Anchorage Assembly: Worksession re Housing Policy and Progress

Focusing on 10,000 in 10 years is still a really good thing, but it's more important than ever that we stay focused on doing whatever we can at the NENI to incentivize development. I'm really proud of the work that we're all doing and how we are diversifying our housing stock. We're bringing more units to Anchorage, and we are finding ways to help people stay in their homes. So thank you all. For your partnership and also want to thank Member Park.

I see—. Oh, she's not on the phone— for attending on Tuesday night as well. And I think we were expecting maybe around 30 people on Tuesday and we got about 120 or so. So it was a really robust and nice productive conversation. Thank you, Chair Brawley.

You, and then I think we'll move into our— well, I guess I'll see, is there any questions, comments from members? Okay, okay, then let's move on. Uh, so Mr. Dole, if you want to give your presentation, and then also say we can take questions because I know there's going to be a lot of information, so folks need clarification or want to dig in, we can do that.

Good morning, Bob Dole, Director of Community Economic Development. In looking at where we're at today to give you your progress report. There's one thing that has happened that I think everyone in this room has been complicit in that is not reflected in either my presentation or in the materials up to date, but has been incremental to why we're having the discussion we are today, and that is the sense of pulling together and working on this as a team with our private sector folks, the Assembly, and the executive branch. Frankly, that's been a new experience for me in the space with the municipality, and I I think where we're making progress, it is the hidden ingredient or the undisclosed ingredient that is pivotal to it. So I think this is, you're familiar, if we look at 10,000 Homes, it basically comes down to 4 things, cut red tape, fix our municipal processes, find where we can contribute to the development efforts with capital or things of value, and also remediate neglect, get rid of those nuisance properties that are dragging down neighborhoods and not being put to beneficial use.

This was the original 10,000 homes plan. The takeaway on this is we've made a lot of progress, but we still have work to do in a few areas that we know we've been stymied in. I think you'll see one of those being finding better tools for infrastructure development as an example.

It's been working. You can see over the last 3 years we've been experiencing growth in our housing production there and It is trending in the right direction. Uh, probably the most exciting part there is the growth in the multifamily housing sector, which we know is probably one of our greatest challenges in terms of those rental properties and where we really need to make, uh, progress. And we are making it going forward there. So these are numbers that are pulled off.

Um, these, this is as close as we get to automated in terms of what we can produce for you for numbers. And even this, there's a lot of manual labor. So we're excited with the new software coming that we're going to be able to give more metrics and more automated so that I don't have to decide when I ask Greg or Melissa to take away from production time in order to produce basically management metrics. The numbers also back it up. Our growth now that we're over $100 million ahead of where we were last time this year, that's more than inflation.

We are making a positive change in increasing the overall facility inventory within the municipality going forward, which is the direction we want to be going.

Um, we last night, several of us were Commonwealth North, and I think one of the subjects that came up that has been significant to these changes have been the tax abatements there. That's what means where we can incentivize construction by putting money in the game, by deferring those tax payments. It provides more money to make projects pencil out that never would have before. And as you— we all know in this room, we have 2 more pending that are in the assembly process.

We talked about cutting red tape. Title 21 is large, and we need to look at what is there, what makes sense, and what we can reshape going forward. As we do that, we need to make sure we're informed also in that process as we do the 10-year targeted review. We don't want to We need to make sure we know where the plan is going before Title 21 is going, but we think there's opportunity there to affect more, more cutting back. And something headed to PCC now is an AO to produce— that would propose giving the planning director more discretion in resolving variances that now, for usually dimensional things that now have to go through the throughout the public process to PCC or the Planning Board.

So we're kind of excited there. It's an example of where we can save time, we can save money, and we can also make the public members who volunteer or the backboard of those boards and commissions feel more valuable for dealing with things that they don't say, why did you even bring this to me? And I'll just throw in one other note in that area. Recently, we permanently sunsetted the Urban Design Commission. And part of the discussion was, you know, how many commissions and boards can we support?

The other conversation was that that board mostly was meeting to do fence variances. And so, and, you know, and they had, they had a long list of functions, but that was mostly what they were actually doing. And so that function went to Planning and Zoning. But I think during the Planning and Zoning Commission discussion about that, it did come up, what, what should we, PCC, be approving versus what can be more discretionary? So I think, so I think also I just want to note, this is an example of doing one thing can have multiple reasons or multiple impacts.

And also, as you dig into these things, you start discovering other things, right? There's other— it unlocks other things. And so this is, as you said, it's iterative. And I think you said that as well, Daniel. So that's why diving into one thing can often kind of branch off into multiple and then help solve many problems.

So thanks. Actually, can we go back to the prior slide? That's okay. Which button is this thing?

Perfect. I think number 3 here is super important. I just want to highlight an example from my district, the change rules for the nonconformities. If you don't, you don't have to pave your driveway if you want to fix your bathroom. So I think this is beneficial not only in some of our housing goals, but also in commercial development as well.

Or changes of use. I had a constituent from— yeah, a property owner in the North Star neighborhood. And for—. There's a property as you come down like this, Barnard Hill, that had been in the same family for generations, and it was previously used as a childcare facility. They wanted to change the use to an adult daycare facility, and they wanted to do some minor remodeling in the interior, move— put in a new sink, move a wall, And that triggered $200,000+ of landscaping requirements where they would have had to put in— they would have had to actually remove part of the parking area, remove pavement, put in trees and shrubs and all of this stuff just to go from, you know, one very similar use type to another.

And so I think that is a great example of cutting red tape, and I really appreciate the work that the Planning Commission has done. Through the chair, Vice Chair Voland, I think what you're going to see with variances is similar to that. I'm going to cite an example of a case coming up for a variance this month. A single-family home needs a replacement deck and stairs on the back, which is necessary for egress. It's not just cosmetic reasons.

However, because their front step is 10 inches beyond in what is allowed going into the front setback, what the director can approve. It's been there for 40 years. It has had to wait 3 months in order for the process to continue. Unexpected expense in terms of having that whole process. And also they're going to be at the cusp of, you know, just the rainy season, the challenges of getting that work done.

So we greatly appreciate the Assembly's partnership when these issues come up and working through them. And we think there's more opportunity. We call it a target-rich environment about 4 jobs ago. Great. Thanks.

Thank you. Please continue.

Oh, I use that one. You can use the arrows. That's okay. So, we had an extremely disorienting thing happen a little while ago. We, every 6 years, we update the building code.

It was the most collaborative and smoothest effort I think ever happened. It also reflected the private sector full on board participating. Assembly advocacy where, uh, to, and to make sure we are focused on growth. And we ended up with a product that is far more, in adopting various options, is far more predictable for a builder in terms of how they can get stuff done rather than showing up at the building and wondering how it's going to play out. So I think it was an exciting process working together.

Also, we experimented with going to the state with what we called Single Stair in, um, to allow single stair over a certain height for residential use. It was an incredible adventure. I suspect some treaties of wars took less time than it took in order to get that through. Ultimately, we prevailed, and we appreciate— excuse me— Member Baldwin-Day's assistance in walking those final changes through as we finally reached that middle ground. But it does show, too, that working together, we can affect things with the State Fire Marshal's Office.

It just takes longer than any of us would like. The next thing we're looking at in this area is now that you have a new code, we have to figure out what are the policies that we can do to make it smoother. The next one that's on the horizon is as the state has gone to provisional licensing for people in the trades from out of state— plumbers, electricians, carpenters— we need to make sure we update a policy too that we can give them the municipal licensing necessary for them to leverage that inside the MOA. And that's the latest project they've opened. They've adopted a policy dealing with use of Alaska lumber and grading it to make sure it's structurally safe for the intended uses.

They have also recently done other policies to facilitate rehabilitation inside trailer parks, particularly manufactured homes that traditionally the ICC has made very difficult, and they've been, uh, developed policies so we can keep those homes in beneficial occupancy. I'll just note briefly too, again, I'm trying to flag areas to think about for the future and how this connects to other parts of our work. So, um, uh, you mentioned, uh, the lumber grading in state. So that was the result of a state bill, I believe it was Senator Bjorkman's bill, um, a couple years ago now. Um, and so So that is an area where, and we weren't directly involved in that as far as I know, the municipality, but there are plenty of opportunities.

And I think there's a lot of interest, at least from some legislators on housing policy. And so, you know, when we get on the other end of elections, of course we'll know who the governor is at that point. I think there's a lot of opportunity in our legislative program that we'll be embarking on soon. I think those are areas to really identify either broad policy statements, like we need more housing, we need these state actions or very specific and asking for, you know, statute changes or other things like that. So that's another area in our kind of advocacy and convening space that we aren't the ones to make the change, but we can advocate for those changes.

Go ahead, Mr.— oh, go ahead, Ms. Baldwin-Day.

Yeah, so definitely in the spirit of collaboration and all wanting to pull together in the same direction, it occurs to me, you know, looking at these numbers, what we're actively permitting right now, that essentially in order to land anywhere in the neighborhood of 10,000 homes in 10 years, we are going to need to double production, like double the number of permits that are currently being pulled.

And I'm also aware that as much as we've worked hard to, to take some bites out of, out of permitting, out of inspections, things of that nature, our process is still onerous. It is still— I think I, I maybe, I may be misremembering this, but I believe it took Mr. Dunningham 9 months to get permitting for the Raspberry Townhomes. Was that correct? 9 Months to get permitted.

You know, there's, there's been some, I know there's been some positive movement in like zoning plan review and trying to reduce the number of days for zoning plan review, and, and I think that's fantastic, but I, I, I feel like we, we keep running into this same roadblock, which is, you know, how, how do we make sure that Development Services is able, especially if we're trying to punch the gas on development, how do we ensure that Development Services is able to deliver services more quickly than they already are with an, hopefully, an escalating curve of incoming permits? How are we going to do that functionally? And how, how can we tidy up or tighten up what we require, you know, without stepping into ISO territory where, you know, we're creating substandard buildings? Definitely don't want to get into that territory. But how do we, how do we do this?

And what are the steps that we can take together to, to make sure that we don't have builders missing building seasons or trying to pour foundations in October? You know, how can we How can we be a better partner, I guess is what I'm asking, and what do you envision the Assembly's role in that process since we are not the administrative body, we are the legislative body? So I would love to hear your thoughts on that. Through the Chair, thank you, Member Baldwin-Day. First, going back to the numbers of those 10,000 homes, if you recall, half of those are not new construction.

They are basically significant renovations or rehabs of existing construction. So if we cut that in half to 5,000, which it comes to about 500 a year, and we're about about 410 now. That delta is much less than, uh, a 50% undershooting because we have to recognize those rehabs also. And we're discussing this right now inside the administration. We don't have the best mechanism yet to capture that because you don't need permits for a lot of the work that's necessary to re— keep those properties up with beneficial use.

They're not true permit value. A, um, water heater permit of $175 doesn't reflect that you just spent $5,000 or whatever on that water heater. So we're really not capturing that second half yet, and that's, um, that's an ongoing discussion we're struggling with going forward. But you can see that we are hitting over 80% of the target now this year. If we look at that going forward, when you think about the rest of that though, that's an excellent point.

The new software is critical to that. The way our, our soft our permitting software and our land use entitlement software works now. It is a tremendously frustrating activity for everyone involved, not just the builders and developers and the design professionals, but the reviewers and inspectors as well. So we're excited to be moving forward with that, uh, with, uh, and rolling that out, uh, probably in the next 6 months, it's looking like, uh, going forward. So that is a huge way going forward.

9 Months is a worthless statistic. What matters in looking at statistic of— for us to make beneficial change is to look at the time it is with the municipality and the time it is back with the design professionals for the person submitting the applicant. Because that 9 months doesn't mean it sat for 9 months with municipal staff and then we called in Mr. Davenport to pick up his building permit. Rather, it reflects a back and forth iterative process as comments were found and comments were resolved. We look at the time then in there, that's when we can dissect and find out where we actually need to make changes.

Where we have bottlenecks in the review process by staff, we need to make sure, do we have the right staff in the right place with the right training and the right tools to get it done? And where we have other bottlenecks, we need to make sure, where do— what is our code inflicting on folks that they're having trouble work, uh, meeting code requirements? Where are those ambiguities? Where are those where does language, uh, have different, um, ways it can be interpreted? And frankly, that's, um, those are probably the areas that I see that the body able to influence in terms of providing appropriate but not extravagant resources for the staffing that we just talked about.

It has to be reasonable. But if you think about our growth in, uh, permits over the last couple years, there's been no growth in staff for the review time or the processing to go with that. But more importantly, let's work together when we find these ambiguous areas of code to just clean it up. And, uh, that will probably be the area we can affect the greatest change. And I believe is appropriate for the body in terms of providing clear, concise, focused policies, uh, that don't create, um, that don't create problems with interpretation, which turns into time and money.

Yeah, thank you. And that's helpful framing.

I think I have some lingering questions about how permitting and land use entitlement software will solve for some of the issues on the inspection side, because it seems to me that that's going to be a separate question, a separate conversation. You know, the software isn't going to prevent an inspector from showing up on a site and requiring an adjustment to an approved plan, which, you know, then throws the brakes on whatever's happening on the job site that day. So, so I think, I think perhaps this could be an ongoing conversation, because as you do, we also hear from the building and the development community about the challenges that they're facing. And I think there are I think, you know, your comment about, you know, what are we inflicting on people via code is, is a worthy one to continue to dive into and to ask ourselves, you know, are there parts of our code that, that overmanage what we're trying to do in terms of producing high-quality, safe housing for folks in Anchorage? And are there places where we have created expectations that quite honestly don't fit the environment or don't fit the development moment.

So I just wanted to note that I'm certainly interested in that. And as we think about cutting red tape, to Member— or to Chair Brawley's point, right at the outset of this meeting, we've been talking about cutting red tape since the early 2000s, probably prior if I went and dug around in the ADN. And so I'd love for us to be really aggressive about that, not without compromising, you know, life, health, and safety. But I would love for us to be really aggressive about trimming our processes as much as possible and doing that with an eye towards facilitating the growth that we need to see in a relatively short time frame if we're going to accommodate JBEI recapitalization. So, thank you.

Thanks. Yeah, and I'll suggest, I know the challenge with getting into this topic is we're— the oars are really skimming the surface, right? And we're not able to go too far down. So, so I think, yeah, what we'll end up doing today, I think, is kind of putting a pin in a lot of conversations. But I think that is an ongoing one.

And I think we'll hear perspectives from some of the developers when we get to that point too. So, so I'm going to suggest we move on at this point, but knowing, of course, this is going to spark really a lot of future work. As well. So, thank you. Just briefly noting that affordability doesn't end with the mortgage payment.

It also includes ongoing costs to the extent you can lower your insurance costs through ISO ratings, or you can lower your energy cost, or some of the cost of construction with waste-to-energy projects are also something— things that were— is ongoing now. New permitting software, we talked about this. There's numerous ways that this, to me, is truly exciting, particularly with the challenges we had before, and that we're just going forward with a new off-the-shelf platform now, and it's moving along well. It's basically in testing right now with all the permit types built. Briefly upon nuisance properties, there's two things you have to do to get rid of nuisance properties.

First, you have to make sure everyone is pulling or working together. So that when we're focused, that we're getting the whole of government doing it, not just one narrow perspective of 3 people or 5 people or however many people Code Abatement has available. And second, you need a persistent focus on your most troublesome ones. This is a commercial property, but it's the most recent one we demoed before Thompson Avenue comes down in a week or two and wanted to talk about it. What we came together on that one after over a decade of headaches was that persistent focus and everyone sharing what, why this property, why now.

Those things came together and we moved, removed a property that was a 911 call generator and also have a property ready for beneficial use. The same thing happened on a smaller scale with the property we demoed on Kona, which is our last one before this, and we will be doing on Thompson. Both of those are residential. Next steps going forward, you're going to see that continued interagency coordination, focus on the most problematic ones. Uh, we need to find more means though before the house is at the point of no return to see what the owner can do.

And that's where we're working more on our focus in terms of finding ways to— if the person just wants out, to find a way to connect them with a potential buyer. And from feedback from various, um, builders in the community, they'd be delighted to take a blighted property and do something with it. Or also work with the new program AHD is rolling out, uh, in terms of making funds available for those properties that just need one major system fixed. Is it a roof? Is it a heater?

And they can go forward. And that is key for that housing also in terms of rather than having to build new, let's hold what we got where it makes sense. And, um, we're working on just better policies I talked about before for those properties and, uh, mobile home courts, we call manufactured homes, to allow people to safely repair those. And for properties, once they go down the vacant, abandoned path, you'll be seeing an AO from the administration proposing changes to better protect them from trespassers, which is very difficult right now.

Uh, yeah, Miss Scout, go ahead. Thank you. Just a quick question. This is something that's been really interesting in terms of the volume of emails I've gotten on this topic since getting sworn in. That's been one of those kind of interesting parts of the job that I didn't expect to know that much about in terms of things happening in our municipality.

And I know that you all did a session with FCC earlier this week week talking about vacant abandoned properties. I would love to work with whomever on kind of putting together a timeline, just like some easy graphic of here are the steps of what happens when you report a vacant and abandoned property and what is the next step, what is the next step. A lot of folks, by the time I hear from them, they've put in a ton of complaints and Typically, I would say like 9.99 times out of 10 when I reach out to code enforcement or the administration, that property is already being worked on and the neighbors just don't know where it's at in the process. So that's something I've been relieved to have that experience and also would love to work with you all to get some easily circulatable digestible materials to the community about here's what happens when you report. And all the steps that have to be taken before you actually are going to see like a visible action that happens.

Um, so yeah, I just wanted to share that and also just shout out the team for your great work here because it's, um, been nice to be able to deliver positive news so often that things are being worked on.

Through the chair, Member Scout, we will work on developing that graphic. There's numerous ways a property enters the code abatement system and about 2 or 3 tracks they follow there, but we'll try to end up with something that is navigable. Yeah, something that makes sense to you. I don't—. It doesn't have to be a graphic, but even if it's like a time estimate, a time estimate, it usually takes 6 months, or just like something that I can communicate so that I can, um, let people know that we have a process, it's working, and, um, if it was their property, they would want there to be many time and options before something is demolished.

So yeah. Yeah, I'll just know, I think that is a, that's a great next step. And I think also that is it calling back to our plan, you know, in the space of communication, right? So if there is a, and I know you all have been good about reaching out to members in those districts, but that's a way, you know, because we go to community councils and, and we get the same questions. So I think that's a, so let us be helpful in kind of getting those messages out as much as I know sometimes things can't be shared, but I think even that's helpful as well.

Thanks. This Baldwin Day. Yeah, really want to give some huge kudos because getting the, getting the periodic updates about the, the code abatement action that's happening in my district and being able to communicate that back to neighbors who have reached out with concerns has been so wonderful. So thank you for being so proactive in that communication loop. It is really, really helpful.

And, and I think it demonstrates to neighborhoods that we are being responsive to their concerns. And you are absolutely— you and your team are absolutely facilitating that. So thank you. Please keep it coming. I'm curious, sort of alongside that, with, with the, the rehab and repair fund that was discussed in the spring, I think March was when we did some— was that a 1Q budget revision?

I don't recall. Or reallocation of HUD funding, I think, to the rehab and repair fund. Do we have a program status update on how folks are accessing, or we intend to have folks from the community accessing those funds? Is there a structure in place for that? Is that still in progress?

Would love an update on what that looks like. Through the Chair, Member Baldwin-Day, pretty much, you know, AHD drives that program, working closely with Thea in the Mayor's Office, and we will reach out to them to provide you an update. We tried to provide separation between the inspectors and the fund to avoid some potential conflicts of interest, so I think it's more appropriate to hear from them on that. Yeah, great. I would really appreciate that.

I've had several inquiries about the status of that fund and is it being utilized, is there a program in place, what's the entry point. And so this seemed like a germane time to bring it up, but absolutely happy to hear from the Health Department on that. So thank you. We'll pass that along and also invite you to drive by 1306 Chugach Way when you leave here.

We've, uh, we will speak briefly at the next work session about freeing up land for development. We are also looking, opening the RFP responses for, um, Archives and Totem on Monday. In terms of what potential housing proposal we receive on those. And I'll just add a brief— because I know it's your last slide here. I think some of the work that's happened even before that on this kind of what lands should be released for development, HLB did an analysis of their own lands, a land feasibility study.

I think this was in— it was after I started, so it must have been in '23 or later. And the finding, of course, is that a lot of those lands are not really developable. They're not suitable for housing. So setting expectations, because I think people think we have a giant inventory of perfect lands. We don't.

But I think, but just to note also, I think that's a good conversation. If you're interested in that topic, talk with HLB. Of course, a lot of the lands are in Girdwood, some in other places. And I know over the years, even back when Robin Ward was the director, there was a lot of work on kind of where are there housing opportunities. But just to note, that's another kind of area if you're interested to dig into.

But again, setting expectations, we do not have a bunch of magic land that we are sitting on. And there's other agencies like the Mental Health Trust and others that do have some lands. And so again, if you're interested, those are places to explore.

Yeah, go ahead. It looks like we're at the end of this one, so, uh, we'll go into some questions, and then next again we'll have ACDA, then we'll invite our developer folks. So, uh, Ms. Baldwin-Day, then Ms. Scout. And this, this question might straddle the fence a bit between, um, your work, Mr. Dolan, and what ACDA is up to.

Um, it occurs to me that I've, uh, as we're talking about a lot of these different, um, property disposals, RFPs, I mean, we have We have archives, we have the Tojer Block 102 land swap, we have 20-ish acres off of Muldoon. We've, we do have developable parcels that are within the purview of the municipality. And then we sort of separately have at least a general idea of what sorts of housing, what housing types, what affordability levels we actually need in Anchorage. And I think the thing that I'm wondering about is where we are taking those two, or those two datasets and putting them together and being really strategic about what types of housing we are putting where and how we are incentivizing those developments so that we actually get the type and the cost, the housing affordability levels that we need in Anchorage. And I'm, I'm finding myself feeling a little bit concerned that we're just sort of throwing spaghetti at the wall in a way and, and hoping that the market produces the types of housing that we need.

And I'm not entirely, I'm not entirely sure what conversations or what strategic planning has happened behind the scenes to ensure that when we're investing municipal land and projects, so we actually get out of it the types housing that, that we want. So would love for you to speak to any of those conversations that may be happening that, you know, we may not be privy to as to how we're really aligning or creating a citywide strategy for leveraging our land and our resources to be able to deliver the housing types that the market isn't providing at this juncture. Through the Chair, the Challenge in that area is there is no central depository of all the knowledge of those different areas. And also, the land that fits one of those needed areas frequently fits many. If you think about a large parcel available for development, it could be— it would— could be great for SRO, single room occupancy.

It could be great for affordable rentals. It could be great for condoizing. Workforce housing, all of those will basically fit the same space. And there are different demand and all are needed. So when looking at a parcel, we go through first an internal process and then a public process of trying to figure out the best avenues for that going forward.

And that it's kind of based on those that we will, we'll look at the RFP and frankly, The RFP will frankly inform the process too in terms of what the market is also saying. It's a— that's a feedback loop of where they see the greatest demand or greatest signal there. And that's a question of seeing, does that mesh up with our expectations? But it is an evolving area and there are multiple apertures looking at that same issue. So balancing, say, workforce housing versus condos, which are key equity level entry point for many people, and, uh, multifamily housing like Mr. Debenham excels at.

You have to look at all of those and figure out, um, just what fits for a given parcel. And we believe we do that through a combination of the private evaluation, uh, the ongoing public process we have going on for feedback on properties, uh, that we have underway, and also about just what is informed in talking both informally with developers in terms of where they see the needs, and when we send an RFP out, what their formal response is for a given parcel.

Do you have further comments? So I think I heard that the answer is no. We, we don't necessarily have a— we don't necessarily have a prioritized— we don't have our own prioritized list of the types of housing that we want to be sure municipal land actually produces. We're really dependent on the RFP process and private evaluation and those types of things to dictate what happens when we have municipal land available. Is that an accurate summary of what you just said?

Through the Chair, Member Baldwin-Day, I would say we view it, particularly when we look at product we get back from Stantec kind of informing what a property could look like, is we have— we tailor a proposed use for the given land that in terms of being tactically implemented there. So I think we all agree where those higher priorities are towards higher density, but the flavors of higher density is where the factors unique to a parcel and those interested in working with it will come into play. Okay, okay, thank you. Yeah, and I'll note, I know on specifically on the, the kind of Tozier Block 102 discussion, we'll come back to that in an hour or so, and I think that is also an ongoing conversation for sure, kind of prioritizing housing types. Next I have Ms.

Scout, then Mr. Bond. Yeah, I think I had an initial question, but actually Member Baldwin-Days inspired me to also ask about commercial infrastructure. So like when we're talking about building housing and whether it's it pencils or is prioritized in certain areas. Are we thinking about ways that we can incentivize things like grocery stores in certain neighborhoods?

We have a couple of food deserts in my district. And really right now it feels like we're putting some Band-Aids on those issues, but need to— somebody has to figure out about how we get grocery stores in like Fairview and Government Hill. Is that something that's in our lane? Are we thinking about that? Are there ways that we can incentivize and support those things happening?

After being back and in this role, we would welcome more ideas or efforts in that. I would add too, with the shutdown of the Holiday gas station in Mountain View, that's probably, I think, created a very acute food desert up in that area. So we know that is an area that we would welcome— what can be done to incentivize that. Just a spoiler alert from the next meeting coming up, we're about this far away from being able to set up in the Kermit Center parking lots on weekends a farmers market to mitigate food deserts in that area. We're confirming it with our landlord, but we think that will be a go.

That's awesome. Great. Um, and maybe I can briefly comment on that as well. I think, um, we— because this question of kind of commercial development, you know, is also important. And so I think one, one answer is, and it's not specific to an industry or solving that issue, but the more that we are able to make the development process better for everybody, you know, and I'll point to folks like, um, Kirk Rose and the team at ACLT have, have brought and said, you know, there's a lot of barriers, there's a lot of issues to people having physical buildings to do business in.

And so all of— and especially these discussions about reuse of older commercial buildings and then all of those nonconformities, all those kinds of things. So that's kind of one space that if we make the process better, we talk a lot about housing, but it can make at least that kind of process better, whether it's construction or rehabilitation. And I think the other thing you're touching on, just to say generally, is the, the, the limits that we have as a local government in Anchorage in 2026 on what we can do in the private sector. And I think, and I know that's, that's an evolving conversation as well. But I think that's, that's, that can be one of the most frustrating things about this job is knowing like, these are the things we need.

We cannot force others to build them for us, or, you know, but, but we are not in a position, we don't have the funds to invest or to operate some of those things ourselves. Right. And so I think, so I would also just say generally, it's trying to, trying to find the limited means that we have to get some of those things done, but continuing to ask those questions and advocate that those are needs in the community.

Community. Thank you. That's helpful. Would love to have that conversation. I'm wondering if we can go back a slide.

The—. I'm curious about that second paragraph. Sorry, are we late on time? Okay. Yeah.

Or will we be talking more about the redeveloping excess Anchorage School District parcels at some point? Yes, we don't sneak those in without the assembly taking actions on it. And I think we know that The school district has closed two schools and they may have some vacant land. That is, uh, that's a spoiler alert to some discussions coming up. Thanks.

Yeah, I'll know. We'll certainly—. That is something we'll come back to. Okay, great. I was kind of like, whoa, we just like breezed past that big conversation.

Okay, yeah, again, we're just— we're skimming the surface today. So next, Mr. Bollin, then Mr. Martinez, and then I'll know we do need to move on after that if possible. And I'm keeping an eye for if folks on the phone have questions. Okay, I will also try to be quick. Um, I would encourage the administration to look at, because I know at least one of the actions of our housing plan talked about the potential for a housing authority.

And I think Minneapolis and St. Paul are doing some really interesting things and projects. Specifically St. Paul, I was able to tour when I was there for the NACDO conference.

Working with local developers to rehab and adaptively reuse an old brewery for multifamily housing. And so that's just something I think we should start thinking about collectively and sort of also gets to Member Baldemar Mendez's comments about how we, how we fund those things.

Leverage other funding. And then my other thought is sort of, you know, going back to the triplex and fourplex working group that I talked about.

My personal perspective, I'll just say here for the record, is that there are some great efforts going on in, in sort of in parallel between the Assembly and the administration, and I think we're having some wins. You know, I think we're trending in the right direction. Definitely with ADUs, also with multifamily.

But I haven't really seen, at least I will say, over the last year, many joint projects between the branches. And I feel like that is where we have had some of our biggest successes, you know, similar to that triplex, fourplex, where we had the assembly sponsors who are interested in moving that policy forward. Meeting with the experts at the permitting center, you know, and all these different departments. So I hope that we can kind of get back to that type of collaborative drafting process on the front end and then go into that more public-facing process. So that's just something I, I will say.

I wish we could do more of that work together going forward. Thanks, Mr. Martinez. Thank you, Mr. Dole. Just to remind folks, yourself and other folks in the room, we have an economic development framework that this assembly adopted, and it has 4 pillars. And I think the 4 pillars of the economic development framework, that's 2025-159, we have embedded that language into a few other aspects, including the Mhop.

Work. And I wanted to just flag that because it takes us a step of— it takes us a step out of the particulars of a subject, housing, for example, into a higher level of analysis that I hope helps us remove the spaghetti toss aspect of doing work. And just to remind us, that gives us the, for example, truth, stackable return on investment, preemptive resiliency, and equity. And so the nexus points of those particular pillars, I think, helps us understand— when I look at a map, translate things. For example, where things should go in terms of housing developments would not be in areas that are low on the preemptive resiliency measure, according to the pillar.

They wouldn't also potentially not go where there isn't a return on the stackable investment already. That probably means where there already is infrastructure versus where there isn't infrastructure. And so I think there's— those pillars are insightful and can help this body, but also the work and translating, using those pillars to translate the effectiveness and the, the, the how we get to measure beyond asserting outcomes to be able to measure the progress and have a consistent rubric to determine those things. I just would encourage the uses of those four pillars continuously. Through the Chair, Mr. Martinez, we'll continue to do so.

I would point out particularly, I think the tax abatement AOs that have already been passed by this body do just that in terms of tapping that existing infrastructure in areas that we would expect to be more resilient. Thank you.

Yeah, just a comment for other members' awareness as we're thinking about how we're investing municipal land and municipal resources. According to 2025 data, we need 2,600 new very low to moderate income rental units in Anchorage. Just for— like, that is data. That is data from a study that the Mayor's Office commissioned. 2,600 New very low to moderate income rental units.

Who is building that? And how is that going to get built? And these are things that I think we need to grapple with as the holders of the purse strings. This is not going to materialize from the private sector. And so I want us to be really clear-eyed about the fact that we have significant needs for low-to-moderate income rental housing that are not going to happen unless public dollars come online.

And it is wishful thinking to believe that the state is going to do that for us. So again, I say to my colleagues, what are we going to do about it? Because it is in our—. It is—. This is in our lap, and it is not just up to the mayor's office to answer that question.

So anyway, that's my, that's my parting shot. It's what the data says. What are we going to do? Thanks. And I would certainly point to Strategy 5 in the plan that talks about affordability, but also when you read it, you'll recognize that it's trying to feel around for, you know, what that answer is.

Okay. So I think we'll move on then. I know we're— so we got about 35 minutes left. So we'll call up ACDA. So we have Mike Robbins and Linda Gant.

We have a short slide deck from them. And again, I'll ask ask any kind of questions or discussion about the proposed swap to be held for— we have a whole hour for that, so we'll have time for that. But I think we'll hear a little bit about what ACDA has been doing in this space. And I will note, alongside the Housing Action Plan, I know ACDA did some good work, so I really, really want to point to their attainable market incentives for market-rate attainable housing that published around the same time we did that summit. That's another good primer on barriers analysis and so if you haven't read it, please go check it out.

So I'll turn it over to Mike.

Oh, sorry guys. I'll talk softer now. So we have sort of of our mission is to serve as a catalyst for development. And when we think of development and housing development, we think of attainable workforce housing. That's where our focus is at.

Um, I guess I'm moving into slides. So when you talk about sort of how— where we've been, um, we've been involved in a market-rate housing development downtown, the largest, um, housing development done in the last 15 years or so, which is Block 96 with Debenham. Now we were involved in North Point before that, Hill, and then Willow Commons most recently, which was done this last year, which was really a testament to what we could do in terms of modular housing and how we could work together as a municipality across departments and really accomplish something fast. That project really went from concept to completion in about 120 days. It's pretty amazing.

We've also been involved in advocacy, ACDA led the charge to change state law to lay the groundwork for the tax abatement programs that we're using now. And we're able to do that using— working with our Anchorage delegation in Juneau. And then really, really trying to focus on results-oriented projects. We've learned a lot about public-private partnerships. We've learned a lot about site and infrastructure delivery.

And one of the things that we've really done is we've put a lot of things into our pipeline because we know that in order for us to find the right solution, we have to— oh, went backwards. In order to find the right solutions, we have to try lots of new ideas. We are where we are today because we've done what we did yesterday. And if we want to be somewhere different tomorrow, we have to try something different. And so ACDA has been working diligently to create a pipeline of projects.

We have a 603 D Street project that we're working on right now, working to unite the ownership there so that we can redevelop that into some downtown— into downtown housing. We got the Fireweed Flats program that we collected our fees on, and we ran into an EPA stall, but that's underway right now as well. And then we have a new piece of property that we were able to acquire from the state of Alaska via Alaska We're doing HSC, which is a 2-acre tract over on Purgraw that will go out to RFP October 3rd, and that'll be for workforce sustainable housing as well. We're advancing projects, and again, we're trying to figure out at the same time new ideas and new things that we can do. We have a lot of significant opportunities underway right now, but we're also trying to work on factors like how to lower the cost of financing for the developers by putting together construction loan programs or trying to come up— we're working on a feasibility study for the 5th Avenue Park garage to put a small amount of housing up on top of the garage.

We've been working with DNR to arrange to receive parcels of land. Believe it or not, the state doesn't own a lot of land inside of the bowl, and what there is, we're— we've been working with DNR and DOT to try to acquire some of those parcels so that we could offer them out to the community for development. And then of course we have a lot of other projects underway that we've been working on Working on a land lease program with landowners who don't necessarily want to be involved in development but would like to see their land developed. We are again advancing individual projects like these while also trying to address the underlying reasons that projects aren't getting done. So we also— something that happened this week was great that we had the mayor's meeting on Tuesday with all of the housing.

It was awesome to go through that, by the way. And see all those folks in that room. We just happen to have a manufacturer who's looking at Anchorage as a site for a modular plant, up from Florida. And we had been showing him around the market, introducing him to people, and that meeting solidified Anchorage as one of his primary targets to come and open a new plant here. And so we're working with him right now.

This last year we brought a— working with another company— brought a Chinese modular unit into the marketplace so that people could see what those units look like. You know, you see them online in the videos, but until you walked through that and touched it and looked at it, you could see the quality. Of course, it was a very entry-level housing unit, but at least it showed what was possible. And we've had many people step forward and say, gosh, we could build something like that here, maybe not at the same price point, but we could build that stuff here. And that's really what was the most exciting thing that came out of that.

We're in the process of working with this with Buy You Build, and we're going to bring up a fourplex, and we'll put it on a piece of property and let people tour the fourplex and see what it'll look like.

So the idea is, again, uh, our mission is to serve as a catalyst for development. So we're, we're not building houses, uh, that's not— we don't have the budget for that. The municipality would— we would build houses if you guys want to write us, give us a fund to work with, we'd love to do that. But what we have to do is serve as a catalyst. So we try to put landowners together, with developers, with ideas, and come up with ways to generate activity and make things happen.

All of us sort of share the same goal, and we felt like ACDA would be best used as a tool, again, to work as a catalyst to try to bring all of those folks together.

So we've been working on— again, we talked about this a little bit— the market need. We've done— uh, thank you, uh, Madam Chairman, for talking about the study that we did a couple years ago. We're in the process, and, and by December we'll have a brand new real estate market study that's being done in conjunction with McKinley, um, that'll dive into not only, uh, buildable land in the municipality, but also will give us, uh, one of the things that Member Baldwin-Day mentioned, which is what kind of units do we need. It'll talk about the number of units we need in different price points, both rental and housing. So it's one of the things that KCDA is required to do by code is to study the real estate market.

Of course, we all know what the housing market's like 'cause we can just say a lot of need. But to identify, as Member Day talked about, What do we need in each of these different price points? That's one of the things that we'll be publishing in December.

So where we're sort of headed, we're going to continue to kind of keep these projects in the pipeline and move them forward. We'll be talking about, as already has been mentioned, the Tozier Track Block 102 project. We're going to continue to work actively on the pipeline, but we're also going to continue to actively generate new ideas. I think that everybody who's been, with the exception of some of the new members, we always have a lot of new crazy ideas or new things that we're trying at ACBA. But that idea here is that if we don't try them, we don't socialize and we don't talk about it, we don't know what's going to stick and what's not going to stick and what the community is going to support and not support.

And so it's our job, we felt, to sort of stir that up. The central message is that we're active. We've delivered some successful projects. We, we do have a meaningful pipeline. We have some projects in the pipeline today that are going to make a difference, they're going to bring some units online, and we're working to overcome the barriers just like everybody else to try to, to try to figure out how we get more housing built in the right places.

I will say that I like the ordinance that, that is being proposed by the Chair and by Member Baldwin-Day about how So I think it's important that you guys express yourselves as the body. I mean, you're the elected representatives from around the city. And so I think it's important for the city to see you guys say, yeah, this is the kind of stuff that we support, because I think that that will then encourage developers, encourage financiers, investors, and people into coming into Anchorage. So yeah, and I'll just note, we'll talk about that briefly in the next work session, and then folks will see it on the addendum. So just more to come on that.

Thanks. Didn't mean to—. It's okay, no problem. I'm just trying to keep an eye on time. So yeah, thank you.

So I was told 5 minutes, so I'm done. Awful hard for me to keep it to 5 minutes, but yeah, no, I appreciate it. I know that again, this is a very large topic and we're trying to catch, catch everybody up on multiple years work. So, uh, questions, comments from members for Ms. Robinson?

Is that—. Okay. Yeah, and I think again, pointing folks to places to go. So I know ACA has been— ACDA has been doing a lot of good work. We'll hear about it, a specific project shortly.

And another great place to kind of dig in and see, especially as they talk to folks who are looking to develop housing, you know, where are the barriers? That's another good example. So, so speaking of talking with the folks who develop housing, we will move on. I'm actually going to add ask all 3 of our folks here today to present to come up, partly because— yeah, yeah, if they can come sit. And then they've got each got a short presentation.

So the goal today with the remainder of our time is really one, to hear from folks who are in this world in a way that we are not. We, you know, we had Mr. Cross on the assembly at one point, so we have had folks who have more direct experience in building, but but we want to hear both kind of, you know, what are some of the impacts of the work that we've been doing, what are the things that, that have been, that they've been working on, and I think a good opportunity for some dialogue and kind of, again, flagging areas to continue work, especially from you folks who are on the ground doing that work. So, so I think we'll start with, well, we have Tyler Robinson from Cook Inlet Housing, Sean Debenham from Debenham Properties, and Bill Taylor representing the Home Builders Association, also with Community Builders. So we'll go in the order they are seated. We'll start with Tyler, and then I'll let you go ahead and give your presentation.

And we can take questions throughout, but hopefully we'll have some time for broad discussion as well. Um, asan. Thank you, Chair and members. My name is Tyler Robinson. I'm with Cook Inlet Housing Authority.

I think I know some of you pretty well. Some of you I don't know well at all. Just suffice to say, the invitation is there to sort of understand what more what we do, how we do it. Uh, we are primarily an affordable housing developer, but not exclusively. We build market-rate housing, we do infill housing, we do for sale, both affordable and just market rate.

Um, and we, I think, at times try to, uh, test designs or products that might actually rub up against some barriers and codes intentionally to try to find out what those, those pinch points are. Then come back with, with policy solutions. So I'm going to go real quick just through— I think I was asked to talk about some things that have been going well and then some improvements on those. Um, so without further ado, at 3 slides, um, the, the Multifamily Design Standards pause has been very helpful to us. Um, what I would say is it was insightful to me yesterday I had a community member tell me ask about this, and it was clear from the line of questioning that the assumption was what that means is that all code requirements were suspended for multifamily housing.

And much as I would like that to have been true, it's really not the case, right? And so I, because I think there is a lot of concern in the community of what, what does this actually mean. And so what this means, for those of you that don't know, is there's a, there was a whole suite of of mostly aesthetic requirements, uh, some process requirements as well, that only applied to multifamily housing. They didn't apply to similar buildings of similar sizes, whether they were hotels or commercial buildings. So it's really only these specific standards that are paused.

Um, we think those can cause anywhere from 10 to 15% additional cost, but they also result in things that are actually that reduce livability for the people that live there in some cases. Um, the second item I'll talk about was under the same assembly action, which was the major site plan review pause. A major site plan review kicked in anytime you had 3 structures or more on one parcel, so typically larger projects. And what that major site plan review process was, was essentially the same process that you would go through if you were building a Walmart So it added probably $50,000, 6 months. And what I would say to this is we would not be leasing up 24 units at Baxter right now without that pause.

We would have, we would have not been able to break ground last summer to then be able to deliver 24 units this year without that pause. So congratulations for helping us with that. And we're able to start a second phase already so far this summer. Streamline rezoning was very much in the same vein. We bought a property that had a special limitation from the 1980s that while it was zoned R-4 required a conditional use permit for multifamily housing.

That would have probably— we would have probably missed being able to start on that development this summer without the streamline rezoning. So we were able to eliminate this special limitation and immediately start on a 24-unit. You can go by, it's in Airport Heights. You can see the foundation of the building. The first of what will eventually be a 72-unit development of affordable, affordable senior housing.

I'll just mention tax abatement because I think there's no other tool that just sort of acknowledges some of what Chair Brawley was talking about. We've known for some time, but there still is some disbelief in the community that there is a very real feasibility challenge for this product type to build it and develop it. And so what that tool really did is it said we have to extend the term to make this a more viable product type, and you're seeing projects come online because of that. Next slide, please.

A couple of other things that Mr. Dohle really touched on already, but getting some of those individual lots, you know, once they become property of the municipality, getting them out in the private sector, that's a fire-damaged house that we're under contract to purchase and hope to build next year if we can get through some title issues. The larger RFPs, I'll come back to that in terms of improvements. I have sort of slightly different ideas than what Member Baldwin-Day was talking about, but I think there's some improvements that could be made there. We really do see an improvement overall in municipal coordination. And I'm not just saying that because the folks that permit our projects are sitting here in the room.

It really is, and it's, and it's not perfect and will never be perfect. It's a, it's, it's set up to be, you know, a process that, you know, it, there's a power dynamic at play there no matter what. But we really have seen, uh, coordination from the mayor's office, um, down to the staff level at the permit center the last 2 years vastly improved. Um, and there's starting to be some acknowledgement that some of the off-site improvements that are typically just automatic requirements, um, maybe aren't— don't have to be required at the same level. There's some work to be done there, but at least some acknowledgement that, you know, hey, we, we don't necessarily automatically have to ask this development to carry some of these things.

And then the, the— again, we've heard about the problem properties. I would just say, uh, Mr. Dole's presentation had like 8 different, 8, you know, departments or agencies up there. At one point this past summer, I was speaking to at least one person at each of those departments. I didn't realize there were two sets. I could talk to the beat cop, and then I could talk to Lieutenant Fuchs on the other side.

I could talk to Code Abatement and Code Enforcement. I mean, it went on and on and on. Basically, I think you all know that when the Chelsea Inn shut down, or was shut down, it spawned a whole bunch of other mini-Chelseas. And the degree to which that wreaked havoc in our neighborhoods was— I didn't actually expect I didn't expect it to be at the level that it was. And I can go into horror stories, you know, the, the neighbors calling me because she's afraid to call anybody, won't even go out, walk out to get her mail.

The point is, is now it's coordinated. Now I know that from the mayor's office on down to these departments, there are people actually coordinating a response that has to do, whether it's an APD response or a code abatement response, or ultimately a real estate response. It's, it's noticeable. They're going to need more money to continue that work. But this isn't just about then getting those, those lots in our, in private sector hands.

This is about shutting down the negative activity that is making so that we don't want to build in those neighborhoods. The next slide. So these are the, the, the items that I've listed are sort of the ones that kind of the short list. I think what I heard from the Assembly is there's some bigger picture items, I'm happy to involve— get involved in those strategic conversations. But, um, make the multifamily design standards permanent.

The pause ends in 2028. We're already designing projects that would break ground in 2028, right? So that— so either we need to think about pretty quickly here extending that pause out a little bit more so that we have certainty, or doing something kind of more permanent there. Um, the RFP process, I, I And, you know, the way that those larger RFPs are structured is it basically says, we have land, tell us exactly what you're going to do, the development, how many units, give us floor plans, give us full designs, give us the whole shebang, tell us what you need, which is a new insertion, right? That never used to be part of the municipality's RFP process.

Tell us how we can participate. So that's good. But what the challenge with that is on these larger sites, there's all kinds of due diligence that has not been done. Done yet. There's no— there's tens of thousands of dollars of geotechnical work.

Maybe there's wetlands delineations that need to be made. We don't know about traffic improvements. We don't really know until we start advancing developments. Why would private sector or nonprofit or private advance at total risk knowing that this thing still has to go through administrative negotiations and eventually your all disposal of a property where Ms. Baldwin-Day may say, well, that wasn't what I had in mind to this, to property. So I think what I would love to see is, can they be invitations for partnership?

And I think with, with that, I think we could really get things done and get them— start getting them done quickly. Infrastructure has been touched on. It's a challenge. So we, we have had some success. I see it show up in the, in the plan where we worked with AWWU effectively on a water line extension in the middle, smack dab in the middle of town.

An area of town that was zoned R3 that didn't have a water service. And that helps in that they're paying for the design. The challenge is, it still costs us $900,000 to advance a water main to serve 40 homes. So, and that, by the way, was near double of what both our estimate and AWU's estimate was. So this stuff's expensive.

Having the coordination helps, but I think it's ultimately some real dollars. And I would also say that infrastructure also includes not just the water sewer, but the, the, the things that you've heard me complain about before, which is the, the, the requirement to improve offsite infrastructure that other people— that already exists, right? So we're adjacent to a municipal road. The municipal road has for years never been built to the municipal standard. Can we get this development to pay for this little segment of road to be built up up to that standard.

It adds cost and ultimately doesn't do anything to resolve the real problem, which is that street still isn't built to standard, a segment of sidewalk still ends, it doesn't get plowed in the wintertime. We need to relook at what those requirements are and/or how to fund them or not require them. Tax abatement, I would just say that we've done a lot of infill development, those triplex, fourplex things. You know, I have a triplex now that if you told me that you would grant me tax abatement for to build 4 units, I'd build another unit on that, on that property. I know we've made a policy decision to say that there's, you know, to qualify for tax abatement, it's 8 units on a parcel.

So I've asked the question, if it's 8 on 2 adjacent parcels, does it qualify? No, it very clearly is defined, and this is our decision, it's a municipal policy that defines it this way. It's 8 units on a parcel. And I'm not suggesting that you provide tax abatement for every duplex at all, but I do— I would tell you this: a fourplex on a standard anchorage lot is still an incredibly challenging product to develop. It's questionable how you provide automobile access to it.

We talked about fire issues that kick in at fourplexes. It's at least a $1.5 million investment. It's not small. You know, is if two fourplexes are adjacent to another, is what, what are some incentives? Because we can't get there with only large developments, and we have to still incrementally get from that 2 to 3 to 4 to 8 in our neighborhoods.

Finally, I would love to ask each of you what you can do on an R-1 parcel in this town. I bet you I'd get— however many members, 12, 13 of you, 9, I don't know I would get all different answers. Is it 2 duplexes with an ADU? Is it a duplex with an ADU? Can I do 3 detached units so long as one of them is just less than 1,200 square feet?

How do I provide driveway? So I can— once I figure that out and I go in, I often get sort of stuck by a driveway situation. My driveways can't be that close to one another. The point is, is we've allowed things without actually demonstrating what what we're actually allowing. And so much— I think much simpler than a full-blown design of like an ADU, let's just have some sample, you know, sort of fact sheets or site plans of how you can take a parcel and what it actually means to build a duplex ADU.

Is that really just a triplex? Because I think it is, uh, but I'm not entirely sure. And I, and I will tell you, if I don't know, having done this work for 20 years in this town, there's a lot of people that don't know what, what that means. So I think that's a call not just on the Assembly, not just on the administration, but that I think collectively we can workshop that stuff. We can do stuff like design forums at the museum, or we can find private sector money to do some of this stuff.

But let's, let's work together and help small-time builders and developers figure out how to make their land useful. Thank you. Thank you. And I want to know— I know we're running short on time, we can go a little bit ask one, but we'll have another work session. So at this point I'm going to ask the other two to present, and then if we have additional time, lots of discussion.

But again, we know this is a huge topic, so, so, and thanks guys for being here. So go ahead, Mr. Devin. You're good. So what's working? Well, we were building something, so that should really be proof positive that there's something working with what we're doing, and give a lot of kudos honestly to the assembly and to Mayor LaFrance and her team because we went so many years where we weren't really doing anything with housing.

And now in the last few years, instead of seeing this continued downward trend in housing, we're not only leveling off, but we're slightly starting to go back up. So we're just on the upswing and we have a lot to do. As Ms. Baldwin-Day said, if we really want to have institutional housing being built in Anchorage, we actually need to do a lot more than what we're currently doing. The changes that we have, they've rebounded us, but they're not enough to make significant changes. So you can go ahead and change it.

So this is just an example, Raspberry Townhomes. This should be simple. Like, this is literally townhomes on a square lot. Okay, it cannot get easier than this. This.

Well, it technically, it shouldn't, but this took 9 months to, uh, to permit, and it shouldn't. It was painful. It was hard. Um, and so when we think about changing processes, we not only software, right? We need to think about what is the actual process to permit something.

Uh, you know, if somebody goes on vacation for 2 weeks, does it just continue to sit on their desk for 2 weeks while that person's on vacation? You know, if there's a small change that needs to be made, like in Stormwater, for example, and my civil engineer says, "Well, this should work," and we go in and they say no, and so then we go back in and they continue to say no, and we go in the third time and they say no, so then we say, "Okay, let's stand back for a week or two. We'll go back in and ask for a fourth time," and they say, "Well, I think maybe we could get this somewhere," right? And so, like, that's changing the mentality of how we permit. Things to get to more of a, hey, how do we get to a yes to begin with, not just a no with the, with the first answer, right?

So those types of things. And then finally, we have to really look at how do we more efficiently use land that we currently have. So we talked about making vacant land more available, but we also have to look at how to use the current land that we have more, more usable. So Raspberry Townhomes is a great example of that, where we got to the 30% lot coverage, and I put every last unit I possibly could put on this piece of land, we get the 30%, and R3 allows 40%. So how do we get that 33% increase?

What does it take? So somebody has got to look at that in the code and say, okay, this is more than just one section of the code. It requires lots of sections of the code that say, how do we get that last 33% so that we can more efficiently use our lots? I can tell you that a fire lane is a great first place to start. Our fire lanes are dictating multifamily housing policy in Anchorage right now.

And, and at Rosbury, for townhomes, that represents 15 dwelling units that we missed out on because of our fire lanes. And so not only that, it just makes it look really kind of cruddy, right? So I've got drive lanes that are 44 feet wide on the south side and 38 feet on the north side, and it just looks terrible. It's just this asphalt jungle that makes me cringe, but I can literally do nothing about it. So with that, I will let Bill have 5 minutes.

Thanks. Yeah, again, way more than we can talk about today. Go ahead, Bill.

If you press the button and then the light will be green, that'll—. Here we go. So I promised the Chair that I wouldn't take up more than 3 or 4 hours of your time. Can I squeeze this into 5 minutes? I just really have one simple story to tell, and it's my own personal story about what happened to me.

And we need to, at present, declare an all-out war on unnecessary costs that are in the building system. I had a subdivision I developed and it was basically a $10,000 cleanup that turned into $92,000 plus. This was a, an old homestead that had a fuel tank that had overflown and spilled some oil, fuel oil, into the soils and the operator noticed it when he was excavating. So we called time out And everybody regrouped and we just decided to move forward with the cleanup. Well, the problem is the city doesn't have any standards for cleanup.

Only AEDC has standards for cleanup. And their standard was 125 milligrams per kilogram. That's— don't want to be too technical, but I just remember the 125. So since there was no guideline, the city was not comfortable using the state standards for some reason. I to this day still don't understand it.

But it went to legal, came out of legal, and the new standard that I was to follow was 35. And we're all— my engineer— were in disbelief because the tools that you use determine what kind of contamination you have, can't measure 35. So we're scratching our heads wondering why this standard came out illegal the way it did. Why aren't we using the AADC, our AADC standard? So what it forced me to do was use the little sniffer gun to gauge every space bucket full of dirt so that we could determine whether it had oil in it.

And so sometimes it measured, sometimes it didn't, and— but we couldn't take the chance because it was only measuring 125 kilograms per kilogram. So we had to over-excavate this huge area just to ensure that we had removed all contaminated soil. So honestly, my site, which was supposed to be a subdivision development, looked like an NCIS crime scene. We had— we really literally had tape around it and everything was— if it didn't hurt so bad, I would think it's funny. But the, you know, light volatile compounds and will evaporate easily.

This is not a major— it's not the Valdez spill. This is a minor contamination of the soil in an area that was affected by the Muni. It happened to be in municipal right-of-way, and that's why everybody got uptight about it. So I think that what happened was this And that happens frequently. We have all this unnecessary cost that gets built into our projects because of overreaction, overinterpretation, overmanagement, whatever label you want to put on it.

And it, it really shouldn't be there. So, my suggestion is that we look at this— what I call a philosophy. And the philosophy is that when you are substantially in compliance with the code, that's good. And that has to come from the mayor, uh, and it has to come from a policy and procedure. And I think that'll help the departments relax a little bit and understand that there's flexibility here.

You know, we want want flexibility more than anything. So, I think that's my best suggestion. I was going to tell a story about Andre's project that added $100,000, in the process of adding $100,000 because of some streetlight issues. And the moral of that story is we have departments that are like silos. And they're just fiefdom within themselves, but they don't have an arbiter.

So we need one person to be able to make a final decision about issues that crop up that cost builders and developers a lot of money. Thank you. Thank you. And again, I know it's 1, so we'll go just a few more minutes to to do some wrap-up. Um, so thank you folks for presenting.

Um, questions, comments from members?

George, go ahead. Bill, let me follow up on that question. You've, you've described before in outside meetings, and here you alluded to it as well, uh, a center point of knowledge. I think we talked about like a housing czar or a center point. Um, is that different to you than Assembly work products.

To what extent are we looking at a different— to your opinion, are you asking about a different mechanism that doesn't exist today? We have an administration, we have an Assembly, but are you describing— and I'm going to use that czar term, we use it offline at least— a center point of knowledge and implementation?

Um, I think the easy answer is yes. I think a single person could fulfill that role and be the, the nexus for housing-focused issues exclusively, because I think our effort gets diluted. We only have a certain amount of staff and we only have a certain amount of supervisory staff. And so if we have just one person that's responsible and accountable and in charge of everything and has, you know, has the authority over all of the departments that make a decision towards housing, I think that might be an answer. And just for clarification, That is a different role than Director of Community Economic Development.

You're thinking specifically with housing-focused and the latitude that you're describing. I think in our offline conversation we mentioned the way previous administrations organized around, uh, like the homeless coordinator. Mm-hmm. Um, and I remember Nancy Burke and I remember just other iterations of that. But that was essentially to high level have a person function as a deputy mayor of housing or like just the person with the same drivability but who meets a community standard of leveraging and negotiating.

Is ACDA filling part of that role today? Part of it. All right. That's the problem them. It's piecemeal right now.

Okay, so what we need is that central point as you describe it. I appreciate that. I think that helps clarify the murkiness of the situation.

Mr. Bond, and then Ms. Volodeh. Thank you. Um, this has prompted a lot of thoughts, so I really appreciate you guys being here today. Um, the financing I think is interesting.

Have you had conversations Sean, with the fire inspectors on that? I mean, anytime we get in this, like, in the middle of that, like, the safety issues, I think it's kind of treacherous ground for us. But are those conversations happening at all?

So they typically happen during permitting. And so when you're in permitting, it's like all go out, whatever they say you just have to do, right? And so what I'm advocating for is that out of, you know, in the slower time, like, let's meet everybody together and talk about these issues because not all municipalities have the same regulations when it comes to fire lanes as we do. Like, it's varied. It's not exactly the same in every city.

So why not look at some of those cities that maybe don't require those fire lanes and say, well, how do we get to that? Can we still be safe? And eliminate these fire lanes that are causing issues. Okay.

And then as far as like the process on permitting, that's something I feel like we don't have a very good window into as policymakers because we're not developers. I've never done a project. I've never even built a single-family home and had to go through that. Process at that permitting counter. Um, there seems to be— I know Mr. Dole is still in the room with us— a little bit of a disconnect between the, what we're hearing about progress on permitting from the department and what we're hearing from developers, that it still feels kind of slow, or, um, you know, you show up on a certain day, you might get the answer that you want, another day you might not.

And I guess it might be helpful for us because at a point I feel like the Assembly might have to stand, you know, into the gap there and legislate some things or support funding for things that could accelerate that process, modernize that process.

I'm wondering on how spicy to be with my comments here, but, you know, I'm gonna go full spicy, I think. We, you know, I think it was interesting for some of us to approve a contract on modernizing some of our permitting process, which, you know, it went to a former acting building official. And some of us asked the question, well, why was— why weren't those things addressed when that person was in that role? You know, and I guess I just want to put this out there to all of our listening ears that we need to do better on this. We are hearing from the development community, we're not doing good enough.

And so I don't know what that looks like. Does it look like a permitting shot clock? Does it look like exploring artificial intelligence to augment the permitting process, at least screen some things not in a way that would replace personnel, but that could, that could help with efficiency. And so I'm really open to that conversation. I would love from you all, if you, the hurdles that you encounter along the way, if you could put some type of one-pager together for us, you know, here are the things that we're running up against the most, whether that's timeline or cost, or this is the confusing thing to to us, you know, why is it this piece, why is this one thing piece routed this way?

I think that might be helpful. So anyway, thank you. Yeah, I think we can certainly have future discussion about that at a committee or work session. Ms. Baldwin-Day, and then I do have to— so I'm going to say we're going to go till 1:10. We will take a few-minute break, then move into our next work session.

And then I know we have a committee meeting after that. So, Ms. Baldwin-Day. Thank you. This is kind of a lightning round question. No, no parameters, no preconceived notions of what you can and cannot say.

What is the single most impactful thing that the municipality could put on the table to generate housing in Anchorage? What is the single most impactful thing we could do?

I'll invite whoever would like to go for it.

Um, I think the single most impactful thing we could do is, uh, we build up pressure in the system, the permitting system, and we don't have a pressure relief valve. So, uh, to me, that pressure relief valve is making sure that we have the ability to contract out zoning plan review, inspections, well and septic permits. That professional certifiers can step in, qualified ones, and provide that relief. It's not a super popular idea amongst staff, but amongst the building community, it gives us a chance to add a multiple number of layers of inspectors and reviewers and other professionals that can when we hit that inevitable bottleneck at the city with shortness of staff, when people are on vacation, when there are holidays, you know, the private sector works 24/7. So, we do have that ability to choose whether we want a city inspector or a private inspector or a private zoning plan review or a municipal zoning plan review.

I would add, you know, anytime we can reduce time or reduce money, that's awesome. So, infrastructure is a huge thing right now, bringing infrastructure to sites, right? Because we're developing sites that are the sites that are on the margins right now. We developed all the good sites years ago, and now we're developing sites on the margins. So, infrastructure is a huge, huge item.

And then, second one is, you know, truly, you know, one of the strategies, Strategy F, was to streamline the permitting process. Well, we have to streamline it like that. We have to to actually streamline the process, which includes getting into the nitty-gritty of the process. Yeah, I would echo the infrastructure piece, and that includes— we have all kinds of infrastructure that's not going to be and will never be built to our municipal standards. So we have to ask the question, is the standard too high?

And whose responsibility is it to pay for it? I think we also have to think about infrastructure as it relates to Chugiak, Eagle River, Girdwood, those places. There is a lot of land between between here and Eklutna that could be opened up and, you know, great to serve base housing and those sorts of things. So I think for sure, to me, it's infrastructure, but that costs money. So we often come to you with things that don't cost money because we're aware of that, right?

It's easier to do some of those things. Maybe it's time to do the hard things. Thank you. Okay, last we have George and then we'll wrap up. Just a reflection, maybe it's a question to think you're all not the same.

You're sitting here as housing developers, but you all are in different classifications, different categories, different products. And so I just wanted to be clear about that as well, because I think the question that I have is between the— between housing the two, are you building to meet our needs? Are you open to build to the muni's needs? Or is the question really how can the municipal Municipality better connect to the products that you develop and how we get those on the market. Because if we're talking about leveraging public dollars to our needs, we may not all have the same conversation together.

But if we're talking about how we're leveraging municipal resources and the barriers to servicing your, uh, development needs, then I think that's a different conversation. And so I just wanted to open that up because is if we're talking about investing in public dollars or more public leverage into housing, I think we're going to have— we don't build the housing, and so it's a really— it's a rub there between what we want on the product, on the market, in terms of the policies that we want to see happen, the outcomes, and then the products that are the builders are actually doing in our community. And just a reflection point, just to hear that Mr. Robbins mentioned For example, a modular person coming from out of state, I think that raises the question of who's going to meet the municipality's housing needs as we determine them, and is it going to be our local providers or is it going to be other folks stepping into the marketplace? Um, I, I would start through the chair just saying, um, I think one of the earlier slides or, or this housing plan talks about needs sort of across the board. I, I would say that But one of the most challenging things that people ask me about is that they will often ask me to solve an affordable housing situation through new construction.

That is the most challenging thing to do without a boatload of money. So we build based on federal and state resources, and we've been— we've had a pretty good track record. We have to compete against other localities throughout the state, and it's actually harder to compete in Anchorage than it is in other places, but we've still been successful. If you want to talk about serving very low income, that means actually vouchers on top of the capital to build it. There aren't enough vouchers.

That's why we don't build for people at 30% of AMI, because unless someone gives us a voucher, we're not building for those individuals. So that's on the affordable side. On the market side, I'll let Sean comment, but I would, I would also say, like, I'm under contract to buy a 25-foot-wide lot in Mountain View. To build a single— to build a single— so it's an existing lot. So I think I can build on a 25-foot-wide lot.

I can't actually create a 25-foot-wide lot, but I want to do it because I want to try it. And so we do want— we, I think, in the development community, the building community, do want to innovate, do want to try new things, and we sometimes need your help to be able to try them.

And I'd just add quickly, because we're market rate, obviously we're meeting the market to the market's needs. So what the market kind of dictates to us is what we generally build. I would say that I think that we're in alignment actually with the city, because what we build is workforce housing. The majority of our tenants that are in our, our apartments are 80% to 120% of AMI, which is really that segment of population that the city has targeted that, hey, we need some more housing for. And so even though I build to the market, I think that we're actually aligned.

Alright, thank you. And I know that really what we've done is start conversations and we don't have enough time to fully go there, but hopefully this has been helpful. And I want to thank you again, all of the folks who are here, all the departments and mayor staff who provided, and ACDA who have contributed. And I think this gives us all a lot of good food for thought and directions to go. I'll say two quick things.

One is The Housing Action Plan, I think that's— that'll be a conversation with the Assembly. What do we want to do with it and update it? How do we make it useful? And then of course, we know we have the 10,000 homes. Yeah, we make sure those are in alignment.

And then I'll just say briefly on design standards, the discussion about the pause and the rework, that is a project I'm interested in and I intend to work on. And I know that's a whole thing, and it is attached to our comp plan. So going into that knowing that's going to be a a lot of work, but we were able to fix, uh, site access, which was a 4-year saga that we basically had to undo, but we were able to make it better. So I will say I'm hopeful and optimistic, and, uh, so look for more on that soon. Um, so thank you again, everyone.

We will adjourn this work session. We'll start again at 1:20, and then I'll note we have our last committee meeting of the day at 2:30, so we'll have an hour for that discussion. Thanks.