Planning and Zoning Commission - January 12, 2026 - 2026-01-12 18:00:00

Hello everyone, we will call this January 12th, 2026 Planning and Zoning Commission meeting to order. May we have roll call? Jared Gardner, here. Radhika Krishna, here. Scott Pullis, here.

Jeff Rahn, here. Alma Abaza, here. Uh, Andres Spinelli and Brandy Eber are excused. You have a quorum. Thank you.

Thank you. And today I'm going to read the short board policy. Um, when there is a short 5-member commission and a postponement is offered to and agreed to by the petitioner, their case will be moved to the next regular agenda. The postponement will occur within 30 days, which does not require re-noticing the case. Um, would the petitioner in cases 2026-0006 and 0007 please, um, come forward, state their name, and state if they opt to go forward with the case this evening or to postpone?

Uh, hello, I'm the representative for Case 2026-006 and 007, Kate Sauve, S-A-U-V-E, and we would like to postpone till next time. Thank you, that's noted.

Next is special order of business. Are there any disclosures?

Seeing no disclosures, we'll move on. May we have staff's presentation on the Safer Seward Highway project? Yes, thank you. The DSR, the Design Study Report, so that's the 35% design phase, that was case 2025-0087. That was before the Planning and Zoning Commission on September 8th.

Of 2025. Uh, at that meeting, the Commission voted to return the DSR for redesign. Chapter 3 of Title 21 states no agency may proceed with a project that does not conform to the Commission's decisions unless the agency furnishes the Commission a written statement of the reason for its decision to proceed. Um, so this info item is, uh, is DOT's written statement for its decision to proceed. There is a link to the environmental assessment in the letter.

The project would then, uh, we would expect it to come back as individual segments at the 65% design phase. So that's plans in hand. Um, Commission members, if you, if you do choose to attend a public meeting for the project, just, um, just note that no more than 3 of you may attend at once. Uh, so there's that violates Open Meetings Act. And then if you, if you do comment or participate, you may need to disclose that.

However, it's like this particular case would not come back before you for the entire roadway in its current form, so there, there is some room if you do wish to comment or, or attend public meetings. If you have any questions on ex parte communication or, or anything of that sort, feel free to contact me, uh, or if you have any additional questions for the Safer Seward Highway Design Team, so DOT and their representative, I can pass those forward. Thank you. Thank you. And we are having technical issues up here, so we're going to have a 5-minute recess while we try to figure those out, and then we'll come back to any comments or questions that the Commission has.

Maybe, but it's probably better that you ask staff a question since the Commission can't um, engage with the public except through testimony.

And it looks like we are back online, so I'm just going to give everyone a few seconds to wrap up whatever they're doing and come back to, um, the meeting.

All right, uh, staff, did you have anything else to add on the Safer Sewer to Highway project before we open it up Commissioner's comments and questions? Uh, no, thank you.

Are there any members of the Commission that have any comments or questions?

Seeing none, we will move on to our next item, which is— okay, which is our public hearings. And I'll read the process by which the public may speak to the Commission.

After the staff presentation is completed on public hearing items, the Chair will ask for public testimony on the issue. Persons who wish to testify will follow the time limits established in the Commission rules of procedure. Petitioners, including all of his or her representatives, receive 10 minutes. Part of this time may be reserved for rebuttal. Representatives of groups such as community councils and PTAs receive 5 minutes, and individuals receive 3 minutes.

When your testimony is complete, you may, you may be asked questions by the Commission. You may only testify once on any issue unless questioned by the Commission. Commission recommendations to the Anchorage Assembly are not appealable.

Um, may we have staff's presentation in Case 2026-0003? Yes, thank you, Madam Chair. This is Daniel McKenna Foster, Long Range Planning, presenting this evening on PCC Case 2026-0003, Food and Agricultural Uses Ordinance. Covers a range of topics thematically tied together with producing food in Anchorage. So this topic, this topic of food security, growing food in Anchorage and Alaska, has always, I think, been a pretty hot topic.

And, you know, we're kind of at the end of the supply chain line. We're always looking at how we can stabilize our food sources and look at more ways of, you know, producing food in Anchorage. Again, urban agriculture is always a little bit difficult. But there's always interesting ways that people can fill a niche or start a business that serves our local needs and makes us a little bit less reliant on a barge coming in or a car coming into the airport. So there are just a couple of examples going back in time.

This is a previous case, 2018. Anchorage was looking at making it easier to put greenhouses on top of buildings, and that did pass. And I think this was related to the senior living in East Anchorage, Baxter Senior Living. So they wanted to do— you know, get more people involved in gardening and that sort of thing. So that was 2018.

Um, in 2023, there was a case about, um, doing coffee roasting here in town. And this is something that in the B3 zone, commercial food production is a conditional use. So I think they'd been doing the coffee roasting here, and it was a really big burden to go through the process of figuring out how to get this done when it was something they'd already been doing. I believe this is a, uh, I won't say the name, but it's a long-standing, uh, member of the community coffee roaster. And so this is one of the changes that we also incorporated into this.

Um, Because we had heard back a lot through that permitting process that this was really complicated, and it seems like there might have been an easier way to do this. Um, then another one you might— some of you may recall, uh, 2024 PCC case 2024-0079. This was, um, South Central Foundation trying to build a greenhouse alongside their property near an elder care and child care. So some of these are related to the, the amendments proposed tonight, but some also just kind of emphasize that This is an ongoing interesting issue in Anchorage. People are interested in food production.

They're interested in getting more people involved in food production and figuring out where we can sort of make that happen.

Across the city. And then last year, we also saw local leaders hope to grow more food by lowering taxes. So there were some amend— or some ordinances to talk about sort of dealing with food deserts and, you know, reducing tax costs for people who are growing food. And then more recently, the assembly— and this isn't really a zoning thing, but the assembly made it a little bit easier for small businesses doing sort of cottage food production to do that in their homes. You know, I've been kind of interested in this a while, and I've always been looking for data, because I suspect that a lot of businesses do start in people's homes.

It's lower cost. It's lower capital cost, and it seems like a good way to try an idea, try something, improve that economic activity, and then, from there, you can jump into something else. So this does seem to be the approach through a number of different avenues that policymakers have been taking, and so this ordinance is really sort of just another step in that. It does take a few bigger steps, but it also combines a lot of different things. As you'll see in the ordinance, it touches on a lot of different areas in the code.

So what does this ordinance do? Um, one, it makes commercial horticulture a conditional use in more zones. So conditional use process, like we saw last week, it's a pretty intensive process you go through, but it just allows— if somebody really wants to do commercial horticulture, it's easier to do that, or it's allowable to do that through conditional use. It allows farmers markets in the RO zone. Allow grocery store in R-4A and marine commercial as a permitted use.

Again, we don't see a crazy demand for that right now, but it just kind of makes sense. R-4A is a sort of high-capacity mixed-use zone. It makes sense that there'd be a grocery store there. And marine commercial, why not, right? Maybe if people are working down in marine commercial areas, why not have a grocery store?

Allow commercial food production as permitted use in B-3, I-1, and I-2. Part of that is in, you know, in response to some cases we saw in the past few years, but also just in general. Create— and this is a big piece— create a new use of accessory food and beverage production, and then allow beekeeping and hobby farms as permitted accessory uses in more places. So one, you know, a big piece of this is creating this new food and beverage production accessory use. And some of the comments we got is people say, well, how does this differ from home occupation?

And it does. So home occupation is pretty strict, and it's specifically related to a residence, where the new food and beverage production accessory use doesn't have to be connected to a residence, but maybe it's connected to another use. So the home occupation section is also in 2105, but it has pretty specific regulations about how much space, how much square footage, what percentage, you know, what kind of hours, when deliveries can come, peace and quiet. And so when, when we were putting this together, we wanted to use the best of those and the most enforceable of those, and sort of put that to this. And so this new use, it basically says that you can use a portion of a property or use a property for a portion of the year.

So it shouldn't be the entire use, but it's sort of, um, it's an accessory use to what's normally going on there. But that can be either in area or in time. Um, and so we, but we, we try to use, take some of those use-specific standards. Um, specifically, it shouldn't be really noticeable that something different is happening there. If it's in a residential district, there, there shouldn't be more coming and going of vehicles.

Although somebody pointed out in the comments, you might seen, you know, somebody now could be ordering stuff from Amazon all day and those deliveries could be coming through. But we want to have put something in and say we really want to limit that because say you are in a residential area and somebody's trying out something, you don't want, you know, trucks coming and going. So we, we did add, um, deliveries should only be allowed between 9 and 5. Um, and then most important, you know, no equipment or process should be used in the food production use that creates noise, vibration, glare, fumes, odors detectable to normal senses. That's kind of boilerplate zoning language, but it really is about addressing problems if they occur and when they occur rather than trying to prevent any sort of innovation or that type of thing before it occurs.

We got a number of comments and a lot of them relate to how this use would relate to state standards. So, you know, one, how does homemade food equate to commercial food production? That's still a separate use with its own definition. Does homemade food meet the standards of home occupation? As we mentioned, that it is separate.

And so you can compare those two. Will people operating under AMC 1660.105 fall into food and beverage production? So AM16, that's not Title 21. That's a different set of regulations. So again, as we live in the zoning code, our response is that this is only about zoning.

So we're removing the restrictions in zoning, but that doesn't mean that other standards don't still apply, you know, especially sort of the health safety standards that are in health code especially state code. This is just saying the zoning code is, is not regulating that, but we're assuming that, you know, the cottage license food will still be in place. Um, if an alcohol license is issued for a private residence, will they still be required to acquire a food establishment permit? So again, permits will be required for all use in the zoning table, and this doesn't change the alcohol licensing requirements. That's a state level, it has a lot more oversight.

And so this couldn't be that somebody just starts producing alcohol without going through the normal state regulations. And as a food establishment permitted issued to private residents, will they be allowed to acquire an alcohol permit? Again, it doesn't change the alcohol licensing or permits. It just addresses what may or may not be possible through zoning. And then, is it expected that the Anchorage Health Department, EH inspectors, will inspect private dwellings?

Will AMCO inspect private dwellings? So again, we, we We, we don't touch any of that stuff. So if Amco has the rule, that rule is still in place. If Anchorage Health Department has the rule, that, that rule is still in place. It just is no longer sort of maybe double restricted through, um, that rule and in zoning.

But the intent is really not to open up wide, you know, total free-for-all, total commercial, but more somebody who's doing something and trying something on a sort of partial basis, um, or maybe a temporary basis. We also got some comments that you may have seen that don't quite line up with the final version you had. So there are sort of two versions of the AAO. Initially we started, and there were a lot of discussions about all the other things we could include in this. There was a case recently about hay and feed sales up on the hillside.

And so for a portion we thought maybe we could connect that in here and deal with that. And so some of these comments relate to that. And then another comment suggested, well, let's make it so we can have more grocery stores up in the hillside in R-6, maybe as a conditional use and only along certain roads. So that was in a previous version, and I think in, in the earlier version of the AO you'll see that. But ultimately we decided to take that out.

We've been working with Assemblymember Johnson, and he wanted to just do a little more work, a little more outreach on, um, uh, in, on the hillside area, and then we'll probably bring that forward at a later date. So with that, I'd love to answer any questions. We also have Nolan Colada from the mayor's office. They've been, you know, really interested in food security and strengthening these issues. So we're glad to answer any questions.

Are there any questions for staff?

Commissioner Gardner. Thank you. Thanks for the presentation, Daniel. My question might be slightly tangential to the kind of specifics, but it's to help me make sure I understand kind of how these accessory uses are kind of put together in the code, and, um, and in particular some of the comments and that you made and otherwise about home occupation, which isn't something I've previously had to specifically kind of look into. Um, and I guess my specific question is looking at how home occupation is defined, as I understand it, it it's contemplated as a use that takes place in a dwelling unit or in a building accessory to a dwelling unit.

And when I was first going through the packet, I was trying to kind of piece together logically in my head kind of how the accessory uses, what primary uses they're kind of tied to. And looking at the table, I see that home occupation is a permitted use in not just residential, but also commercial and industrial. Zones. And so is, is there a scenario where home occupation could be used in an industrial zone, for example, or is that— am I misunderstanding kind of how that works?

Thank you, Mr. Gardner, through the chair. Yeah, that's, that's a great question. We ran into that too, because you're thinking it, it kind of seems that home occupation is serving as just sort of a proxy, sort of proxy for just like general accessory sort of commercially used. But it's true, if it's not in a home, it's— it begins— gets into a weird territory. So, um, there was one example, I think it's, um, it's a business operating in an R-1.

If they wanted to do a separate type of activity, we couldn't really regulate that under home occupation because it isn't really somebody's home. And so it's kind of a way of really getting into sort of a mixed-use, but sort of mixed-use where It's not 50/50 mixed use, and it might be slightly separate. So yeah, I don't know why home occupation is in the industrial zones or listed as a use, but I think that's something that long term we need to look at because probably would be fine, but ultimately, you do get into that sort of issue if, say, you're in an industrial zone, and you're like, I'd like to do maybe a little— I'd like to try curing meat or something here. You couldn't really— and your other business is like a, I don't know, a garage or something. You couldn't really do it necessarily under home occupation because people say, well, where is the residence?

The home occupation says— and it.

Activity that results in a product or service carried out for consideration or not, and conducted as customary incidental and accessory use in a dwelling unit. So it, it just kind of gets into a bit of a tangle. And so, yeah, we made a bit more code to do that, but it's sort of to deal with all the instances where maybe there isn't a home on the property. All right, thank you.

Any other questions for staff?

Seeing none, I will ask one, which is— Good morning, Chair. Commissioner Rahn, go ahead.

Thank you all. Commissioner Rahn here. Staff, thank you for the presentation. My questions are around Section D in AO 9(b)(2) and (3). I understand there was some agency comments around delivery and how this draft AO may look to mitigate potential impacts.

Can you give a little more context there? And I'm specifically interested in the role of Title 21 versus, excuse me, other mechanisms that BNU may have to perhaps better manage the aversion to potential impacts that this language is trying to address.

Through the chair. Yes, so that, you know, initially the language said in residential district, you shall not attract or facilitate more vehicular traffic than would normally be expected. That's sort of lifting it from the home occupation. But then we did get a comment from staff, and they said, well, you know, is that enough? Can you limit it any further?

And, you know, it does seem reasonable to say between 9 and 5 PM. So what that does is if there's a complaint, then somebody can say You know, I observe vehicles coming at 8:30 in the morning or at 6:30 PM, and then because it's here, it makes it a little bit easier to regulate that. Within the home occupation section, um, so this is on page 5-125, if anybody's in Chapter 5, it says, uh, vehicles making deliveries shall not be parked at the site for a period exceeding 1 hour. No traffic delivery shall be generated by such home occupation in greater volume than would normally be expected in a residential neighborhood. Um, all vehicles used in connection with the home occupation shall accept Well, I won't read the whole thing, but— so we're trying to get from how many of these are really enforceable and people are going to enforce them to something where it gives us something pretty clear so the inspector or whoever goes out, the enforcement person, can tie it pretty easily and closely.

And it's also easy for somebody who's living across the street and say, well, OK, they were coming at 5:30 PM, and they need to come at 5:00. Um, so that's kind of where we landed on that. Um, but again, you'll see in the comments, the comment from staff was also that we don't really regulate, you know, somebody getting Amazon deliveries, um, throughout the day. So that's maybe a, a, an area we could look at a little bit more. Um, but in general, a lot of this was let's try regulating problems as they occur rather than in advance.

You know, we might have to change that in the future, but that's sort of how we landed on that.

If I may follow up, Chair. Go ahead.

Are there other elements of code, other levers that the municipality has at its disposal outside of Title 21 to manage these types of issues?

Through the Chair, do you mean manage deliveries or sort of delivery traffic in general?

As one example of what I'll generally call a nuisance in the sense that I think that the intention of this language is intended to address.

That's a good question and I mean, I guess you could manage it through managing the right-of-way and say, you know, this, this type of street can't have this type of truck. But then of course deliveries could just get in and use a Sprinter van or a smaller type of vehicle. Um, again, it's, it's tricky to say, you know, what's the difference between somebody who gets a bunch of deliveries all day of something related to their hobby versus something— somebody who gets a bunch of deliveries all day of something that's related to them producing food or doing a home occupation. I don't think, as far as I know, I don't think we have, um, a great way of dealing with that yet. Um, so I, I would say that's probably an area to explore more, but we don't have it for dealing with home occupations either at the moment, um, or even just people, you know, in their residential neighborhoods getting deliveries.

So I would have to think about that and maybe report back.

Thank you.

Um, seeing no other questions in the queue right now, I'll ask one, which is a little bit about the hobby farm definition. So could you, uh, talk a little bit about how a hobby farm in a residential district would, um, differ from a home garden?

Yes, I will pull up the definition so we can all look at it.

So just Noting that hobby farms are expressly not allowed as home occupations, but, um, so hobby farm is the production of crops for sales, may include a temporary stand for sales on the premises. And I'm sorry, what was the second part of the question? No, I think that does answer my question. So, uh, farm stands would be allowed on private premises, uh, in all these residential zones if this was approved? Yeah, temporary stand.

Seeing no other questions in the queue, we will open the public hearing. Um, are there any members of the public wishing to testify in this case? Please come forward and state your name.

Oh, will you turn on the microphone please? There's a button and the red light will go on.

Oh, okay. Thank you. Thank you. And could you state your name? And, um, my first name is Mike and last name is Mosesian.

Spelled M-O-S-E-S-I-A-N. And are you testifying as an individual or as a—. Or representing a group? Well, I own Bell's Nursery. And I'm testifying in regards to this new ordinance. And I'm very much in favor of it.

I have been growing tomatoes and cucumbers in Alaska for 54 years now. I think it's wonderful that we are considering encouraging more food production because we have to stop and think. If we have a serious earthquake, our food is 5 days away from the port of Tacoma, but it's weeks away from the farms. And the farms are where? California, Mexico, South America.

In many other places. So we need that reliability of food grown here. And food that's fresh is much more nutritional, as you might well imagine. I mean, that's common knowledge. But what I'm really concerned about— I grow tomatoes, cucumbers, eggplant, bell peppers.

I can grow anything. And the reason why, before I came to Alaska in 1972, my family, we farmed 1,000 acres of table and wine grapes. So all I knew how to grow were grapes. So in 2012, I said, "Well, I know how to grow grapes. I'll start growing wine grapes." So I started growing wine grapes, and now I'm producing wine, and I have a license, and because I grow the The grapes have to be grown in greenhouses.

They won't survive outside. And besides, they would die under these extreme low temperatures. They've never ripened anyway. I've tried it, believe me. I've always grown grapes, but I've grew table grapes.

But anyway, in regards to this ordinance, I can give you a comparison. Back in the '70s, '80s, and '90s, I had very good relationships with Safeway and Carr's, and they— Larry Carr really encouraged us to grow more. He was a big promoter of locally grown produce. But when Safeway bought Carr's, it has become increasingly difficult to market our tomatoes and cucumbers to such an extent that this year I'm cutting back 30%. And I grow half a million pounds of tomatoes for the whole state.

But my, you know, some weeks I pick 20, 30,000 pounds of tomatoes a week.

You can't get rid of that much produce at a Saturday market. It has to go through Safeway, Walmart, and Fred Meyer. So in relationship to winemaking, there's a similar problem. Um, Safeway, for example, has contracts with tomato farms in Canada and Mexico. And while I'm producing hothouse tomatoes, they're bringing in hothouse tomatoes from other places.

And is that my limit? It is, yes.

Well, I want—. You can finish up your sentence or your thought if you want. Yeah, I may have another minute or two to get my point across. So what I'm trying to say is it's getting increasingly difficult with these big chain stores. And as a result, oh yeah, they'll say, well, we grow Musashins tomatoes, but they'll give you like a shoebox area.

And you know you've gotta have a good display. I can remember back when Larry Carr owned the market. Thank you. I think to be fair, we have to keep everyone's testimony the same amount of time, but members of the commission are welcome to ask any questions that they have of you. I'm not seeing any, but thank you for your testimony.

Okay, any questions? Well, this was related to, uh, selling the wine in the nursery. We have the same problem. The liquor stores— my wine is on the bottom floor. I was just requesting that you consider that we could sell the wine.

Thank you, thank you for your testimony. We have to move on to the— any other members of public that have to testify? Questions?

Thank you.

Is there anyone else wishing to testify?

Not seeing any, um, we will, uh, ask if staff has any rebuttal or any further comments.

Uh, none from Planning Department. I'll leave it open for Mr. Clowder, if he has anything he wanted to add.

Yes, Nolan Clowder with the Mayor's Office. I just wanted to make a quick comment that, that it is a priority for the mayor to help prioritize local agriculture and a local food ecosystem. And so the Planning Department putting this AO together, you know, largely at the request of the Mayor's Office was part of that effort. And we also had understood that, from speaking to a lot of commercial farm businesses, that they often operate on very thin margins, have difficulty with market access, and that on-site processing, sometimes value-added processing on-site, is a way that helps them to be able to, you know, strengthen their business case. And so this, the accessory use, was put together with that in mind.

And also kind of, it's not identical, but leans into the same direction. As the cottage food updates as well that make it easier for small businesses to be able to, to produce on-site. And so I'd be happy to take any questions as well from the mayor's intent, but very thankful for the planning department for putting this together and to the PCC for hearing it.

Thank you. And with that, we're going to close the public hearing.

And now the commission can choose to ask any further questions or can choose to make a motion.

Commissioner Gardner, would you like to state your motion? Yes, thank you. I move in Case 2026-0003 to recommend to the Anchorage Assembly approval of an amendment to Title 21 to ease restrictions on agricultural uses and food production in the Anchorage Bowl. That is seconded by Commissioner Pulis. Commissioner Gardner, would you like to speak to your motion?

Um, yes, just briefly. We heard, um, I guess we received some written comments, um, in favor of this ordinance. We heard some public testimony today in favor, and I'll note the finding in the staff packet that this agricultural uses and food production have been topics of public discussion at the policymaker level throughout 2025. And I think this also meets the criteria for Title 21 text amendment change under 2103.210(d).

Thank you. Is there anyone else who wishes to speak to this motion? Commissioner Polis? Yeah, I intend to support the motion. I pretty much agree with, um, the other commissioners' statements.

Um, I'll also add that, you know, just kind of reading through things and having lived through some of my own personal stuff with smells and whatever may become of it, um, I was able to get over it. And I think there is some proposed language in there that includes some language for enforcement such as odors, gases, and all that stuff. And so I have faith we can, we can do something about that stuff if it comes about. Thank you. Any other members of the commission wishing to speak to this motion?

Through the chair, if I may. Go ahead, Commissioner Rahn.

Thank you. I intend to support the motion for the reasons stated by previous commissioners. I appreciate both the administration and the department's recognition of the importance of this issue. As my questions earlier in the night indicated, I find the language in 9B(2) and (3) to be somewhat problematic and foresee some potential issues created therein. That said, I don't at this time have a better remedy than what the department has put forward, but would appreciate staff looking further into the issue and how enforcement, lack thereof, better construct can perhaps achieve parity with some of the issues that are already being experienced in residential neighborhoods with deliveries.

Um, thank you. That's all.

Thank you.

Any other comments? Seeing none, we'll call for the vote.

Mr. Ron, how do you vote?

Yes. Thank you.

That motion passes.

And I don't believe we have any other cases today. Um, would staff like to add any comments under Title 21 discussion?

Not seeing any. Are there any commissioners' comments?

Then we will take a motion to adjourn.

Thank you.

Moved by Commissioner Polis, seconded by Commissioner Baza. Any objections? Hearing none, we are adjourned. Thank you, everyone.

Thank you, Jeff.

It's passing hours dancing. How the hell am I still standing? Keys are rusting. I'm not playing Mad.