Anchorage Assembly: Legislative Committee Meeting

Into law. Just a brief sort of overview of the process. The House Financial Services Committee and Senate Banking Committees both sort of crafted their own bills, and over the course of the early months of the year spent a good amount of time sort of sending them back to each other. A lot of different policy disagreements between chambers, but ultimately in June, both both committees and their leadership came to an agreement on a final package, which passed out of the Senate by an 85-5 vote and the House by a 358-32 vote. Uh, the final bill stripped out a controversial provision that required large institutional investors to divest of their Build to Rent homes 7 years, um, after 7 years.

That was taken out. And also a good number of community banking provisions were also in the final bill. So the President was scheduled to sign the bill into law on June 24th, but due to some politics around election legislation, the President declined to sign the bill into law, but it ultimately became law on July 10th without the President's signature. So under the Constitution, a bill that's presented to the President becomes law after 10 days if the President doesn't sign it or veto it. So at this point, the focus turns to implementation.

The Department of Housing and Urban Development has dozens of provisions to start implementing. Um, 59 provisions were in the bill, to be exact, and over 100 different pieces of guidance, rulemakings, and other items need to be set up. So I can just highlight a few of the provisions that may be of most interest to Anchorage. So One provision that made it in was the Build Now Act, which allows CDBG recipients to have their allocations adjusted due to their housing supply growth. So this would take place 3 years, 3 fiscal years after enactment.

So I believe FY 2029 is when this would first sort of enter the CDBG program. And HUD is also required to notify recipients by September of this year of their housing growth rate and sort of issue guidance explaining how the CDBG share would be calculated. So that's something to look forward to pretty soon. There's also provisions on publicly owned land database, which CDBG grantees would be required to implement. Also pilot programs on Innovation Fund housing planning and implementation grants, and a good number of other provisions as well.

So happy to take any questions. On any of that.

All right, thank you. And we do have a question from Member Brawley. Yeah, thank you. And I appreciate the overview, and I know there's a lot of organizations looking at this who were involved in the advocacy and unpacking it as well. So, so that's great.

I guess I have a few questions. One is, and again, like you said, there's rulemaking, there's all these kind of implementation pieces. So it's not that it's immediately changing everything now, but I'm curious in general what the timeline is. You know, has HUD said, you know, is it a year or I don't know what the bill actually says in terms of timeframe. That's my first question.

Then I have a couple others.

Sure. So yeah, it really, it varies by each provision.

I think some of the quickest ones to get in place are I think part of the Build Now Act, what I'd mentioned, by September they're going to be issuing guidance on growth rates for each CDBG.

But also, I mean, there's a good difference in a bunch of different provisions. And one thing to also note, a lot of, a lot of times when Congress passes something, there are these legal requirements that agencies are required to hit, but a lot of times they end up slipping a good bit. And with HUD dealing with a lot of other active rulemakings and other NOFOs and other opportunities, there's a chance that some of these might flip. So I think the implementation process is going to be really key in whether, you know, some of the goals that Congress had actually get put into place.

Yeah, thanks. Yeah, totally heard. The other, I guess, I want to understand a little bit more, at least as it is right now, the Build Now provision. So as you said, I understand the general purpose of that seems to be reward communities that are getting more housing built and, you know, have a negative incentive for those that aren't. So I think, you know, that obviously if you're, you have a challenging building environment, then it's, it could seem like punishing a municipality that isn't, you know, isn't doing enough, which, you know, it's, it's a whole conversation.

But I'm wondering too, because a few years ago there was this whole discussion about housing production, and all these incentives around housing production. This was years and years ago now. Um, and then coming out, uh, it came out basically like, okay, maybe it's not realistic to only build new things. There's also the discussion about housing preservation. Um, so I guess I'm wondering, uh, just from what we know now about those provisions, obviously it could result in less, um, less HUD funding, uh, through those formulas.

But I'm wondering if there's like, what are the guardrails on that right now? Or what is it like, what is it trying to do? And what risk does Anchorage have in particular because of our challenging building? You know, are we going to get punished for trying but not seeing the volume that we would see in Columbus, Ohio, or in a city in Texas, or things like that? Thanks.

Right, of course. And so, I mean, I think the underlying goal is just using this as an incentive for localities to change their zoning plans and try to, you know, just pave the way for more housing.

And I think even though, like, it'll take 3 years for this to actually hit the program, FY 2029, HUD is going to issue guidance on, you know, how they're going to evaluate each CDBG and sort of the baseline that they're working from. I think it also might be an Administrative Procedure Act rulemaking as well. So I think it's important for Anchorage and other localities to, you know, make themselves heard, comment on the process, interact with HUD on this to make sure that Congress's intent is followed through here. Okay, thanks. And then last question for me.

I know every time there's a housing policy, you know, whether it's city, state, any of those things, multiple jurisdictions have seen lawsuits basically, or litigation in response to policy change. So I'm just wondering, at this point, is there any known kind of litigation challenging any of this? Or, I mean, I know there was a lot of organizations involved in this too, and so it's been very vetted and had the, the expertise look at it, but just wondering if what the litigation landscape with this bill looks like right now.

Yeah, there's nothing at this point that I'm aware of, uh, even though I would note Section 1001 of the bill, which is the single-family, uh, institutional investor provision, um, that statute is made effective 6 months after enactment, and it only gives the agencies the option to issue rulemakings. And so just given the statute as it's written now, I think there are going to be a lot of challenges for institutional investors or other participants who may be operating single-family rentals. Lots of uncertainty out there right now, so I think that could be a risk, but nothing that comes to mind for municipalities at the moment. Okay, thank you.

All right, I want to note for the record that Member Park joined us at 11:06, and then next in the queue, I have Chief of Staff Fleet Green. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I just wanted to respond to Member Brawley's point as well. As we're tracking these regulations, that we will fully engage with our congressional delegation.

They'll be tracking it. And so that is something that's on our to-do list. And, you know, certainly given your expertise, would welcome you to participate in those conversations with our delegation. They've, they've been helpful. They've been paying attention.

And I think they will be tracking this closely, so we want to make sure that we're looking at it and offering them any suggestions to then make back to the administration. Thanks. Yeah, happy to participate in that. And then also connecting with American Planning Association, National League of Cities, and these other organizations that are tracking. I know they have a lot of good resources too, so thank you.

Great, thanks. Anything else on this subject?

Not seeing any hands or any texts from members on the phone. So with that, thank you, Joel, for being here. We appreciate the update, and I'm happy to see that this rare moment of bipartisan harmony happening.

So thank you. Yeah, we will go ahead and move on to our next item. Again, as I mentioned earlier, we do not have Ms. Chamberlain with us here today, but I believe Policy Director Clowder is prepared to give us a little bit of an update on how things are going down in Juneau. Sure, sure. I can give a high level, and the Chief of Staff can weigh in on anything I'm missing.

And for the record, Nolan Cloutier, Policy Director in the Office of Mayor LaFrance. So the big news, the special session, we are now on the third special session since the regular session ended earlier this year. And there's no current bill on the table to discuss. I think that HB 381, which was originally drafted during the regular session and then was carried through the two subsequent special sessions, has now been voted down, didn't work out, and the current, since the current special session began on the 27th, there has been, they've chimed in for technical sessions, but they haven't actually workshopped any bill. Currently, the governor has stated an intent to, introduce a new version of it and is going through some consultation in order to shape what that ends up looking like.

The big contentious issue on it, of course, has been the S-corp tax, how that pass-through taxation for pass-through entities is handled. And so that's been the big sticking piece on it in the past versions. So right now, there's just sort of a waiting game to see what comes out from the Governor's office and then where the legislative discussion goes from there.

The only point that I would add is, as we run into legislators about town, as all of you do as well, I just wanted to reaffirm that the Mayor utilizes the Assembly resolution that was passed in early March to help guide our approach to all of this.

All right, thank you, appreciate it. Looking around the room, not seeing any questions on that. I think we're maybe hoping that we'd have a little bit more to discuss at this juncture, but here we are. All right, thank you. Uh, we will go ahead and turn back to, uh, Mr. Cloutier then for your next topic you'd like to discuss.

Sure, Mr. Chair. We can go through a few of our federal pieces, I think, if that was your intent. We are— and I think we've shared with this committee before, at least with several members, that in the NDAA, both the Senate and the House version, the National Defense Authorization Act, that we have language in both bills that would convey land at the landfill, at the Anchorage landfill that's adjacent to landfill that we've actually been leasing from, um, Jaybear for a long time, that would be conveyed to the Municipality of Anchorage for the purposes of ultimately hosting a waste-to-energy plant. And so, um, that's something we've been actively working on with all, all three offices of our congressional delegation, um, in particular in the bill language and getting it moving with, with Senator Sullivan's office and with Representative Begich's office.

So it's about a 50-acre piece of land. There are some specifics to be worked out about the exact conditions of the transfer, but that's something we've been working on with Brownstein and our lobbyists, as well as with the offices of congressional delegation, and should have more updates on that soon. Yeah, and through the Chair, Suzanne Fleetgreen, I'll just say the language in the House bill is different than the language in the House— in the Senate bill right now. The Senate bill— let's just say the House bill language cuts to the chase more. And both of those offices have been working hard on it.

The House passed its NDAA. The Senate has not. It's stuck right now. They have until the end of the year to pass it. So once the Senate passes its bill and they appoint conferees, we definitely will be engaging again with our delegation about the best approach to talk to the bill conferees to hopefully get the House version of that report language for the land transfer.

Thank you. And I have Member Hammond. Could you give us, I guess, a little bit of details, I guess, what some of those differences are? Sure. The Senate language, and this is in the report, not the bill itself, but the Senate language instructs the Department of War to more sort of study, evaluate.

It's gentler language, whereas the House language really is what we had worked on that says you will— we are given giving both Department of War as well as Department of the Interior to access that 49 acres and transfer it to the Municipality of Anchorage. So it's much more direct in terms of what we want them to do.

And then I guess for, for the waste energy project, I guess if it does go with the Senate one, is that—. Are we anticipating, I guess, delays because there would be potentially studies or something, I guess? And if If so, I guess, is there a potential amount of time that you could foresee with that? I don't have a time expectation. I will say throughout all of this, JBear has— we've been in constant conversations with JBear.

They are supportive of the transfer, so I don't think we will see delay there. It just— it helps to move it if Congress directs them to do something. So I can't— I don't anticipate that there would be a lot of delay. And given the project timeline as it is now, I think it will all work out fine. But we are still hoping for the House language.

But it's been great that Jay Baer is really helpful and supportive. Thank you so much.

All right. Anyone else on this? Not seeing any hands go up. So moving right through the agenda, we're going to move next to legislative budget priorities as we move into the fall season. This committee's work will shift towards preparing the annual legislative program.

I will be stepping back from my involvement with this committee before that work starts, but I think to kind of maybe give us a little bit of a preview of how we're anticipating managing that process, I'm going to turn to Member Brawley. Yeah, thanks. So yeah, and I'll note— excuse me— at our Rules Committee next week, we'll have a discussion about Assembly committees, which includes schedule, you know, what the suite of committees is and leadership. So that's a separate conversation, but I just want to note, we'll make some changes. So this, this is going to be one of them.

Zach and I have talked about that. Remember, Johnson and I have talked about that. But in terms of the legislative program, so that's something for members' education for the new folks. This is something that this committee does in concert, not just consultation, in coordination with the mayor's office. It's a joint responsibility to produce it, and it gets The legislative program gets adopted by code by December 10th.

I think there's an actual date in code that we do it. So the idea being before the next legislative session, and it's informing the next kind of calendar year's priorities or our fiscal year. So what we'd be working on is the 2027 legislative program. What we've talked about in the past, and I think just to note the kind of opportunity right now that's going to be different than at least since any of us in this room have started, is we will have a different governor, and I think we are more engaged in a coordinated way in federal advocacy than we were before. And so I think historically, well, if you go way back, historically legislative programs were entire binders of millions of dollars of capital asks.

We're not doing that anymore, or at least not a whole binder. The legislative program has also literally been, please give us one thing, and that's port funding. You know, that was maybe 10 years ago or so. And then more recently, it's really been focused on legislative asks for a number of reasons, sometimes administrative asks as well, you know, regulation changes, things like that, but really funding and policy were the two lanes, but in the state legislature. And so the proposal I want to put on the table and have talked with some folks about, and I know others, Member Baldwin-Day, for example, really interested in more, more kind of intentional strategic engagement from the Assembly on federal policy as well, where it makes sense.

So proposing that the legislative program stay days brief, you know, again, not producing a binder, that we really take a step back and not just look at, you know, the year-over-year priorities, but to say, what does Anchorage actually need? What does the municipality need from the state, from the feds, and how do we articulate that and make sure that our audience really is the Governor's Office? So it can include more, maybe more things that the scope would be more things than just legislative bills and the budget, and also that we have maybe, you know, one page for state, one page for for federal. So that's kind of the proposal I want to put on the table in this committee. And again, there's a timeline, we'll work through that.

You know, Mr. Clowder and the mayor's office was very active in producing that. So that's the intent to continue that relationship as well. But I think this is our opportunity. And I think also just to say, I know there's a lot of kind of swirling issues at the local level. And, you know, the school board is figuring out, you know, as they have a couple of new members, they're getting their priorities in order, you know, ASD, ourselves, you know, we're all part of the municipality essentially.

So I think the other thing I want to put on the table is that our goal collectively should be through this process and our other processes that we collectively work together, identify areas of shared priority. And I mentioned ASD because education is going to continue to be an issue. And I think we've all said for many years we're tired of one, one, one year, one at a time solutions. We really need to look harder at things like these formulas and really come up with more sustainable solutions so that we're not stuck in the same arguments year after year. And I think there's a lot of interest, you know, at the state level in that as well.

And so anyway, all that to say, I think we should aim a little higher in our scope and kind of ambition for our legislative program. That's my, my thought right now, and that we should really think intentionally about how we're showing up to a new administration and essentially a new legislature. And that's kind of the proposal. So I just want to put all that on the table, again, knowing also that Mr. Johnson is going to be stepping out of that conversation. But I think there's a way to get there.

And I think this committee has been and should continue to be the space for us collectively to have that discussion as a lot of the work happens outside of it. So that's, I think, my soapbox. Thank you. Thank you for that framing. Anything on this?

Around the room, not seeing any hands come up or any texts coming in. So with that, that takes us through our agenda. Does not look like there's anybody here for audience participation, nor do I believe we have anybody on the phone who would be a potential candidate.

Okay, so it looks like we have one person on the phone who— We do not recognize the number. If you're here for audience participation, you can go ahead and unmute yourself and you'll have 3 minutes, of course, introduce yourself for the record. And if you're not here for that, that's fine as well. But this is the opportunity if you're here to speak.

It's Sydney Scout. I don't know why I'm not being recognized on the phone today. Oh, okay, great. Well, thanks for joining us, Ms. Scout.

Just for the record, can you just kind of let us know when you tuned in?

Yeah, it was like 11:03. 11:03. All right, well, thank you for.