Um, I think those— that's the general— if there are any other changes. So I'd be glad to take any questions or provide any additional information. Thanks. Um, real quick, just to clarify, is it your recommendation that we open up the public hearing or continue the entire thing to October 6th?

Or I guess, uh, the public hearing is open. Is staff's recommendation that we take public— more public testimony tonight?

I think considering the, the members of the public in attendance, we would encourage that, have everybody get a chance to speak if they haven't spoken already.

All right, thank you. Commissioner Krishna, could you describe how the ordinance has been split into two ordinances and, uh, what each of them would now do?

Yeah, so it, it really came down to the uses. That seemed to be a sticking point where a lot of people, including the sponsors, wanted to have more discussions about that because that really does get into is this about residential uses or is it about mixed uses? Um, so the, the first ordinance, it really just says all residential uses are allowed and they're allowed at these dimensions. So the 100% lot coverage, no lot size restriction, 5-foot setbacks, and the heights that I mentioned. The second ordinance would look at, okay, do we want to expand the number of uses or the types of uses that are allowed?

So the non-residential stuff, and I keep saying non-residential because, you know, things like a clinic or a school or something that's not quite commercial that might, you know, people might want it in, in their neighborhood, or, you know, churches or places of worship are already allowed in many places. So that, um, I think it's kind of focusing on that first one now, which is looking at the dimensions, um, of, of the residential, and then the second piece later would be that other AO looking at the mixed uses.

Commissioner Rahn.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I really want to ask a follow-up question about the splitting of the AOs, but I think I'll hold perhaps until our next session.

But I will share, you know, kind of what the comp plan, as we all know, should and does— excuse me— what the comp plan previously said and does still say about TSDOs and the role that non-residential or commercial, um, you know, has within Atisdo. So I'll express appreciation that we haven't done away with that element, and I understand a need to perhaps carry two conversations at one time. Um, I will ask a question around the building heights and ask for a little more context about why changes were, were made there with respect to density and massing on already busy streets versus an approach that looks at the entire corridor as established by what's proposed with the TSDO.

Thank you, Commissioner Rahn. Through the Chair, it's a great question because in a lot of zoning codes across the country that have tried something like this, you do end up seeing a concentration of higher density along the roads that have the biggest adverse impacts— greater noise, greater asthma rates. You know, there's a lot of negative impacts that come from that. I think in terms of why that was something that we got a lot of feedback on, and so it was sort of thinking about— I guess you could— it is in a way maintaining the theme of tying our land use to our infrastructure. So if the OSH&P, this Official Streets and Highways Plan, is sort of designating where we expect different types of activity.

And it doesn't always have to be necessarily motor vehicle activity in the future, right? An arterial doesn't always have to be all vehicle traffic, all single occupancy vehicle traffic all the time. It could also be— those are also a lot of the facilities where you can have more bus routes or other type of activity. So I guess I would call it a compromise, but I also might kick it to the mayor's office to explain a little bit about that if you have any other comments. Yeah, I can speak to that a little bit.

Graham Downey, uh, Deputy Chief of Staff to Mayor Suzanne LaFrance. And, um, I can only speak, I think, to the mayor's intentions here, but I think members Baldwin-Day and Martinez were also in agreement that the intention of the ordinance was never to allow apartment buildings sort of in the middle of neighborhoods. Kind of that sudden single-family home up to a 75-foot story building was not the initial intention. I think when it was initially drafted We were told, and I think still believe, like, that's unlikely to happen. A person's not going to make that $20 million investment on a property.

But since it wasn't our intention, the building height sort of step down based on road classification seemed like a solution to allowing the 5-over-1 style development on the major roads while still having some incremental change, that 40-foot basically 3 stories, one, one increase in stories within neighborhoods, but not the same sort of dramatic change. So since the goal was incremental change as well as more development on the major routes, it seemed like an appropriate solution, but more ideas are of course welcome for achieving those goals.

Seeing Commissioner Rahn. Thank you, through the chair. I understand that some work around either creating new or gathering old data has, has happened with respect to TISDO. I'd appreciate input from the department or the sponsors to share a little more information about what we now know that we may not have previously known.

Through the chair, we just posted some information because I guess on the question of data, Anchorage, for most of the data we look at, we're looking at assessing data, so it's not perfect because we're looking— the way the assessor looks at property is a little bit different from the way we might look at it. Or, you know, we would love to get the number of certificates of occupancy and permits connected to that, but we don't necessarily. So that's the caveat of this data, but we have looked back and thinking about, you know, big picture, what are we doing, why. And I've made this comment at some of the presentations as well, right? This idea is about 20 years old, and so we're just— we're trying to implement it.

We're going to try it. We're going to see what works. And in looking back at the data since 2017, when 2040 was adopted and when the transit supportive corridor is really sort of enshrined in a map, we just— the first starting point was, well, how much development has happened in those corridors? Because a big piece of the 2040 plan was we want to focus development. There's a lot in there.

Another concept was the concept of a reinvestment focus area. Reading the plan, the idea was let's focus our infrastructure and resources in certain places and then we make the most of it. I think that still is a value of the community that we've heard and it still makes a lot of financial sense as well. So we went back and we looked at where has all the development been in the last— since 2017. And we did find that, you know, and again, we're working on CAMA data, so we're really just looking at when CAMA— when, excuse me, when the assessor notices that there's a new building constructed.

Constructed. So we use the year built. So we, we counted that there's about 1,635 parcels which has seen new development since, uh, 2017, which is when 2040 was developed— or excuse me, adopted. And only about 287 of those were in a transit corridor. So only about 17% of development has occurred in transit corridors since 2017.

So, and, and about 78% has occurred outside of transit corridors. In designated centers, it's about 9.2%, and in designated center in a transit corridor is about 5.6%. So just big picture rough data looking at— we haven't necessarily been achieving our goals in terms of focusing development in these core areas. And that's why I think this proposal is— it does look a little bit big, but when we look at the only data that we have or the only way we can track data, it seems like we haven't been following through on what we sort of all— we all agree to through the plan to do. And that's Let's put most of this stuff where stuff already exists, and then you get these economies of scale, and you get infrastructure stability— excuse me, efficiency, and that sort of thing.

I'm not sure if that's what you were asking for, Commissioner Rahn, but that's kind of where we're at. We posted that on our data page. And any other additional— we also, we post all the data we look at. It's these big Excel sheets. Anybody's welcome to use them.

They're all public data, and we're glad to talk through those too if anybody has any questions.

Commissioner Krishna. This is a smaller part of the, um, our packet, but I just want to talk for a little bit about, um, what page am I on? Page 2, um, the hours of operation in residential-based zones. I understand what the intent is here, which is trying to provide some security for a neighborhood when there's a small business operating in a residential area. But I'm worried that this isn't the right way to do this.

8:00 AM to 10:00 PM Monday through Saturday and noon to 10:00 PM on Sunday.

I completely understand the intention, which is trying to prevent excessive uses. But I think about the quintessential business you want next to your house, right, which is the coffee shop bakery, and they want to be open on Sunday morning. I'm confused about the— you can have an inn, but it has to close at 10 PM or can't open till noon. So I just— I think this needs a little bit more refining to get to the thing that both protects the community and allows something like this to actually be viable in the neighborhood context. Thanks, that's a really useful comment, and I think that's one, one example of why I think the uses conversation deserves its own ordinance and own conversation is sort of working through some of those details.

But great points.

Okay, we will open it up for public testimony. These cases were combined at the July 14th meeting. The public hearing is still open, and those who have testified previously may testify again. The time allotted for testimony will be continue to be doubled. So anybody that's wishing to testify, please come forward.

I got to press a button. I'll tell you when I see the red light. It's on. Okay, thank you. Thank you.

Uh, good evening, Commissioners. Um, I've never spoken before you guys, or really the assembly. Please state your name and let us know if you're representing yourself or a group. Yes, my name is Marilyn Pillafont, and you spell it like pill if ant. Okay, and I'm speaking as an individual tonight.

I am a 59-year Alaskan resident, and My community council does not meet in the summertime, so we were pretty shocked and excited about what was going on with this TSDO thing. What is TSDO? What does that mean? And what, what does it all involve? What would the consequences of, of this new building parameters be?

I know the Federation of Community Councils has their newsletter and they advertise, and I think it's called Local Lens, and that's where I first saw the information. And then of course, as people in the neighborhoods started hearing more about it, you know, all this stuff, everybody's getting excited, and we really didn't know anything about it. So I picked up all the packet you had out there tonight and been reading through it, and it's a lot to take in. There's a lot of lingo in there that, you know, I don't know anything about. I'm going to have to do quite a bit of research to figure it out.

But wondering where else would Planning and Zoning Commission advertise any of these kinds of new developments? I know you're talking about the comprehensive plan, and it's like 20, 40 years old already. But where else would you advertise so people would know, especially in the neighborhoods that would be impacted?

Anybody know? Um, I guess we could respond if you're done with your testimony, but well, not really set up for interaction. Oh, I see. Okay, well, I guess my, my understanding is that The assembly is not really going to take this up until December. Another question I guess I have, um, and if that is the case, um, I, I would be really urging you to provide more opportunities for public comment, public learning, um, um, just to learn about this and understand what that would mean for their neighborhood and, um, um just maybe supply modifications if they have them, suggestions that way to TSDO.

But I hope there will be many more opportunities for public comment before you, you as a commission adopt it or, or do whatever it is you're going to do. But I guess that's my biggest thing is that people need more time. I certainly need more time. I, I don't really understand a lot of what's in here tonight, um, but like I said, I've been reading through it and kind of getting a hint of what it is. But if you could please postpone voting on these two, and also I just learned that they were just— this was divided into two separate ordinances.

So that's something else now, you know, that I just learned. I don't know if anybody else knows that in my community, but please reconsider more public comment and opportunity and advertising it, you know, widely so people know. That's all I have. Thank you. And I will just say that we're just volunteers here, so— but the, the staff the mayor's office.

They— those are the people in charge of advertising and outreach. Okay, and maybe I should talk to them. Anyway, I hope they heard what I was saying. We'll pass it along to the mayor and, um, take it to heart because it's really important. And the recommendation is to continue the public hearing till the 6th, um, October 6th.

So that means more time to digest and testify. Well, for me it does, but for—. And I will just say that we, we make record— we'll make a recommendation to the assembly, and then there'll be another public testimony at the assembly where this will all get voted on. So, well, I hope it's postponed at least till November so we have—. Oh, if we're—.

It's going to be here till October, it'll be— you'll be talking about it into November. Okay, thank you very much.

Anybody else wishing to testify, please step forward.

Hello again. Uh, my name is Alexa Dobson, and right now I am testifying as a homeowner in Fairview. Um, so I actually am an owner-occupant and landlord of a fourplex in Fairview, and I love it, and I think that more people should have the opportunity to have these sorts of living arrangements. So that's a big part of why I support ordinances like this one. So you have heard from me before on the TSDO, and I remain strongly in support of it.

You've heard me talk about why I think it's great and my hopes for how it will transform our community. But today I want to talk about the opposition. So here are some of the objections that we've heard, and I'll be kind of quoting or.

Phrasing. There is no justification for changing the zoning when there are already unused lots elsewhere that could be used for higher density housing. Community councils oppose the change. I am comfortable the way it is and no changes are necessary. That one is a direct quote, by the way.

We are concerned about sunlight blockage with the height of the developments. We are concerned about the impact on parking and traffic as a result of higher density. Higher density housing would negatively impact the scale and nature of our neighborhoods as well as the shared community resource of street parking. And finally, our community will experience change as Anchorage continues to grow. Higher density housing will likely be part of that development.

The challenge will be to plan thoughtfully so that new projects can integrate harmoniously with existing residences and neighborhood qualities. Rezoning this single lot to such a high density, in great contrast to the neighborhood in which it sits, is not a step in the right direction. So that last one probably gave it away— those aren't from the TSDO testimony. Those are pulled directly from the public testimony on the July 2016 rezoning proposal that allowed the cottages at 11th and Cordova to be built. As we know, that rezone did go through and those cottages were built.

So nearly 10 years later, we should look back and ask, have the predicted disasters come to pass? Is 11th and Cordova a dark shaded wasteland of car traffic jams and blocked ambulances? Did adjacent property values plummet? Of course not. So I encourage you to keep this example in mind when you hear the exact same objections levied against the TSDO tonight and into the future.

And since I have a little bit more time, one piece that I do wanna talk a little bit more about that I have seen in the TSDO, for real, the TSDO testimony so far, is a lot of objection to the idea that there are gonna be more cars in my neighborhood. And I really think that the point of the TSDO, and if we execute this well, we are going to address that issue from both sides, both by having denser housing in particular areas that is going to facilitate a more functioning transit system, which allows people to make the choice to take trips other than by car. Because right now, for so many people in our city, cars are the default, if not the only way that you can get around. And on the other hand, by allowing more mixed uses in neighborhoods, we can also eliminate some of those car trips. If you don't have to get in your car and drive to go to the nearest coffee shop, you can walk next door, right?

So the idea that the TSDO is going to result in higher car traffic in neighborhoods, I understand where that comes from because we live in a city that is laid out to really favor car use over every other form of transportation, but that is the reason why it's the Transit Supportive Development Overlay, right? We are trying to create more options for people to get around. So ideally, that concern about cars, you know, if this really does go right, we will be addressing that concern. I think that's all I want to say. Thank you.

Thank you. I see no questions.

Next, come on up. Come on up.

Thank you. My name is Greg Shoemaker. I don't know if you need me to spell it out or— it's fine. I live in Rogers Park and I'm speaking on behalf of myself. I did attend the special presentation on Monday, August 25th.

By Mr. Downey, I believe, and Erin Baldwin-Day. And just wanted to— I guess Marilyn had stated earlier, but she's left, but I didn't know if there's ways to ask questions, but did have questions that came up during the meeting, uh, and just some overall concerns with the way the presentation went. It sounded like from the presentation, especially from Erin Baldwin-Day, that the transit supportive development overlay is presented to basically increase the use of public transportation. And I'm all in favor of high-density housing, or I'm against suburban sprawl, but the idea was presented is that if you have high-density housing, that will increase public transportation in Anchorage. And I don't know— nothing was proven to say that that is the case, or that if they do increase high-density housing, that more people will use public transportation.

Um, which leads to my next point regarding the walkability of Anchorage and especially residential areas. As I mentioned, I live in Rogers Park and I walk 3 to 4 days a week in the neighborhood down to Chester Creek Trail and around the neighborhood. Um, in the winter, I'm one of the minorities who's out there walking, and I don't see very many people at the bus stop to use public transportation. So I don't see anywhere in the ordinance where it changes the overall walkability of the city. Does that mean increase in sidewalks?

We don't have sidewalks, or very limited sidewalks, in Rogers Park. Does that mean increase in the plowing of the bus stops or access to the bus stops? I don't see people who are going to be moving into these areas— if they moved into a fourplex, threeplex, or whatever that means How are they going to access the public transportation if they can't get there? Or as a family, how are they going to carry their groceries through the street if it's snowed and it isn't plowed for a couple days? That's not feasible.

So it's not realistic if you're going to say we're going to have the high density and that's increased the public transportation. It's not one feeds the other. I don't think that's realistic. The other point that I have is regarding affordable housing. We had a young gentleman present earlier saying that he's looking for housing.

I understand that. That's a very good point. Housing prices, as were stated in the presentation, have gone up from $300,000 to $500,000. Rent has gone up 15% in a single year. That's ridiculous.

But I don't see anywhere in the ordinance that this is going to change the affordability of the housing that's built in these areas. Is there any rent control? I didn't see anything that— and under that in the ordinance. Does that mean the people who are building to the full maximum usage of the lot and set up a multiplex are going to have lower rents than other places in town? Or is it just a supply and demand issue that you determine that that's going to lower the overall rentals across Anchorage?

I don't think that anybody who's building a lot is going to do another altruistic approach to say that they're not going to make the maximum profit off that location.

Also, with the tax abatement, we have to wait 20 to 28 years depending on the bonus area for us to see the taxes of that individual who's getting the benefit for that lot to actually benefit the other people in the neighborhood, because we're going to be covering their costs. They still have to pay for the land taxes, but they don't have to pay for the units. That's a pretty good deal for any developer or anybody who's got an opportunity to go in there and purchase a lot or has an empty space that they want to develop on. So I think there's other ways to actually approach this. As Marilyn stated, I attend or listen to all the community council meetings.

I get all the emails. The only reason I found out about this is during one of my walks I met a neighbor who brought up this thing about TSDO, and I was completely shocked that this had even been presented. Usually all the community councils, especially Rogers Park, they're very good about getting all that information out to anybody who's available on the email system. I never saw one email. I never saw it.

I said, this can't be true. I had to look on the media, and I did find out that was true. That makes me question the timing and why this was presented during the summer when most community councils are closed for the summer. And it's nice to have an opportunity to prolong this till October. But as Marilyn stated, this should have plenty of open public comments because this is a huge change in the rezoning to the entire city that— of anybody falls under the overlay.

So I just want to make sure that that's addressed and the concerns there are, uh, heard. So thank you very much for your time, and I truly appreciate it.

Thank you for your testimony.

Anybody else wishing to testify?

Don't let me, uh, wait too long, I'll close it. Oh, sorry. Uh, Brad Neugebauer again. Uh, been living here since 1984, and you know, you all should listen to the gray hairs in the room that have been here in the city a long time, and we've seen all the changes. Can you, uh, state your name again?

Brad Neugebauer. Sorry, spell that please.

N-E-U-G-E-B-A-U-E-R. Thank you. I have a bachelor's and a master's in engineering, and my whole career was in engineering, and this all smacks to me of the Title 21 rewrite we went through. I don't know what it was, 10 years ago. You know, it was just a mess.

The public was just up in arms. Again, the same issue— where was the public involvement? You know, we— I don't know if y'all were here then, but we've gone through this before, and you're hearing again tonight, and you probably heard it in some of the things you've gotten. You can't just force these things down on citizens, you know. Um, I know y'all have jobs to do and y'all have things, but what's the deadline here and what's their goal?

It seems like.

You're trying to whack 50 moles at once with this thing, and I don't, I don't quite understand that approach. I mean, there's the question of all the flight to the valley. Where is everyone moving? Um, you, your statistics seem off where you said we had all these plans to do all these expansions along this corridor, and yet you said like 90% of the new buildings that went in since 2017 We're outside that corridor. Well, gee, that's where all the open land is.

That corridor that you guys have whitewashed, that's all been developed. That's old housing. You should look at when those houses were built in those areas. A lot of this stuff has been here forever, and there's not very many lots open there. It's all these other— South Anchorage and all these other places.

Sure, the developers are going to go in where there's the land. They're not going to go in and tear down an existing structure. Unless it's true to be demolished. You know, it's just that we have places like that in town. But there's just some really excellent testimony in here that people have, have written about.

And, uh, the thing that concerns me, I guess, is does this really address the affordability for young people like this gentleman here? I mean, I was a young person when I came here. I was, what, 23 years old then? And it is a problem. Bus routes.

Well, gee, I used to be able to take the bus from the end of my street on Strawberry, but y'all eliminated that route. So what's the guarantee you're not going to move the routes around again? You have this big plan, you're going to have all this development. Oh, we gotta— you know, like else somebody said here is, just because you do this, does that mean people are going to keep the buses full on those routes? Who knows, you know.

So the routes may be eliminated. So that You know, you're kind of hoping, there's a lot of hope in this. The other thing is you're just creating uncertainty. You know, if I'm a builder, I'm not, but I'm thinking, oh, I got all these projects, I'm calling on my guys, let's hold because there's this big new thing coming and we may want to change our plans based on it. And this really affects me personally because we were going to do an ADU to our home a few years ago.

And when they, when the muni said, We're going to allow that, but we were R-1, and y'all kept us to the 30% lot coverage. R-1 ADU, 30%, and we couldn't make it work. And we did all the design, and we came up with this little addition. It was— we didn't really like it, and luckily we didn't put it in because this April you guys changed it again and you went to 40% lot coverage for R-1. And I didn't know that was happening except my wife and I, we walk through neighborhoods from our house and we see, what is that guy doing over there?

He can't do that. And then I looked at his permit, 40%. I didn't even know that had been changed. So y'all don't roll things out very well for people. This is again just like the Title 21 thing we went through 10 years ago or whenever it was.

I don't know, it just seemed like you're trying to capture too many things at once and maybe just focus on a few things and not roll out this massive rewrite. Basically, it's like a new Title 21, looks like to me, that is really complicated, and a lot of normal people aren't going to understand it. They're going to have fears about— like we heard the gentleman, they were worried about duplexes changing characters, neighborhoods. These are real concerns of people, you know, and you've got to address them somehow. And the other thing is, I looked at your map where you whited out these new areas.

And it just looks so arbitrary to me because you had like a neighborhood where on that street one side of it was in this new thing and the other side of it wasn't. It's like, you know, it's the same neighborhood. So it seemed like you need to kind of adjust your pencil a little bit to say, okay, the whole neighborhood is affected or not just half of it. You know, you're either in or you're out of this thing, you know. And not just— I don't know if you use a 1-mile radius or how you drew it, but it's Doesn't make much sense to me, but anyway, I'll be back.

And all I can say is buckle up because this is going to— as you roll this out, the people are going to ask a lot of questions and y'all better be ready to answer them in words that we can understand and not these pages after pages of tables and stuff that are just, you know, this is very complicated code here and I saw a lot of them in my engineering career. Thank you. Thank you.

Uh, Mr. Chair, can I ask a procedural question about testifying before I give my testimony? I testified at the last meeting as, um, chair of Rabbit Creek Community Council. I want to make sure it's appropriate for me to testify again on the same issue. Um, I believe the answer is yes.

Okay. And then I just want to also make sure that that's not going to preclude me from testifying in October when we see whatever these two warrants ordinances actually look like, because I believe when the substantial change to the case, that we then allow people to testify again. Great, thank you very much for clarifying that for me. So Tim Alderson, uh, chair of the Rabbit Creek Community Council. Um, I'd like to preface my comments by saying this is not an official, uh, interpret— uh, position of the community council because we have not yet had a chance to meet and weigh in on this.

When I testified at our last meeting, we had met and voted on those comments. Um, they When they extended the discussion at the last meeting, they set up a community council working group through the Federation of Community Councils. We were not on that. There was 5 community councils that were selected, which was appropriate because we don't have Tisdale area in our boundaries. But my comments today are based on my interpretation of the findings out of those meetings that were circulated amongst the people who did attend amongst leadership in the various community councils.

And I'll present this as I will present it to our land use committee to form an official position that we'll then vote on to bring back to you. So that's, I just wanted to preface my comments. This is a lot of editorializing on my part. The TSDO appears to rely on aspirational density thresholds, 25 and 36 dwelling units per acre, without providing any baseline data or modeling to demonstrate feasibility. There is no estimate of current dwelling units per acre within the overlay area, nor projections of how many housing units would be required to meet transit supportive thresholds.

Given Anchorage's negative population growth, this raises critical questions about the build-out timelines and capacity. If it will take multiple decades to reach these thresholds, then the overlay lacks both short and midterm utility. Section 2, Item 4 undermines the very premise of transit-oriented development by removing the commitment to concurrent expansion of high-frequency transit service. Deferring transit improvements until ridership demand materializes is circular logic and contradicts FTA and supported TOD models. Transit investment must precede or coincide with density to shift mode share.

The overlay proposes 100% lot coverage allowances and eliminates critical dimensional standards, setbacks, height restrictions, private open space without corresponding analysis of infrastructure impacts. There is no modeling of increased impervious surface and stormwater loading in already stressed drainage basins. Traffic volume and circulation changes with added density and reduced setbacks, parking demand, or associated spillover impacts, impacts the solar access, wind corridors, and microclimate in residential zones. Without infrastructure capacity analysis or a financing plan, this overlay represents an unfunded mandate. The TSDO presumes that land use regulations are primary barrier to development, yet Anchorage has had supportive land use policies for over 2 decades without producing a single functional walkable urban node.

This suggest that zoning is not the constraint. Economic, demographic, and market factors are. The TSDO does not address those. This process has bypassed fundamental best practices in long-range planning. There is no clear public-facing analysis of development yield potential, opportunity site targeting, prioritization of underutilized parcels, trade-offs between commercial and residential land uses, or community impact mitigation.

We recommend the administration Pause the process and redirect efforts toward data-informed pilot overlay in one or two high-potential areas where supportive zoning, community buy-in, and transit investment can converge. This would allow for iterative testing, performance tracking, and scalable deployment. The TISDO as currently proposed lacks the foundational technical underpinnings to function as a credible tool for shaping Anchorage's urban form. Without integrated transit planning, realistic growth modeling, and infrastructure financing, an overlay risks, producing diffuse development patterns, weakened public trust, and costly downstream impacts. Um, one last comment.

I spent 2 years on the Stormwater Utility Steering Committee, and I understand there's an initiative with the administration to get that process back on track. Um, the stormwater utility was an economic development project first, and it was all designed to encourage high-density housing like the TSDO is supposed to support. And the idea with it was through setting up the utility, you could offset some of the cost to developers to encourage this kind of development. The kind of zoning changes that are coming out of TSDO is counter to all of the green best practices that were supposed to be supported with the stormwater utility. So there's two competing initiatives that are getting back on track here, and they're going to.

Working against each other. We were told during that process that Anchorage had $1 billion in unfunded stormwater infrastructure improvements that were, they had no plan for how to do it or how to pay for it. That's the problem the utility was going to solve. And on top of that, that the discharge into the inlet was approaching levels that was going to put them in violation of their MS4 permit from the EPA. This Tisdale development as it is now with these 100% lot coverages, no green spaces, no consideration of how parking impacts, is only going to exacerbate what their own analysis already shows is a billion-dollar problem.

It's a very small part of this, but it's a part of it that people aren't talking about. And as that stormwater utility process gets back on track, track, I think it's important for that to be part of the conversation. Thank you. I'd just like to respond that this is the zoning code and stormwater is regulated in the Design Criteria Manual, Chapter 2 of the DCM. Duly noted.

That's part of the building permit process. So by changing the zoning code, we have not changed our stormwater regulations or the infrastructure that a building would be required to put in. So just—. Can I comment on that? Nope.

Actually, I think you have time. I think you do have time. Your point is well taken. My point is it's a public meeting. You guys are public leaders, and so it's an opportunity to raise an issue.

And, um, you guys, you're a builder. There's other builders, people here. This is the thing that needs to be discussed, so I hope you'll take it in that spirit. Yeah, thank you. And next, come on up.

Good evening. My name is Jonah Rothleder, R-O-T-H-L-E-D-E-R. I'll be speaking in a personal manner tonight. So I've lived in Anchorage for over a decade now, and I currently live in the North Star area. During my time here, I have rented from various corporations and have been able to purchase my current residence.

I'm here to testify in support of the TSDO ordinance as well as urge you to recombine it with the mixed-use ordinance that was recently separated. I do this because I want to live in a city that allows for its citizens to have ways of Building community and families. I envision a city where families— where a family's winter routine involves not chipping ice and warming a vehicle, but rather walking to a child care center before parents take a bus from a transit center to their jobs, releasing them from the stressors of driving in challenging road conditions in our winter. At the end of the day, this happens in reverse, but they're able to stop in at micro grocery stops, pick picking up items for a meal. Later on, the children are able to go— the children— the family is able to go to mix like arcades or pool halls to spend time.

The denser development will allow— a planned out denser development will allow for this to be— this will allow builders in the city to make more creative plans for the future, concentrating already strapped resources and revitalizing older sections of the city. I hear what many people are saying and that there are many aspects that need to be hashed out, but I do believe in this ordinance would create a much more vibrant city. And we saw that many cities that have mixed-use areas had better bounce back post-COVID. And we see that it is those who live in these centers that are really what drive them. And so I'm— like I said before, urge for the mixed-use to come back in.

Thank you. Thank you.

Good evening. Jason Norris speaking in my personal capacity. I'm an economist and a planner, and I was on the focus group formed after the first meeting here in July. And when I last stood before you, I brought facts and science about why this concept works, and I urged the municipality to prioritize the basic needs of the future over the mere preferences of the past. I do apologize tonight that I'll instead appeal to emotion, because what this process— public process so far has shown me is that emotion gets results and facts and science are dismissed.

I'm here to express my disappointment with the watering down of what was the great and aspirational proposal that came before you in July. Admittedly, that version needed some tweaks and consideration, but what's before you tonight is neuter to the point as to be unrecognizable. And why is that? Is it the natural outgrowth of a comprehensive public process that has placed great value on the positive beneficial outcomes that to be realized by our most marginalized neighbors and our future generations? No, it's the knee-jerk response to the howls and protestations of our richest and most privileged.

So let's be honest with ourselves. Proposed ordinance has been weakened to appease those who will never be appeased. These are the same people who came into these chambers last June and screamed that duplexes— yes, duplexes— were an affront and would ruin their neighborhoods. And yet now they're being given outsized influence on this process when their only goal is to kill anything beneficial to housing or to water it down so that it has minimal effect. And so now we see lies, fear, anger, and conspiracy theories about this being introduced in the summer all being thrown around in our public discourse.

We also see housing advocates being shouted down and disparaged in various public forums. And that, Commissioners, is the enhanced public process that was begged for in July solidly at work.

Meanwhile, those who would benefit most from TSDO are working their second or third job to hang on to a rental that's barely inhabitable. Are looking at colleges in the lower 48 or already there and giving up on moving back to the city they love. I mean, Commissioner Pulis, you mentioned at the last meeting there was a back and forth about people who do or don't show up, and you said maybe they have a job, maybe they have 2 or 3, and maybe we're still not hearing from them, and we need to.

So I'm watching the clock tick on my own kids' time before they have to make their own decisions. And while that clock ticks, I'm forced to hear people drone on about neighborhood character and how that matters more than anything else. So let's be clear, neighborhood character is never used to be more inclusive or to build more housing. It's always used to exclude, deflect, or defend against a perceived horde of lesser-thans.

Quite frankly, I'm sick of a public process that prioritizes voices who advocate for putting people who can't afford housing in jail while also advocating against anything that would make housing more attainable. It's unconscionable to me that someone could stand here at this podium knowing that there are still to this day race-based covenants recorded on their properties and argue that maintenance of their rich lily-white enclaves be uniquely and universally respected. And perhaps most disappointing of all is the seemingly overwhelming desire to capitulate, as evidenced by the proposal that's before you now. We still have time to salvage this, and if you don't, then please just acknowledge to people like me that the single mom living in her car or my kids just mean less.

They matter less. They are far less consideration and consequence than those who got theirs decades ago and don't care what that means for anybody else.

If we're a city that is legitimately more concerned about shadows from buildings than we are from people that could be in them, then instead of those shadows being monuments to our willingness to do what was right, we're going to have a city where the sun shines forever on our failure. So please vote to send a bolder proposal than what is before you tonight to the assembly. Thank you.

Uh, we got some questions here. Commissioner Krishna. Yes, you've described the, the current proposal as watered down. I'm curious, which elements do you think should be put back into the proposal? Is it the height— heights being lowered off the collector streets?

Could you give us some more detail? Through the chair, I do appreciate the question. Uh, when I came before you originally, I said that 75 may not be the correct height. It may be too much in some cases but not enough in others, and I stand by that. The problem is we haven't gone up from there anywhere.

During the focus group, I did put forward, um, an idea where the town centers are, are basically treated the same as anywhere else in here, although they should theoretically have a higher density. So what I had suggested, uh, in line with the testimony I provided you, is go taller in the town centers and then step down moving back each lot until you've equalized with the surrounding area so that you avoid what some people are bringing up about— you don't want this, uh, forever situation where you have a great disparity in heights. I understand that not every idea I have can be implemented. That was one of them. I don't see a reason for the setbacks being implemented because some of the great neighborhoods around the nation that we look at, like the Painted Ladies in San Francisco or brownstones in New York, are right up against each other.

That also carries with it some great environmental benefits because when you have them together, you're not heating— you're not fighting the cold between.

And so, I mean, those are just a couple of things. And to be clear, I, I took a pretty negative tone in my testimony tonight, but there are some positive things that have come of it too. So I do want to acknowledge that.

Maybe less of a follow-up question than maybe a comment or question to staff, which is just that, you know, my understanding is that most town centers on our map are really at the intersection of two collector streets. I would imagine that we'd be at the 75-foot height limit for those anyway. But I'd be, I guess, curious to see the overlay when we look at the map next. Um, thank you. You're welcome.

I see no further questions. Thank you for your testimony. Thank you. Anybody else wishing to testify, please step forward.

Maybe give, uh, Lori 1 minute or 30 seconds, or— okay, go ahead, state your name for the record. Oh, first We'll get the mic on. There you go. My name is David Evans, and I'm a member of the Rogers Park Transportation Committee.

Are you speaking on behalf of the group, or you're just a member? I'm speaking on behalf of the Transportation Committee. Okay.

Oh, that's too much.

Okay, go. All right, so you probably read in the paper that the Rogers Park Community Council passed a resolution at a special meeting on October I mean, it was August 25th. And I just wanted to reiterate a couple items from that resolution. I'll read directly from it. One of the whereases said the TSDO process has occurred too quickly and without sufficient time for the council to consider a more nuanced response.

And then it was resolved that the council, one, strongly opposes the TSDO as currently proposed August 18 edition, requests that the TSDO be postponed indefinitely, and supports adopted community values until a comprehensive public process amends them.

And that resolution was approved 94 in 22 against with 1 abstention. And speaking for the Transportation Committee, we support better transit and more affordable housing, but the current TSDO is not the right solution. And we hope that the TSDO process will be slowed down, that the project team will do a better job of public involvement, and that Rogers Park can eventually pass a resolution supporting a reasonable TSDO and postponing or extending your hearing until October 20th. So you have two meetings on the calendar. One is October 6th and one is October 20th.

And that's because the 13th is Columbus Day. And extending it to the October 20th would help Rogers Park possibly passing a resolution that could support a reasonable TSDO. And I hope that you will consider that when you debate which date in October you're going to extend the public hearing to. And I was one of the people that organized the special meeting for Rogers Park Community Council, and I distributed— I and a number of others personally encountered over 30 homeowners in distributing the flyer, and only 2 of those 30 had heard of the TSDO, and none of them are aware of the incredibly impactful proposed changes, and none were aware of the July 14th PCC hearing. And with due respect, that indicates a woefully inadequate community engagement process.

Cost of notice is not an excuse for lack of due public process for an action as impactful as this, and it is not appropriate to primarily rely on volunteers such as community councils or me to spread the word. Prior to a PCC hearing on land use changes of this magnitude, the city has an ethical obligation, if not a legal one, to inform every affected landowner and attempt to include them in the conversation in a comprehensive community engagement process. And the TISDA development should be put on hold until this important work has been done, and extending your hearing to October 20th would be a great way to help with that.

Thank you. And this might be like the engineer looking up at the the guillotine about to come down and saying, I see the problem, but you're giving people 10 minutes and 6 minutes and not 5 minutes and 3 minutes.

So go ahead, Mr. Chair. In response to the commission about that last comment, my understanding is that we're hearing two cases combined, and so we've doubled our time. We're abiding by the process that we've established. Yes, I didn't read that at the beginning.

Yeah, it was a while back. Yeah, lots has happened, but, uh, That is why I ask if you're speaking on behalf of yourself or a group. So welcome. Let us know. Good evening.

My name is Will Walker. I live in Spenard, speaking on my— as an individual. I've previously spoken on behalf of TISDAU in support and want to reiterate my support. I love Anchorage. I think it's already a great place to be, but I think it can be an even greater place to live, especially for, you know, young people and people who are having trouble getting into the housing market here.

We know we have a housing shortage, and I think that TSDO is one of the ways that we can address that. I've lived and visited many great neighborhoods in many places. I lived in a neighborhood in Washington, D.C., Eastern Market. I lived on the ground floor of a low-roof house, didn't have setbacks on the side, kind of, you know, me and another young professional lived on that floor, and then a teacher and another young professional lived on the second floor. And we had walkability, we had a dry cleaner across the street and like cafes nearby and public transit.

I currently live in Spenard and I could see Spenard having similar features. We have bus routes going through Spenard, we have mixed-use on Spenard, we call for transit support corridors in the Spenard Corridor Plan, and there's no reason we can't have great neighborhoods here in Anchorage. We've kind of maxed out a lot of the kind of easy kind of development in the region, and now we're kind of up against Chugach and the inlet and the base. And so we need to figure out how are we going to maximize kind of infill development, especially where we already have infrastructure along kind of bigger roads and bigger corridors, and ideally have that kind of positive relationship between transit and housing. And I think Tisdale can be a part of that.

I see no reason why we can't, you know, have a positive vision for what it looks like to live in Anchorage. I think some of the changes to, to this version, I would, you know, as similar to Commissioner Krishna, I'd consider looking at kind of the hours for kind of the mixed-use and residential areas, because I think some of the potential kind of great things like a cafe or bakery would benefit from having some earlier hours, especially on Sundays, but also during the weekdays. I think that we should look at still minimizing setbacks, ideally zero. There's still kind of fire code things that would come into effect when that matters. But you would, again, as Peter Sassafras mentioned, would exclude a lot of the neighborhoods that have been great in a lot of other cities, as I experienced in D.C., as we might see in New York.

As we might see in Boston or San Francisco where you have those row houses without setbacks. And especially in winter environments where you have that one fewer, actually potentially one or two fewer kind of sides that helps with insulation, lower kind of heating and electrical costs because you have kind of fewer exterior-facing walls. So again, very much supportive of TSDO. I think there, another thing to mention A lot of the comments I read in the packet were about kind of other issues, whether that's kind of parking or snow removal or parking access, street parking. And those are certainly important things to be considering, but, you know, this is related to zoning, and zoning can't itself fix everything, you know.

And so I think it's important to kind of keep those in mind but also be working on those you know, any kind of spillover effects where it's appropriate and keep them in mind. But this is related to zoning. I don't think zoning is an appropriate vehicle to kind of be effective to fix every possible issue. So thank you, and I encourage your support, um, to the assembly. Thank you.

Thank you.

Uh, anybody else wishing to testify in person before we move on to the telephone testimony?

My name is Clay Davis. I'll be, uh, representing myself. Thanks for hearing our comments this evening, really late, taking time away from your families. A lot of the.

A lot of speakers here tonight and a lot of people opposing the TSDO are current homeowners and have a secure place in Anchorage. I want to speak on behalf of the thousands of future Anchorage residents who would benefit from this project. My wife and I moved to Anchorage a few months ago. We were super excited, a little nervous, and we were hoping to buy a house and put down some roots here.

When we started our search for housing, though, looking on Zillow, We realized that a house in a walkable neighborhood with access to trails or even a condo in one of those neighborhoods is probably going to be out of our reach. We both have good jobs, we both work, but even then prices were pretty exorbitant.

When we— I think Anchorage desperately needs higher density housing. To provide those options for younger people, uh, and new families that are just starting out. Uh, Anchorage has the potential to be a world-class city. Uh, the access to the outdoors is unmatched. My wife and I go hiking in the Chuyach all the time.

Uh, we go backpacking. Uh, and I think, uh, adding affordable housing and urban life is the one thing that the city needs to be absolutely perfect. Uh, increasing the density would allow new talent to come to the city and provide areas for new coffee shops, restaurants and places for people to gather.

Additionally, it would increase tax revenue, which I think would be great to finance a lot of these public works projects that you hear. Additionally, I agree with Commissioner Christian. I think the business hours should be expanded. My wife and I's favorite thing to do on a Sunday morning is walk down to our local coffee shop and grab a coffee, and I think restricting hours to keeping businesses closed until noon would be a detriment to this plan.

The TISDO will no doubt face efforts to delay it or halt it from those who already have a secure place in Anchorage, but upzoning efforts like this are not made just for them, but also for all the people that want to move here and enjoy this amazing city, and all the people are just starting out on their professional careers.

They're made for— upzoning efforts like this are made for our children and grandchildren who deserve an Anchorage with affordable homes and further delays, uh, are just going to kick this can down the road, uh, and it'll be 10 years later and I will still be looking to buy a house on Zillow. To the council, uh, please, uh, do not delay the TSDO any more than you need to, uh, and to my fellow Anchorage residents, I know change can be scary, uh, but I ask you to join me in supporting the TSDO, uh, to ensure Anchorage remains a wonderful place to live in the future. Uh, specifically, Some changes I have for the TSDO are to revise the setbacks back to 0 feet. I too have lived in cities where there are no setbacks, and I think it adds tremendous character when the buildings are all next to each other and would maximize our limited space that other citizens have commented on. Additionally, I think we should extend the height requirement back out to 75 feet on collector and feeder— or collector and local roads to maximize the space as well.

And allow that development to spread outside the main roads. Thanks for your time.

Thank you. Okay, we're going to the phone, or are we? Okay.

Hello? Hello, is this Duncan Fisher speaking? Hi, Mr. Fisher, this is the Planning and Zoning Commission. We're calling for public testimony in cases 2025-0030 and 2025-0034.

Are you testifying as an individual or on behalf of a group? As an individual. Thank you. You'll have 6 minutes to testify. Please state your full name for the record and begin your testimony.

Thank you. Thank you, staff. Thank you, commissioners. My name is Duncan Fisher. I'm a resident of East Anchorage.

I'm hoping what I have to say has some amount of impact on your opinions. TSDO, as it stands today, is an extremely encouraging and also slightly worrying proposal. I applaud the efforts to plan Anchorage as a truly urban city for the first time in more than 70 years, but I worry that crucial details are being misaligned in ways that could have unintended negative effects for years. This though is great in that it is widespread. The way that you mitigate individual concerns about redevelopment is by spreading it over a broad area.

This is for people who are concerned about a 7-story apartment building going up next to their house. There's not many— even if all of this went through, there's not many 7-story apartment buildings going up in 2026 or '27 or '28. If you spread this over a broad area, many— the amount of people who that is happening to is very small. The likelihood of new development near you drops off drastically as the area in which new development is permitted expands. It sounds counterintuitive, but the way to limit localized impacts is by broadening the urban area impacted.

This is also a big, bold step that hasn't been undertaken in many years. The 2040 Land Use Plan is a misnomer. For anybody familiar, it is more than 50 plans all standing on top of one another in the trench coat. There are— for people who are saying there's not enough public comment, there are hundreds of hours of public comment on like 2040 land use plan over 40 years. Like, this is a living document of many, many, many people's input.

To say that there's not been public impact input on this of all things is silly.

The, uh, 2050— 2040 land use plan is— yeah, it's Our zoning, especially with regards to 2040, is not any better. It's reactive, it's fractured, and it's inconsistent. Anybody whose day job involves land use can speak to this, especially the members of this commission. This provides the uniform overlay that will provide much more flexibility and use in urban design that's been missing from acreage for decades. We don't need this hyper-consolidation like we've been seeing.

I don't know if you are familiar with, uh, Marston Manor. For all this talk about neighborhood centers where we can put things, that was a neighborhood of 14 duplexes on the corner of Northern Lights and Spinnard. Where Northern Lights Center is now. Walter Hickel owned that. He built those Fortune duplexes.

He turned it into the Northern Lights Center. He tore them down. That changed from a neighborhood of duplexes to now a shopping center and has been for 50 years. Like, this stuff is malleable. We choose what we're doing.

Tisdale, that being said, also is full of small pain points. 100% Lot coverage is crazy. I don't No, no, how we got to 100%, but like, it's not hard to look at other cities internationally and see how this is done properly. You can build to 75 feet and comfortably house well over 35 units an acre by just doing 50% lot coverage and putting the building to the front of the lot. It's very simple.

No side setbacks, a big back setback. You get a courtyard block. You can urbanize all of Anchorage very comfortably by doing this. And without all of this bickering over where the TISDO lies and where the line is. 75-Foot building heights do not create unpleasant urban areas.

Lifeless zoning and anti-growth planning do. 40-Foot heights with 100% lot coverage, save for setbacks, will make neighborhoods exactly into what anti-change advocates are worried about. If you really want a miserable urban neighborhood, build 100% lot coverage at 40 feet. Go look at Zurich or Paris or Vienna and neighborhoods that are 60 to 75 feet very comfortably and much more light and airy and livable on a very different scale than what we do. Additionally, the distance from transit delineation is an abdication of planning.

Like the gentleman earlier said, you have these neighborhoods that are carved up. It's very silly. You can have one house in Tisdale, the neighbor is not. One house across the street, the other one isn't. Rather than nitpicking the border in every neighborhood, we should just be bold and apply this to all neighborhoods within a much larger radius.

We can cover most of the bowl. Anybody where— any neighborhood that has semi-trucks driving through it could accommodate apartment buildings. We already run them past apartment buildings as it is, and homes. Let us build the city like a city. This ordinance as it stands excludes some of the neighborhoods most in need of redevelopment because of the arbitrary distance measurement.

People travel all over the world to visit those world cities that I mentioned earlier, and much more. Many dense cities without 40-foot lot restrictions in the middle of the city. The time has come to stop regulating every building as if it is a wood-frame single-family home and allow the city to grow like a city. Thank you.

Thank you. I see no questions.

Thank you for your testimony.

Good night.

Okay, we've made it through.

We, uh, have, uh, a motion to continue these two cases to October 6th on my, uh, notes here. Commissioner Rod. Commissioners, I realize it's late. I would have interest in a brief movement into committee of the whole to discuss some of the things we heard tonight and see if staff and the petitioners would be receptive to some of the changes that I heard advocated for and discussed. The only way we could get there is if you made the motion, then we could just tell you what we think with our votes.

I move that.

Commission move into Committee of the Whole?

Is there a second?

Sure, I'll second. Any discussion on the motion to move into Committee of the Whole?

All in favor? All—. Any opposed, say nay.

Okay, we are now in Committee of the Whole.

Thank you for entertaining, fellow commissioners, because sometimes we need that. I'd like to start off with what I heard, a recurring theme around hours of operation.

My position on it is this: I don't believe we restrict the hours upon which our neighbors can have their porch lights on. I don't believe there are, you know, in code things that would restrict a residential use and its potential nuisances to the neighborhood or community. On those grounds, I am very hesitant to establish in this TISDOH an hours of operation limit. I think there are other means and measures upon which that, that can be achieved and would propose that it be stricken from the proposed ordinance. I, I tend to agree.

I mean, we do have a sound ordinance and other things that govern nuisances. So, uh, second item, um, uh, building heights to 75 feet. I'm a little split on this but would like to hear input from other, other commissioners. I'm sensitive to one of the written comments by Will Webb, and that actually prompted my initial question to staff on this matter around the continued loading of those arterial classified streets.

And we heard multiple comments tonight around distributing the opportunity for development throughout the proposed TSDO areas.

I don't know that 75 is the right number. I, I just— maybe I'm fishing here for anybody else who wants to weigh in on it. I think 75 comes from industry standard on the 5-over-1 that you've heard mentioned, and I think it might take 75 feet to get there. I don't build that kind of product typically, but that would be my guess. Um, And while we're on the subject of 5-over-1s, I have concern over the 20-foot driveway width.

If you had a 5-over-1 building, a 20-foot wide driveway might be too skinny.

I thought the 20-foot driveway was only for residential uses. Not for mixed use, but I can check.

It's phrased as residential in the table we have. Yes. Um, another item, um, of interest is, um, the 100% lot coverage, which appears to be retained. However, there's been a pullback on on this addition of 5-foot setbacks. And I heard some compelling arguments tonight around reasons against a 5-foot setback.

Some of the things that weren't discussed, but perhaps were previously, are around allowing fire code in that process to dictate, you know, smart and safe design on the building side. I see, you know, 5-foot setbacks as creating unusable spaces that need to be managed. And furthering the limitation of development on a property. And I, I would like to see that us walk back so that there are no, no setback requirements. You are supportive of the 100-foot lot coverage and 5-foot setbacks?

Uh, no, uh, zero setbacks and 100% lot coverage as it was previously presented to the commission. Um, I have a question maybe for Chair Spinelli, which is, you know, I, I think I have a little bit of trepidation over that just because of the development pattern we saw 40 years ago, breadbox 8-plexes going the curb on, in, on Mountain View streets, and all new housing becomes old housing. So I think just as our developer who's right here, um, I've heard when we've talked about this in the past that there are building codes and other reasons why we wouldn't get that development pattern now, and I'm curious whether that's true, because I think that is my, my real fear. I, I don't think that's been a development pattern that's been healthy for neighborhoods, and I would probably not vote for it. Um, I guess there's two different things to respond there.

The first thing I kind of want to add to that is that I don't think 100% lot coverage and zero setbacks is inappropriate in all locations, but I don't think it's appropriate in all locations. And I don't know how we solve that problem, um, besides zooming in much closer on the TSDO map everywhere you go, because there's always going to be the lot where it does make sense and then the lot where it doesn't make sense. And then this is the tough part of putting codes in there that you can do a building that's 100% lot coverage, but it's designed to have common space or outdoor space. It just happens to be covered per code, and it might live great and be a great neighbor, and maybe, who knows, maybe can let light through even. Um, but then there's the bad egg too.

So those, those are— those, those will be challenging to get to the bottom of. I'm curious if you could elaborate about where you think it's appropriate and where you think it's not appropriate and to see if we can get closer to a—. Obviously would be on a busy road without, you know, a ranch home sitting right next to it in a well-established neighborhood of single-family ranch homes. I mean, that— I would— that's kind of my, my vision of where it would be most obscene.

So in the example you presented, I appreciate you coming forward with that, that ranch home is not built to the lot line, right? Yeah, most, most likely not. I mean, in Spenard, anything goes.

I would think that would be one of those things that are pretty self-regulating too. Like, you have two 75-foot buildings right next to each other, they don't care about that 5-foot offset that much. They build firewalls that go together. But, you know, you got residential buildings, smaller buildings, um, they're going to care more about that than themselves. So it kind of seems like it, it's one of those slightly self-regulating situations also.

And on that note, We don't build new apartment buildings in Anchorage, very rarely. And so the, the sponsor's effort, I believe, is to do— lighten, increase the opportunity to build anything. And so it's not like these things are just going to pop up on every corner the day we pass it. I mean, we'd be lucky to see one project in the first year. I think would be maybe not even that likely.

So I, I don't— we're just trying to increase the odds of getting a housing project. I think maybe I would encourage folks to go take a look at the downtown code because that's the place where we have developed— I think it's 100% lot coverage, right, and zero setbacks. Is that correct? Question to staff. So I would encourage us to all take a look at that as we're considering this, because the Downtown Code has a bunch of provisions that we don't have anywhere else, like, um, percentage of windows on street frontage.

And so we, we have kind of thought this through and solved this question, and now I think the question for us is how much can we extrapolate that to other parts of Anchorage.

Last item for me is, is around the splitting of non-residential and residential. I, you know, we heard commentary about what we see tonight being watered down, and I would have to agree with that comment in this respect. I saw a great opportunity in achieving the objectives as I understood them in the comp plan to enable commercial opportunities along with residential. My fear is that, you know, splitting of these will allow for one to pass and not the other. Um, the flip side of that is continuing to risk the opportunity for one by combining them.

I'm curious if other commissioners have any thoughts or comments about the path that it's now on and whether or not we might want to redirect back to where we were.

Do we even have the power to recombine these ordinances? Haven't they been delivered to us for our recommendation individually? Yes, I see a nod. I mean, when we, when we get the— when we get them, we don't— we pass them with whatever recommendations we want, and they just go.

As a resolution of support or denial with some comments and findings. I'm— go ahead. If it's helpful, I guess I would say the intention is not to separate them so that one can pass and the other doesn't. But I think, as we've talked a little bit about today, I think the use conversation deserves some thoughts about whether it makes sense in all of the TSDO, how we're regulating uses to minimize impacts on neighbors, especially if we're not doing ours, which I think are all very reasonable points you made earlier. Which uses are allowed is still, I think, a big conversation to have.

And, um, you know, potentially does it make sense to take a bigger look at the use table in general, which as we've heard from the community, uh, it's very hard to read the use table and use the use table. So there's sort of some potentially even more ambitious questions to ask with a mixed-use specific ordinance. I think your decision in part will be when and how you recommend it Assembly. So to some degree, you can say, yes, we're moving both of these together. And if you choose to delay in October, you could in October say, great, you can have more time to discuss the uses, but we think it's a good idea and we're just going to forward it to the Assembly.

And the Assembly then can take whatever process it wants with those ordinances. But that's sort of, I think, functionally the way you could combine them is by moving them at the same time. I think our intention, though, or hope, I think, would be for the uses probably to follow second so that we can have a more focused conversation on it. But again, not because we don't want to do it, but because we do want to do it. If we didn't want to do it, we would have just taken it out.

I'll just add one thing I was thinking about. I used to live on 11th and I Street, and I lived in a 3-story duplex. Next door to me, on either side of me, were 2 little ranch homes. Right behind the alley from me was a multi-family building, single story, with with 100% lot coverage. And then across the street is the Pioneer Home, which is about probably 60, 70 feet tall.

So if you think about that corner, you're really like, we have it. Like, it already— like, what's proposed already exists in town. Like, so it is out there. Yeah. So anyway, random thought to add while we're just in Committee of the Whole.

Thanks, Commissioners. That's all I had on my list. I'm happy to stay in the Committee of the Whole if anybody else wants to, but, um, good.

I'm not opposed to a motion to, uh, go out of the Committee of the Whole and possibly, uh, continue the public hearing to October 6th.

Uh, move to come out of the Committee of the Whole made by Commissioner Rahn, seconded by Commissioner Polis. Any objection or discussion? Hearing none, we are out of the Committee of the Whole.

What is the will of the body?

Staff have any comment on October 6th? There was some talk about other October dates. Any feedback?

I'd say generally it seems like an extra 2 weeks wouldn't do too much harm if you wanted to have it be October 20th to give councils and others more chance to have input. I think that is consistent with what I've heard heard from the sponsors and their intent, but of course it is your choice. I'll be camping in the desert October 20th, so that sounds great. I also will be out on the 20th, so prefer the 6th. It looks like we may be risking a short board, so sounds like the 6th might be better.

Uh, yeah, motion from Commissioner Rohn. I move in cases 2025-0030 and 2025-0034 to continue the public hearing to October 6th, 2025.

Seconded by Commissioner Pulis. Would you like to speak to the motion? No thanks. Any objections?

That motion is approved.

Okay, that concludes tonight unless anybody has some comments.

Commissioner Rahn, are you in— out of the queue?

Okay, um, is there a motion to adjourn?

Moved by Commissioner Polis, second by Commissioner Winchester. Any objection? Hearing none, we adjourn. Thank you, Greg. Thank you.

Lightning strikes in diamond mines. A bloody stone adorn our mind. A morning wasted on trivial. An evening wasted on primitive things. Around here everybody knows everybody.

Their past lives documented to the closest topic. At what time does the conversation start and end? Yeah. Oh, is the good guys coming to save us?