Community and Economic Development Committee Meeting

Yeah.

Granddaughter. So far, wow.

Yeah, before we leave. Yeah, that's awesome.

Good morning, everyone. I'm going to call this meeting of the 1st Community and Economic Development Committee of the new year to order. Thursday, January 8th. It is 9:00 AM here at the Development Services training room, newly installed with AV technology that we're using today. We'll begin with member introductions.

Assemblymember George Martinez. I don't believe there are any members on the phone, but, uh, oh, I see Member Brawley. Yes, I'm here. Yes, I'm here. Thank you, Member Brawley.

I see Member Baldwin-Day.

Yes, here. Thank you. Thank you. And if there are any other members that I've missed, please identify yourself as we go.

We'll begin with our regular reports. We do have a few wonderful, uh, couple of presentations later and new new business that we'll get to, but we'll begin with our regular reports. And we do have some staff changes that I think we'll announce at the start. And so we'll turn it over to Community Development. And who will be presenting for the administration of Community Development?

And I'm looking over to Mr. Dole. Would you please introduce yourself and tell us the reorganization and the role you fill? Good morning, Assemblymembers. Hi, I'm Bob Dole, the Director of Community and Economic Development. As you may be aware, we initiated a reorganization within the administration effective at the start of January.

Under that reorganization, we carved— we separated into the Community and Economic Development Planning, Development Services, the Real Estate Department with HLB and GIS, and then I will— and then the Community Economic Development of the In my role, I report directly to the mayor in terms of what those entities are doing. The other part of the organization is under Ken Colhase, the public works that was there before. So we've kind of split the two. That allows more attention to the priorities of the needs of the municipality.

Wonderful. Thank you, Mr. Dohle. And so would you like to begin with our updates on Any of the departments that you are responsible for? I would invite the directors to come forward to give their respective—. Solid.

Let's begin with Development Services.

Excellent. Sorry. Good morning, Mr. Chair. Greg Suley, Development Services.

Just a couple updates.

Our pre-approved ADU program, you know, if you look at our website, you'll notice we have a placeholder for that now. It's, um, it's— we have no information on that just yet, but we do have our first approved ADU design that has been fully vetted, and we have another one coming in right behind that. Um, some other news on that, um, Dan King was able to work with, um, some of the folks over at UAA and got a capstone course approved, um, in which some of these students have elected to design ADUs. So we anticipate 2 new ADU designs coming in from them in 2026. Um, we're just going to give you some 2025 totals.

I don't think I did that last time, but the year-end totals for 2025, the total construction valuation was $636 million. Which is 7% over what we did in 2024. In addition to that, uh, development worked with developers to put 7 new subdivisions online, which brought a total of 100 new residential lots. Um, uh, let's see, for our code updates— oh, in addition to that, we put, uh, the total number of dwelling units that were, that were permitted in 2025 was $639 million. So, and that was a 30% increase over 2025.

So, just want to kind of highlight that to note that a lot of these changes that planning and the assembly are making are actually taking some effect. Excellent. Okay, I just follow up with the question and make sure I heard those data points more accurately. The first one was the valuation total was up 7%? Mr.

Chair, that's correct, 7% per year. Okay. And then you also mentioned the number of dwelling units. Was that up 30%? Mr.

Chair, that's correct as well, 30%.

See, Member Brawley has a question. Sure. Member Brawley. Yeah, thank you. Thank you.

Just to dig in a little bit on the number of housing units. How many of them are the multifamily?

I think it's—. Um, we'll have a pretty good breakdown on that. We're coming— I don't have those numbers ready for this morning. 267 Were commercial permits, so that would be 4+.

Okay, great. Thank you. Great. Thank you. I see Member Baldwin-Day has a question as well.

Yes, thank you. Yes, thank you, Chair. I'm curious if those numbers will be made available in some other format, and if so, I think the answer to that is yes. To the Chair, Ms. Baldwin-Day, yes, we will make those available. Excellent.

Excellent. Will those be by email or some other format? Okay, uh, through the chair, Ms. Baldwin-Day, so we, we'll be, uh, on our monthly housing rollup, we'll be updating those numbers regularly, um, and we can definitely send those, send that table over to, um, the assembly. Excellent. I would love to see that.

Thank you.

Excellent. And just one follow-up as well, request for information. I would love to see, kind of, uh, get a geophysical space of where those subdivisions are, thinking of the mapping and thinking of where they are. So that would be helpful in addition to the other information. Thank you.

Okay. Let's see. Just to mention our code update. We hope to have the code update into OnBase for assembly approval next week. So hopefully we'll have that to you guys very soon, along with our summary of significant changes and the summary of economic impact.

And then the last thing I'll mention is new subdivisions for this year.

We have pretty good activity already. We have 4 new subdivisions that are— have been applied for, and, well, we have.

Under review now that are already totaling 88 new lots. So, and we're actually off to a pretty good start valuation-wise with $14.5 million, which is about 385% over where we were last year. But that's because of one large permit. So, that's it from Development Services, unless you have any questions. I don't see any additional questions.

Thank you. And we'll move to planning. Morning, Chair Martinez. Members, I will probably hand over a majority of this to Long Range. Very busy lately and have a lot of news to share.

But a few things that I'd like to highlight for the group this morning, and one of which real estate may have a little bit more to say on. Um, but the first thing that Holton Hills went to PCC on Monday, and PCC approved the preliminary plat and the conditional use. You do the plant unit development for Holton Hills. This last Monday, so that recording is online if anyone would like to see. Um, secondly, I wanted to highlight the fact that we are seeing a significant and uptick in rezones to implement the Comp Plan.

You may remember passing a Rezone Reform AO earlier last year, and it sounds— it seems like the word is getting out about the new process because we have, I think, 10 rezones to implement the Comp Plan headed your direction. Not this assembly meeting, but the next one, I believe you'll see some of those. So I think that's it for our overall announcements. I'd like to hand it off to Long Range for the rest. [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] Long Range Planning.

One thing that we've been working on for a while is consolidating the 2020 Plan and 2040 Plan, not changing it, but just getting document. So now that we have the term contract, we're talking with the term contractor to just combine those all together so everybody can just look at one link, one document. That won't change any of the content of any of this stuff. There will be an update to those later, some of the bigger picture policies, actions, but that's much later. It's just combining those together, so keep an eye out for that.

We have a number of upcoming cases. We were looking at food and agricultural production going— there's an AO on that going to Planning and Zoning next week. We're looking at some changes to R-6. We're looking at some changes to Landy's Plan in East Anchorage to help out institutions. We have an omnibus going.

We're looking at legacy rezones, getting rid of like the D2, D4, TR, some of the old zones that were part of the old Title 21 that haven't been fixed up. The parks rezoning will be coming to the Assembly soon to rezone a lot of land just to parks, parks and rec designation. We're also working on the shop house AO that we worked with Member Brawley on, and also AO-2025-63, which is about about conditional uses in V3, which went to the Assembly last summer. We're bringing something back after doing some review. That'll go through the planning zoning process.

And finally, we are updating the wetlands management plan. We're doing Phase 1, which is just sort of fixing some of the references in there, and then later in the year, we'll do a larger update. And we do have funding for that to do a really big, robust update to make sure that works in the changing sort of federal regulatory climate. Just a clarification on the, um, the comp plan revisions. There will be some changes to— included in that effort.

We are combining the 2 documents and working with PCC to update some of the policies in the documents directly related to housing, not to any of the other content, just, just to housing. Um, so just Are there any questions for planning?

I see Member Brawley with her hand raised. Yeah, thank you. Yeah, thank you. Um, and I have some— I have some— the, the one that I didn't ask is, uh, we got an email regarding— regarding— I think it was case 2026-003, I believe. I believe And, um, yeah, sorry, they were asking about a text amendment to allow— I wonder if that's part of that agricultural AO that you mentioned separate.

Yeah, this is Daniel McCanuff Foster again. Yeah, that was to allow food and beverage production as an accessory use, and that will be going to the That'll be next week, January 12th. So that, that is for considerations for discussion, and it's a number of other things as well, but that is the case. Okay, so just to be clear, the current version, or is it— is it other—. Is it other item that, that does include food and beverage production, including alcoholic beverage as an accessory use?

So that's where that would be located. Okay, yeah, I guess I'll have some, some questions, but I can follow up on that.

Great. I don't see any other questions for Planning, so we'll move on. Uh, Real Estate, this will be a short presentation now, I'm sure, because presentation for the work plan, but, uh, Real Estate Department, Tiffany. Good morning, Tiffany Briggs, Real Estate Director. Yes, brief update, um, from me today.

As, um, Melissa mentioned already about Fulton Hills, um, yesterday we had 2 planning actions at the planning board. Uh, one was for the Girdwood Industrial Park, a Phase 2. That, um, planning action passed. The other one was to, um, divide a larger HLB parcel into 3 separate tracts. That also passed the Planning Board.

So we're excited about those projects and to keep them moving forward. And then the HLB work plan is getting introduced at Tuesday's meeting, and we'll be giving a presentation later in the meeting today.

Any questions for Real Estate?

Look forward to seeing the work plan. Turn it over to Public Works. And I see Mr. Collins. Good morning, Mr. Chair.

Kent Collins, Public Works. Thank you. Uh, trying to focus on things that would be, I think, of interest to the committee in the maintenance and operations world. Of course, we have a plowout underway now. Um, if you look at our plow plan, the projected time for a plowout and the snow is above 120 hours.

It was 20 inches of snow, which exceeds our normal average snowfall by quite a bit. It's a light fluffy snow, so we're hoping to be able to gain some time on that, but it's underway right now. They declared the plow on, I think, as of yesterday morning, so they're well into that.

The other thing I thought that folks might be interested in is the fleet levy that was passed by the voters last year, that $3.5 million fleet levy for snow or road maintenance, I guess, rather than snow. In 2025. We use that to purchase 4 sanders, 4 loader-mounted snow blowers, 3 graders, and 2 pickups with nose plows. Um, most of that— a couple of those things have arrived. A couple of the sanders have arrived.

A couple more are in town and should arrive soon. The snow blowers have arrived. We've got some graders, and the pickups should be arriving, uh, probably after the snow season this year, but they'll be positioned for next year. And then the 2026 plan purchases 4 more graders, 2 self-propelled snow blowers and 2 front-end loaders. So we're working our way well through the fleet of old equipment that was problematic, and we'll have close to half of our graders replaced, I think, with this 2026 levy, which is a big, big benefit to the crews out and to the public as well.

In the PM&E world, The DCM is, I know, a topic of interest. The landscape chapter and the transit chapter, uh, chapter, it's called going to PCC in February. Those are our perspective. They're done. PCC for public hearing, and we're done with the process that was— that worked back in 2013, I think, for updating the DCM.

And then the big one I know folks are interested in, the streets chapter, Chapter 1, is kicking off. This month, and there'll be some information coming out about that. Brandon Tilghman is the lead on that. And that, unfortunately, or factually, I guess, that will be close to a 2-year process given the requirements for— not the requirements, but the interest in getting a lot of public input from the development community, from others involving administration, involving the Assembly, involving multiple stakeholder groups, the requirements for public hearings, just the way it works out. It's— we're probably looking at late summer of 2027 to have that new DCM wrapped up and in the can.

The other big thing I may have mentioned at a previous meeting that, that PM&E and others are working on, including AWU, is what we call dewatering. When a construction project is underway and they run into groundwater, we used to work with AWU BU or contractors could pump that water into the municipal sewer system. AWU is running up against some constraints with their permitting and the Clean Water Act that they've determined legally that they should not be allowing that.

To occur except in very limited circumstances, which means the other option is pumping it into the municipal storm drain system. And of course, we are also under the auspices of the Clean Water Act and permitting from DEC. So, we're working through what that looks like, and we should be putting out some information to the construction community here in January or early February outlining the new process. So, it'll be incumbent on development community to think ahead about what that process might be, because some of it's out of our control. Some of the permitting is going to happen at the DEC level.

We're in continuing discussions with them, and ideally we'd get some deferred authority from them, but right now we're working with them on what that might look like. But some potential impacts there, both to municipal projects and to private projects. Other things we're working on, the mentioned this before at this meeting, is the gaining management authority for Fifth Avenue and Sixth Avenue downtown. Uh, Graham Downey in particular has been leading that effort, and there's been a lot of very good discussion with the commissioner's office. The commissioner's office is supportive of that, with, with the assurance that we need to collectively figure out what happens with traffic if Fifth and Sixth Avenue are configured such that, that they're not they're no longer part of the National Highway System, which they are now.

So, FedHighways is, is also interested in making this work. They've asked for some more information. I think Mr. Downey is working on gathering that information from departments and providing it to the DOT Commissioner who will send it on to FedHighways. But it looks promising that we at some point would be able to gain management authority, which has long been a goal of I think both various administrations and various assembly iterations. I think those are the high points, Mr.

Chair. I'd be glad to answer any questions that folks may have. Are there any questions from members? I don't see any, and if they are, just flag up. I just wanted to, uh, just first question I had, uh, Mr. Coase, was at last night at the University Area Community Council, a member of the community council offered a comment anecdotally and suggested that they had driven around their community and hadn't found a street not plowed.

So they had seen plows on all the streets.

Personally, I had a timetable in my head that said, if I don't see a plow on this particular street, then You're gonna— we're gonna have a different conversation this week. I saw the plow.

Why does it seem that there's a— is it the light and fluffy snow, or why does it seem like we're on pace with the needs at this time? Are we up to staffing levels differently? Is it the equipment? What is the substantive difference between a couple years ago where we just couldn't seem to get our own equipment on the road and we were relying on private folks more often? Well, I think there's a handful of things.

One, certainly new equipment doesn't break down like old equipment does, so we're probably keeping more equipment on the street on a day-in, day-out basis. I think, I think probably the biggest factor though is— well, there's two others. We have done some increase in staffing. Paul Vanliningham and his folks have really done some, some Yulman's efforts in hiring, they've interviewed, I would guess, well over 200 people in the past 2 and a half years. They restructured what they call the light equipment operator position and turned those into kind of an entry-level position that allows those folks to run the track, the sidewalk tractors that you see.

So there's been some benefits there, but I think the big thing in this snowstorm is that it is a light fluffy snow that is easy for plows to move around. The winters of '22-'23 and '23-'24, certainly the one in '22-'23, that first snowfall in November was a very, very wet heavy snow. No matter how much equipment you have and how many people you have on the street, that probably cuts production by, I would guess, 40%. It's just very difficult to move it. There's a lot of backing up involved.

So this light snowfall is much easier for the crews to move. Thank you. I see there's a question. I would just say more specifically, heavy snow matters differently than the light snow, as you described, but none of it matters if we don't have the right equipment and the right people out on the streets. So if we're behind the curve with heavy snow, we're going to be cemented in blocks of ice, and no one can predict when the moisture is going to change on this snow.

So being in front of it requires adequate staffing and the machinery that's not breaking, and it seems like those two components are in place and it's working. Yes, I would say yes. And, and I also observe that, that November 2022 snowfall was 40 inches in in a week. So it was certainly a different dynamic than we have now. But yes, I mean, having new equipment and having staffing close to where we need it certainly helps with production.

Right on. I see Member Baldwin-Day with the hand raised.

Yeah, thank you, Chair. Thank you, Chair. I have a couple of questions. One about snow removal and one about rent abatement and waste management. The first question is, what sort of coordination is happening with the state DOT, particularly regarding snow removal on sidewalks that the DOT manages?

Through the chair to Member Baldwin-Day, we, we work with the state during every snowfall, and we coordinated with the state ahead of time, uh, earlier this year before snow, regarding our interest in maintaining sidewalks as well as their interest in removing snow from sidewalks. I think the situation continues to be that they are, they are challenged in the type of equipment that they use for the main streets, which tend to move snow at a higher rate than we do and push the snow onto some of their sidewalks. So that's it. I know that's a challenge for them. I guess I would say that we continue to have discussions with them during every snow event.

And also, I believe that there are higher-level discussions that are happening with DOT regularly about our mutual need to improve snow removal on sidewalks.

And could you describe what they are doing about that? What DOT is doing about it? Yes. Yes. I don't know.

Who would be the appropriate person to direct questions to at DOT? I'm concerned that, you know, we haven't had a good amount of snow this year until now. Uh, but it's a perennial problem that DOT sidewalks are covered with snow rather than cleared appropriately. Uh, through the chair, Kirk Warren is the manager of maintenance for the South Central Region, and of course Sean Holland is the Central Region Director. Both of those folks would, would be probably best able to address There, there are plans for snow removal on sidewalks.

Okay, okay, yeah, I may be reaching out. Thank you. And then my second question pertains to the right-of-way management strategy. Could you provide an update on that? Yes, thank you, uh, through the chair to Member Baldovia.

That was on my list and I skipped over it. So, um, the right-of-way management contract had 2 components. One was the parking side, and folks from planning may be able to speak with that, to speak to that if there are questions. The other component of that was snow removal, and we have a contract with Kinney Engineering, and we were largely focused up until several months ago on snow management in the right-of-way regarding roads, and we, we believe that we have a pretty good handle on that. We're— there's still certainly room for improvement, but we have reconfigured the scope of that contract to focus specifically on non-motorized snow removal.

And I will say that the intent of that group now is to involve the state in that discussion. So that, that will hopefully help that situation. But Kenny Engineering has a team assigned to this. We have met regularly, including just last week, with Street Maintenance, with Parks and Recreation. With transit, and the next step will be involve the school district— will be to involve the school district.

So that group, which I'm part of, is looking at sidewalk snow management, best practices, opportunities for continued collaboration, opportunities to continue to help support the school district with respect to snow removal on sidewalks. Some things that happened this year already, which I may have mentioned in the past, perhaps not, is that street maintenance and parks and recreation spent quite a bit of time late fall looking at their mutual networks and reconfiguring how they manage snow on those, those sidewalk and trail networks. There were situations where parks and recreation would drive 2 or 3 or 4 miles with their plow up to plow a short section of sidewalk that was contiguous to work that street maintenance was doing. So they did quite a bit of work on coordinating that and reconfiguring how they plow, which is— we're already seeing some efficiencies. I think that we are seeing right now, seeing our.

Sidewalk network generally cleared within 12 hours of a snowfall. So that effort is underway, Member Baldwin-Day, but that, that snow management contract has been reconfigured. It's very heavily on sidewalk snow removal. I'm happy to hear that. And then I think I would really appreciate hearing a little bit more about parking, right-of-way study, and maybe that can be a future topic at this committee or elsewhere.

Member Brawley.

Yeah, thanks. I don't have a question, just wanted to report back a comment. It occurred to me last night that I've had a kind of refreshing wave of library emails following, and I've seen a lot more communication as well as it seems like people are generally understanding how we're happy about the service. So I don't want to undermine folks out there who are frustrated they don't have their cloud yet, but Just thanks again to the crew and everybody who's really working to figure this out. We have big snowfalls like this.

We'll pass that on to Mr. Van Laningham and his cohorts. Thank you.

And I would offer one final note on the snow stuff. From my vantage point, it's always been interesting to me that there would be any season whatever the range of snow, heavy to light, that Anchorage, Alaska would be out of position and not be able to handle snowfall. It's always been a weird thing to me to see some seasons not as effectively organized and worked and coordinated with the state. So it seems to me that from my vantage point, I don't want us to be in a position that is seasonally dependent. I want us to always be ready, whatever the season is.

And if we don't need the plows, we don't need them. But I want us to always be in a position, staffing ready, because a city that stops with its mobility is a city that stops with its economy. And we have to have a city that's year-round. And it's, it's no longer acceptable that we shut down or we think that Anchorage is not a year-round city. It's like we say we want it to be a winter city, but the proof is in the operations.

It's in how you deliver the winter city. And so I want us to continue doing the good work, but let's not have any illusions that we should fall off because it's a heavier snow. We got to be in front of it as best as we can. That's the way cities should run. Thank you for the work and appreciate all of the staffing and all of the work that we've done thus far.

Cool. We'll move right along. And I don't see ACDA here, which is fine.

Or they're— what?

We do— we did all the other areas. Yes, it's okay. Cool. Anchorage Community Development Authority, they're always welcome to come and do a presentation. I know they're working on some big projects, so we'll look forward to some of their projects being reported here.

And we'll move into unfinished business. We don't have any, uh, except to look at item C, which is kind of reviewing the committee work plan. We'll leave a few minutes at the end of this meeting today for that. And if we don't get to, uh, more work plan stuff, I just want to encourage members to think about the work plan on the back of the, uh, of our documents, and let's create kind of what we're working on this year, eliminate some items, and hear what people are interested in focusing on as well. With that, we'll turn into new business, and we will have a presentation from, uh, HLB on the 2026 work plan.

Yeah, Mr. Chair, um, I believe we've got a PowerPoint. We bring the PowerPoint up. Thank you. Hi.

Thank you.

And I'll also introduce my colleague. This is McGivney. Morning. So we are here to present the 2026 Annual Work Program and the 2027 to 2031 Five-Year Management Plan. Oops.

And to upgrade Adobe. So I think everyone has heard this presentation before and have reviewed our work plans in the past, but we are going to give a basic introduction overview of Heritage Land Bank, and then we are going to go over the process that has been completed so far, followed by an overview of what to expect in each chapter of the work plan. And then we will go through some of our, our biggest accomplishments from the last year and a few of the upcoming and continuing projects that may be of interest to this committee. Um, can I get the next slide, please? Thank you.

Um, so to start off, I wanted to give a brief introduction. Uh, HLB is a division of the Real Estate Department. Um, we are a self-supporting, non-tax-funded agency, meaning that the HLB, um, funding is generated through land permits, leases, and sales. HLB's mission is to manage uncommitted municipal land and the Heritage Land Bank Fund in a manner designed to benefit the present and future residents of Anchorage promote orderly development and achieve the goals of the comprehensive plan. Uh, we currently manage over 12,700 acres of municipal land, the vast majority of which has multiple development limitations.

Title 25 of the Anchorage Municipal Code contains the statutes pertaining to public lands and is the code under which the Real Estate Department operates, uh, with Chapter 25 40 specifically pertaining to Heritage Land Bank. We also have an advisory commission that holds public hearings prior to making recommendations to the assembly, and also HLB is required to submit a work plan to the assembly each year. Next slide, please.

All right, so this year we started drafting the work plan in August. We looked at all the accomplishments from the previous year as well as potential future actions and drafted them into first draft of the work plan. In September, we had a work session with our advisory commission to receive preliminary feedback and discuss potential action items for the coming years. In— and then, yeah, on the last day of September, we opened up our public comment period and announced our public hearing that would be on December 18th. Um, over the course of the 45 days, we received 11 submissions with a total of 100 individual comments.

Um, and suggestions from other agencies, community councils, and members of the public. Uh, HLB staff summarized, separated, and distilled comments for substance before organizing them into a table and providing a response to each one of those comments. Uh, on December 18th, we held a public hearing with our commission, and they unanimously passed Resolution 2025-06, recommending Assembly approval of the 2026 work plan. Since then, we have been working to prepare the Assembly documents and make all of the HLBAC recommended amendments to the work plan draft. We submitted it to the Assembly, and it is going to be introduced next week at that Assembly meeting with a tentative public hearing date for February 17th.

If recommended or requested, the assembly— an assembly work session may occur prior to the assembly holding a public hearing and taking action. Next slide, please.

Okay, so just a high level of each chapter. It is a big document. Most of it is the appendices. Really, the substance is only a few pages long.

So I'll go over the format of the work plan, and then we're going to go over a highlight highlight a few of the key accomplishments from the previous year and the top priorities for the coming year. So Chapter 1 provides an introduction to HLB. This is a great source of information about the history, objectives, and the inventory of HLB. Chapter 2 goes through the accomplishments of 2025, including a list of our resolutions approved by 20— or by HLBAC, as well as a list of our conservation easements that HLB manages. Chapter 3 lays out the potential projects, disposals, acquisitions, exchanges, and transfers that are anticipated in the coming year.

Chapter 4 is similar to the previous chapter, but with longer-term possibilities that are not as high of a priority. Uh, the remaining 40 pages or so of the work plan are appendices. This includes our maps, our policies and procedures, and the fund history and projections. It also includes a full list of the permits and leases that were active in 2025. Um, the most lengthy appendix is the table of responses to public comments.

And lastly, um, the last appendix is the HLBAC resolution recommending approval of work plan. Next slide, please. I'll hand it over to Ryan. Thank you, Emma. Um, so this is just a very brief overview of some of the highlights from 2025.

Um, the one being the Assembly authorization for funding for the Holton Hills offsite improvements. That was an access road that HLB funded and constructed to service the to-be-constructed Holton Hills subdivision.

That construction has concluded for the most part of this. I just meant demobilized for winter. In springtime, they do have some final items to address, such as installation of light poles and some final grading and some seeding of the site. But largely, that road is complete. The second one, and this is a big one because for many, many years there was some legal access ambiguity for MOA staff representatives and signs to access the former Clitheroe Center, which is west of the airport.

It's kind of like a question like, can we access that through the airport? And the airport was kind of like, wink wink, sure you can. But we were able to come up with an agreement that we negotiated to where we now have a formal access agreement that has been signed by both DOT and Real Estate Department that allows us to legally access the center as well as any future tenants. So, having that in hand now, we feel very confident and comfortable moving forward with improvements to that facility and seeking out a future tenant. We did transfer down in Girdwood HLB parcel 6-2075.

They may recall this, this was summertime. To this because every disposal does require assembly authorization and transfer management authority. Uh, Urban Parks and Rec had constructed a trail on this parcel. It's kind of a long skinny parcel along Alberg down Girdwood that provided a neighborhood connector trail from the residential neighborhood to Winter Creek and Alaska Resort. Uh, but we went ahead and posed that and transferred it to Girdwood Parks and Rec so they could have management authority of it.

Also initiated, as Director Drews mentioned, subdivisions for Girdwood Industrial Park and Orca Mountain View. Both of those were approved last night at planning board. So, Girdwood Industrial Park is land that is owned by the municipality, and it's within HLB inventory. It is the only industrially zoned land in Girdwood. And this subdivision will help tract it out and for better land management.

It will also make a tract available for Gervais Valley Service Area so that they can get independent utility connections, have independent management authority, and also will assist the Gervais Fire Department by having a formal training area. Orca Mountain View is another tract plot just north of the industrial park across Rulaine. There is a large residentially zoned area within that parcel that we're going to be tracting out to kind of a long skinny tract that abuts Alyeska Highway and going to be exploring future development of residential uses on that parcel. So trying to bring new residential opportunities to community of Girdwood that has a known housing shortage. We also acquired some parcels in the Laurel Acres subdivision.

Um, those of you that are familiar with Laurel Acres, that's a— it's called a paper-platted subdivision in West Anchorage. So it's created legal lots, but there's no access to them. There's no roads that are built. There's no utilities installed. Um, and it is also— the entire subdivision is encompassed by wetlands.

So it makes development very, very difficult. And HLB has been acquiring parcels in that subdivision for several years now. With the intent that those be used for wetland conservation and, you know, potential wetland mitigation bank in the future. And then lastly, we coordinated very closely with Anchorage Fire Department on their drafting of the new Community Wildland Fire Protection Plan. Wildland fire fuels reduction and fire mitigation has been a priority for HLB for many, many years.

That's just a stewardship and land management activity that is common with large amount of acreage that we manage. And this plan helped us kind of prioritize where those efforts should take place. Next slide, please.

2026 Projects of interest. We'll be moving forward with the recording of the Gurvin Industrial Park in Orca Mountain View. Some of that is contingent upon having, uh, pod and cleared ground. So, surveyor to go through the final steps of installing monuments and tract corners. It makes it much easier for them if the ground is free of snow.

So we're anticipating that that's probably going to be in the May to June time frame that those plots get recorded and we have legal fee-simple tracts that are created.

Um, sure. Another project we're working on this year is the project with Alaska Natural Burial to do a cemetery up on the hillside. This is across from Mowen Park. It is kind of cut out of where the Potter Marsh Watershed Park is along Golden View. Um, I think last year we put out an RFP for a cemetery and we heard back from a nonprofit that wanted to do a natural burial cemetery.

So we've been working towards bringing that to our commission. We're anticipating that being next month, so probably coming to the assembly in the coming months. We're drafting up some different conditions for how that disposal will work, and we look forward to bringing it to the assembly. [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] And just continuing on the wildland fire mitigation, now that the community wildland fire protection plan has been adopted and finalized, we're going to be prioritizing where those wildfire mitigation activities should occur and examining what's the cost of doing so.

We're going to be executing a lease with the Third Ningra site with ACDA.

ACDA has an RFI out to determine interest in the operation of an RV resort facility at that parcel. And once they have some further interest and would like to move forward, we'll go ahead and execute that lease. The terms is clarified in the disposal.

Access to Chugach State Park. This is something that we are taking a different direction on in the 2026 work— and as compared to previous years. In previous years, it was only specific parcels that were mentioned as being prioritized for acquisition to increase access to Chugach State Park. With this year's work plan, we're recognizing that access to Chugach State Park is not just an Anchorage hillside problem, that is a municipal-wide problem that occurs from Girdwood all the way to Chugiak Hill River. So having more broad language in there allows us to explore how we can assist throughout the municipality in increasing access to Chugach State Park, whether that be trails themselves, whether that be trailheads.

And then we also have the new mechanism through the Chugach State Park Service Area to perhaps explore how we can do that.

And then, as I alluded to earlier, the rehab and lease of the former Clitheroe Center. To date, the Clitheroe Center has been vacant for about a year now. In the interim, we've been exploring different ways that we can put it to use while it is still vacant. Probably the most exciting use that we've done thus far is some law enforcement police tactics training there. Myself and Director Briggs, we got to be hostages on a day, helped SWAT out with, active shooter scenarios.

Both the U.S. Marshals and FBI will be using the facility as well for training. They really enjoy how remote that facility is. They don't really get harassed by members of the public and they can go ahead and conduct their training accordingly.

They do really appreciate the use of it. And, and kind of on that same line, going through our files, I did find a letter that was drafted by the Chief of Police in 1978 asking for the Cliff Rose Center to be converted into a police training facility. So that was some interesting reading, and I did forward that to APD, kind of with like a wink wink, you guys interested in this? But no bites as of yet. They do enjoy having it in their circulation though for training facilities.

And then lastly, we did secure some brownfields money. Or to explore a market study for the development of Toeger Track to determine what, what are the needs of the immediate area and how can Toeger Track assist the larger development in the U-Med. So we do anticipate that kicking off spring and be completed and ready for review by summertime. So next slide, please.

With that, I hope you enjoyed our explosive presentation. This is a little screenshot. So, this is one of the old facilities at Tozier Track. And again, we were trying to figure out, okay, how do we— we know we're going to demo these buildings, but what do we do with them in the interim? So, ABD SWAT, their explosive breaching team, was looking to do some training, and we said, hey, we got two doors, did you want to blow those?

And go for it. So, we went out there and we got to see them conduct some training and it was, it was a lot of fun to see that working with those guys. So, yeah, be happy to answer any questions. Are there any questions from members at this point?

I don't see any here. Can't tell if is online with a hand, but let's check that. Yes, yeah, I've got—. Yes, go ahead, Adam, the floor is yours. Oh, thank you, thank you.

Yeah, I don't have extended comments right now. I just wanted to share my intent to request a work session for this, probably February, given that the public public hearing, and I'm hoping that we can get— I appreciate, I appreciate this, this was great, this was great. So we don't want to, we don't want to too much cover the same ground, but I think that would be helpful. Interested in turning to the, uh, the work that was done for potential housing, or sorry, or sorry, uh, potential land that we could be suitable for housing. Um, so, so, so just let you know, that's what I would request for the West for the work session, overview, overview of the work plan.

And some discussion there as well as using some time.

Great. You got head nods, Member Brawley. So there are no additional questions from members. Thank you for the presentation.

It raises some things that we look forward to getting into at the work session and We appreciate you being here. We'll turn over to our next presentation, Village in the City project presentation. I had the opportunity to meet with David Hoffman, who's identified here. I'm not sure Mr. Hoffman will be doing the presentation today. Right on.

But I'll turn it over to David for— to introduce the project, introduce the speaker. But I had an opportunity to meet with them. It's a wonderful project. And it is not in my district, so that's the one thing about the project that I'm not really keen on, but it is an exciting project that I think has some implications to the work that the Assembly has done already with respect to changing ordinances and creating tax incentives for development opportunities that I think this project is utilizing. So with that, We'll turn it over to Mr. Hoffman, who will do the presentation and introduce the speaker.

The presentation today will be made by Sherri Baretta, who's been chair for 28 years of Chugach Alaska Corporation, one of the largest businesses in Anchorage with operations worldwide. Chugach has been very successful financially, but also has a deep commitment to being a good corporate citizen. And Sherri, as chair, has had a dream for about a decade of a way to give back to the community in a specific way. So this concept of Village in the City is her baby, and a number of us have gathered around her to work on supporting that. So she'll provide an update of the current status of that project.

Thank you, David. Thank you, Mr. Chair, Assembly members, and the staff that did the wonderful presentation this morning. Congratulations on the plowing, the sidewalks being plowed. It's just really wonderful to see.

So thank you all for your time this morning. I hope to take about 10 to 15 minutes on the presentation. And then allow for some questions at the end. As David said, my name is Sheri Baretta, and I have been honored to serve as the chairman of the board for Chugach Alaska Corporation, which is one of the 12 regional Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act corporations. We cover the Prince William Sound and lower Cook Inlet, so our communities include Valdez, Titlik, Chenega, Cordova, Port Graham, Nunwalik, and Seward.

And so, we're just right over the mountains on the other side. It's a huge ice field between there, but we're neighbors as it relates to our geography. I wanted to just take a brief moment to introduce this, basically the whole second row here. David mentioned that he, He's worked with me for about 28 years. He did our, one of our first strategic planning sessions with the board and helped us to get focused, and we've executed on some really big initiatives since that time.

But this one has been, as David said, always in my heart because I grew up here in Anchorage, between Anchorage and Tutitli, where my family is from. And so, David is just a wonderful resource. He's serving as a consultant on this project. Katherine Carlton is here. She's the president of Chugash Alaska Corporation and oversees our Community Value Center.

She also oversees our— the nonprofits that are represented here with Monica, who's to her right, who oversees the museum, Chugash Museum. Lauren Johnson oversees the Chugash Heritage Foundation, and Jamie Johnson oversees She does tribal services. Eilie Johnson, who's not related, but she works for Catherine and is a recent graduate of Harvard with a mathematics degree. We're so pleased to have her working with us. So, we have been working hard on this project, the village in the city.

It's a gathering place for resources, innovation. It will have a museum and a housing component for connecting our people to training, education, jobs. And to Anchorage or back to their community. So for me, this journey started 61 years ago on this day at Elmendorf Air Force Base Hospital where I was born. My mom and dad met here on a blind date.

She graduated from Etchegamish. She grew up in Tutitlik. My dad came here in the Air Force. From Pittsburgh. And so, you know, Anchorage is my home and I grew up in Inaka Valley, South Mountain View, work in Midtown.

We built our building, a Tutitlik' building first, right next to the village in the city and jail towers that we're currently in. I live in Eagle River and I have a home in Tutitlik' as well. Spent a lot of time on the Copper River. So, my heart really is in this project. I think that it's an innovative, proactive approach towards some of the issues that we're dealing with in Anchorage as far as our homelessness population, our training, our ability to have our people, Native people that come into Anchorage from rural communities have a place to gather, find resources, and hopefully transition into jobs in the city or go back to their communities.

And so on the first page of our presentation, there's a vision that, uh, and this is a vision that really focuses on what we want to have, uh, and they've been innovative, meaningful connections to rural and urban communities rooted in Alaska Native culture and welcomes all, helps to connect people to a network of resources, helps Alaska Native people achieve success and economic sustainability and financial sustainability. Our progress to date, we put a lot of work into this, but we have had a blessing of having Congressman Young blessed us with an EDI grant, formerly known as earmark, of $3 million to do the planning before he— about a year before he passed. He saw the vision of this and supported it. So we are— have been using that grant to do this design. This is the first phase.

The lot is approximately a little over 4 acres. And this first phase takes up about 2, a little over 2 acres. And so this is the first building that will be built. It has a museum component and the resource center. And we have approximately $12 million contributed to date towards the efforts, including the land that Chugach Alaska Corporation owns.

So this is a site plan of the lot that is— so if you're familiar with 36 in Old Seward, McDonald's is to the right, uh, Moose's Tooth is up to the upper right, um, so that might give you a point of reference as well, and then T'itlik is just to the left, uh, Cook Creek is right across the street.

So we think it's a, it's an excellent location in Midtown, a corridor from.

From the airport to the UMAD Center and creates a lot of opportunities for people to be— have access to these resources. So the core gallery of this facility, here's a rendering AI-generated from our architects that would envision this facility having a gallery of 4,800 square feet, features permanent and rotating exhibits of our museum and multimedia. Additional spaces include classrooms, lobby, gift shop, collection storage, and administrative areas, approximately 13,000 square feet for the museum. It will deliver cultural programming such as kayak building, carving, storytelling, and language revitalization. It builds a workforce pipeline of training the next generation of Chugach shareholders in cultural stewardship.

And it complements a resource hub with coordinated education and heritage programs. The next couple of slides just go into the museum programs. Chuugash Alaska Corporation has a huge inventory of archaeological objects that we have in a storage area that would be displayed there at the museum. The next slide talks about our resource hub.

We've done— we've had studies presented to our group that identifies that a third of the homeless population is a paycheck away from homelessness. And so if we're able to allow for people that come to this resource center to increase their capacity for getting jobs in the city or back to their communities, that that would— it's a proactive approach towards homelessness that we think would be beneficial to the community. And then the next slide talks about the housing concept. So that's in the second phase, there would be a housing component with two buildings. We're working with Chugach, or not Chugach, Cook Inlet Housing Authority to look at if we could create a mix of market and low-income units that would be feasible for this property.

And we've had experience, we've built a 37-room housing development in Valdez about 2 years ago that is a model that we're looking at And we're also looking at for sewer.

The next slide just talks about— this is a picture from our, one of our communities, Nunwalik. It's across from Homer, just a beautiful place that we just get inspiration from as far as what we want to create on that lot, that 4-acre parcel that would allow people to feel welcomed into Anchorage from their community.

And then the, the last couple slides just talk about the cost estimates that we have come up with, and we're actively looking at fundraising and putting together a business plan to be able to build this complex. And the last slide is just the proposed timetable. So with that, that is my presentation, and I thank you for your time, and I'm open for any questions that you might have with regards to this project.

Thank you, Sherri. We'll see if there are any members online with any questions. So we'll turn it over and we'll start with Member Brawley, and then if anybody in the room has any questions.

Yeah, thank you. This is really great. I had a, I guess, a more personal question. Is this something that you had worked with Agnibek on about 7 or so years ago? Because I think I worked on this project.

The vision that might be very familiar to you.

Yeah, I guess I originally trying to remember the project, but I remember there was a question about putting a hotel, hotel housing. I wondered, I wondered, um, obviously still, but resource center, which is awesome. Um, I'm just curious if the economics economically or kind of the decision to not, I'm not arguing, I'm just curious. Thank you for the question. It, it is in the works on that development of the housing component.

What we've done in Valdez is we have both mixed long-term leases with some of the industry there in Valdez, and we also have hoteling. So it's possible that we would structure the hotel or the housing component in that same way. We're doing two separate building. So there's— it leaves a lot of options and flexibility for us to be able to put together plans of whether it's a commercial investment or if we go after grants to build one or both of the buildings.

Okay, that makes sense. And then one other question, I guess, or something I've said more than once to folks going forward is if you have run into any kind of permitting process or kind of regulatory issues that are standing in the way of what you want to do with your project. So, I don't know if— I know you're early stages in that sense, but if you have things to highlight where the municipality can be helpful, or we can relook at some of those rules, that's an open invitation as you move forward. Thank you so much for that. We really appreciate it.

We have successfully received the ability to turn into off of 36. That wasn't available previously. My dream is hopefully there might be a light there. You know, I, I worked right there for, gosh, 20 years and people get going from Old Seward to Denali, and when it would snow, people would be spinning donuts right in the middle because it's, it's bad right there and they get fast and they would end up in our parking lot a lot of times. So I'm hoping that there's an opportunity to talk about potentially putting a light to have more pedestrian-friendly area in that, in that neighborhood, especially if there's people living there and and access to, you know, across the street and a vision for a more community looking than just people racing down 36th Avenue.

David has something he'd like to add. I might add that this is just 2 blocks away from Cuddy Family Park. I know there's a reexamination of the potential for Cutty Family Park. I know there's funding for a ski chalet there at Cutty Family Park, and we've had conversations with people promoting that about using the 2.5 acres of open space as anchor programs that could be coordinated. So access from this across 36th It's pretty important.

And of course, there's the old archive setting there. So, this— the other thing, this lot has been identified in the draft Midtown community plan as a catalytic site, one of about 6 or 7 in Midtown. So, it's a really sort of exceptional lot.

And just to follow up, thank you for the question about the, uh, the muni and their permits. We were, we were successful in approaching the Valdez Council to give us a tax break for 10 years for our development. We have a lot across the street that we're looking at doing an innovation center there as well. So it is really helpful to have partnership with our city and how we look at shaping this and how it could potentially be a model for other regions to make those investments. If you look down in our area in Midtown, the regional and the village corporations are investing in Anchorage with their corporate headquarters, and they're importing profits into the city.

And they're going to be here for the long term. And so I hope that there's an opportunity to have future discussions about how the corridor on 36 could become an Alaska Native focus to the Umed District from the airport.

Yeah, thanks for inviting us in. Um, well, I'm delighted that you're doing this project in my district. That's great news. Um, I just have a couple of comments really. Um, one being that I, I hope that as the career development program is fleshed out, that there is.

A conversation with the folks just down Denali, that you include labor in those conversations. There, the opportunity for folks to engage in apprenticeship and to have a really incredible career trajectory in that fashion, I think, has been really overlooked in Anchorage. And so I would personally advocate for that, you know, those relationships to be developed if they aren't already. And also would love to chat more and just understand a bit more about what the vision is for the housing side of this. I know you mentioned in this presentation potentially a mix of market rate and affordable housing, and I'd love to learn more about that mix and how potentially workforce housing, that sort of missing middle, might fall into that equation.

So, yeah, would love to have a separate conversation with you if you're open to that to understand a little bit more about what the thought has been and how the municipality can be supportive. Absolutely, we'll definitely follow up. Catherine is on top of all of those connections. And, you know, we also envision a gym where the community can gather with potentially elders and having childcare within that facility and being able to have large gatherings and possibly Saturday markets with artisans. We envision a sistence kitchen where we can teach, and with the, uh, Wadarka, or the kayak building workshop, that will work with our museum.

So yes, I would love to share with you the details of this. And you're absolutely speaking my language with respect to really thinking carefully about how we transform that 36th corridor. That's a really high priority for me. So, I'm really delighted that you guys are going to be in that space. Really wonderful.

Thanks. Excellent. And now, uh, I have a follow-up question. Why now? And if this started so many years ago, what is about the environment now that says this is the time for this project?

Did we do anything in the city that makes it more interesting, or welcoming? Well, frankly, when I first started, we were just getting out of bankruptcy. The Exxon Valdez oil spill happened in the heart of our region, 3 miles from the village of Tutelag, and we've secured grant funding from the Iboz Trustee Council to build our museum, and we've— it took years to get that property. It was a 3-way deal with the housing authority that the AHFC used to own that parcel to Titlik own their building, Chugach owned Titlik's building. So there was a 3-way deal that happened when jail tower was built.

And so as we were paying off the bankruptcy and getting our government contracting and our commercial division up and our business side of the house in order, some of the cultural land and community efforts went to the back burner. And as I get to a point in my life where I'm looking at retirement in the next couple of years, priorities shift. And as our financial position has shifted, it's allowed me to have more focus and time to execute on this plan. Excellent. Thank you for giving us that background as well.

And I hope that some of the things that this municipality is doing that we heard earlier with indicators with respect to the uptick of permits, the uptick of, of things happening in our community, that this is part of that, that some of the tax incentives for housing can be utilized. Some of the work we're doing around transit supportive development corridors, thinking of catalytic sites and the ecosystem around them. So, this is really exciting. This is an exciting time for the municipality to have these questions, let alone for community stakeholders to actually bring a project. We could do all of the policy talk we want, but the rubber has to hit the road somewhere.

And we appreciate when folks are willing to bring those substantial investments in our community. David, you also mentioned to me, and I just would love for kind of this conversation to be closed with a footnote potentially. On the impacts of regional corporations and what they mean to our community as well. I mean, when we talked about this project, this is like the— let's call it a small project, a tip of this— tip of the iceberg with respect to the substantial amount of investments that our Native corporations are investing in Anchorage. And I just would love for the members of this committee members of our administration to kind of have a sense of the impacts that the Alaska Native corporations mean to our economy and why projects like this are catalyzing.

And again, to repeat what Sherry said, one of the purposes of this project is to highlight the contribution of Native organizations to the city of Alaska and participation. So Within a 4-mile radius of this site, there are Native organizations that generate $21 billion— with a B— in revenue from around the world. That's equal to about 40% of the gross domestic product of the whole state of Alaska. Most people in Anchorage don't know that. And not only are revenues generated in large part from out of state coming back to Alaska, it's sort of reverse colonization after an entire history of the resources of Alaska going out.

Native corporations are bringing money from elsewhere into Alaska and distributing through dividends back on 18. Alaskans. The Native corporations have been not only huge in terms of their economic impact but very, very stable. Like the oil industry revenues at Native corporations tend to be pretty stable. And the goal, Sheri's vision is to highlight that and also maybe to consider making 36th avenue and renaming it into a— that nature and provide some signage because the 36th, um, as many of these— I appreciate that.

Thank you for the context. I don't think a lot of folks have any sense of these kind of impact on our community. And I think it's important that we recognize how it takes a village, literally, to build a city and to bring the village back. You know, what's really exciting about this, when I heard the project, is that a lot of people pretend in Anchorage that we're Alaska's largest village. We're a small city.

And a village is a— there's a different cultural relationship that I think is embedded in the design of your project. And so if we can learn from the work that you all are doing, and that you're bringing both vision, culture, and development into our community, I'd love for us as a community to not only support, but to learn as well. Because we all are here together. No one's coming to save us is a theme that this committee knows well. And so we're all we have.

Wherever parts of the world we all find ourselves from here, you mentioned a family connection to Pittsburgh. So we find roots, but we find home in our, in our place. And I appreciate the vision, and I just love to have a village in our city. I think that's wonderful. Any other questions, any comments?

Cool. Thank you for your presentation. Continue to keep this committee up to date, posted on where you all are. If there are any questions, things that a number of broadly mentioned that we can learn about, be supportive. We have a tremendous staff here who want to do things.

They want projects happening. They're a go, go, go administration time. And so I think you've heard from all the people that you would otherwise need to interact with if they come to this committee. So thank you for being here and for giving us the opportunity to see the vision. Right on.

Great. On that note, with the last few minutes for our committee members, when Member Myers and I kind of inherited or took this committee, we had a list of, on the back of our agenda, list of committee legislative and budget priorities. We inherited the list, we reformed the list a little bit, and then we do a lot of work in this body and rarely go back to looking at that list. The things just fly off in this work. Last year we did so much work around housing incentives, uh, historic tax reforms in our city.

We took on planning and thinking of things like the transit development corridors, and we changed the transit supportive map, and some of those things were on here. We looked at revenue.

Items and the sales tax. But this is not a helpful list to me when I look at it. It's very disjointed. And so I wanted members to have the opportunity to both cross out things that we know are done, highlight things that we are still focused and working on, and maybe give us some suggestions— not necessarily all today, but by the next meeting— of how we can reorganize this list so that we all can have the public recognizing, because I see this list as really for the public to keep track of what this committee is doing, and more than, than I use it to keep track of what we're doing. I think we move in a different speed often, and we have different tools, but I wanted to open it for members to give us the sense of which ones need to be replaced, what you are working on, and how we can reorganize this.

Have a little discussion today and then come back with some ideas for the next meeting. So I'll turn it over to anybody that wants to just popcorn in. I see Member Brawley with the hand raised. Over to you, and then we'll open it up to our discussion. Yeah, thanks.

And I'll put some more thought into what to add to the list, but I'll just find a few things that we can, I think, cross out as completed under community development. It looks like the language thing was already happened. Homeownership was passed in past meetings.

And then I think that's all I can say right now. But I do like that monitor code changes, changes that's 3 and that's 4. I think that's something that we should be doing and really asking the departments to keep reporting back.

Thank you.

Yeah, I mean, some of the items that I'll identify as we walk through They will continue to move on. And so I just highlight them. We have on our work plan item A, for example, alcohol and cannabis. This is ongoing monitor and review. We have staff that oversees the regulations.

We do the licensing. And so, uh, there's always that body of work. We did tackle, or at least bring to this committee, drive-through. We did on-site consumption here. Um, I don't like crossing out things thinking that they're like a one-time opportunity.

So that's one thing I'll look at. I, I think that there are ways to reframe some of these conversations, but that body of work continues. And so if there are any specifics that people want to highlight, feel free, but I— this committee deals with that clearly. When we think of economic development, I think like tourism is part of economic development, so I also think of The relationship between the name of this committee is Community and Economic Development, and I don't think our community, generally speaking, has a, has an understanding of that they are together. So when we think of economic development, often we think of things that are buildings that are cold, that are not necessarily the community development aspects, and we diminish the value of community development aspects when there's not dollars necessarily associated with that.

And that would not— that's problematic. And so I want us to think of things in kind of bringing these two realms together a little more tightly, and that's one of my ambitions, to reframe the way we think of those two buckets more holistically. Having said that, food security is an item under community development I continue to focus on. I know the administration is focused on that as well. And so that will continue to be there.

Housing activation, again, I think there are things here that are very specific. I'd like us to high-level it and just kind of monitor stuff and then identify when different projects come along so that we're not basing our work plan on a project. Projects come and go, and we're basing it on the, the focus of what we're trying to achieve, purpose. More so. So I want— I would love us to think about what are the purposes of the work we're doing and how we embed that.

So like increasing the number of units, for example, would be a purpose, a goal. Thinking of our tasks through goals, I think, may be helpful to identify successes and what we've actually accomplished. Always, you know, as you get to continued improvement and simplify MOA processes, regulations on businesses, This is a constant thing that we are focused on. I know new technology is on the way, so I also encourage staff to let us know how to reframe and refocus some of these things so it's more accurate. So as we look at like things today, we heard we have the first ADU pre-approved plan coming.

That's wonderful. I'd like us to just be able to clearly identify where this is in our work plan so that we can have it just easier to read and digestible for the public. Always continued Title 21 things that focus— that we are focused on. But I— and then here we had to expand the CHEERS to Anchorage campaign. They're not— there aren't also necessarily champions with each of these items, and that's problematic as well.

And so I want us to think in terms of who's leading, and also are we just a convener of it? It may not be that we are leading, like, I don't know that this committee is leading the Cheers to You campaign. I think the Assembly has a role in that, but this might be the place where we talk about what that means. But if— so I would rely on staff then thinking of what projects they're working on and how they relate to our agenda as well. So my hope is that people think about some of these things.

Send me suggestions on how to reorganize our annual list and what you think is a better reorganization structure. And then in the last few minutes, if anyone wants to popcorn popcorn on things that you're working on, that you're looking at, that would be interesting to this committee, and that we could begin to situate them under the, the buckets. Let's take the last few minutes to do that. I'll kick it off by saying I'm interested in at least 3 areas of continued exploration that are not identified here. One of those areas are looking at the relationship that we identified at our last, last meeting.

I did a presentation on a spatial mismatch and kind of getting a sense on what does it take to get in front of the fiscal challenges of expanding beyond our means. And so I'm interested in that conversation, things like moratoriums on new lane miles, for example. Um, I don't know that that makes sense, but the city— this— the city's in a place where some of these conversations about expansion versus redevelopment on the infill matter. Um, and so that tension is something that is not necessarily identified in our current work plan, although I am focused on that as well. Uh, the, uh, one of the other areas I'm focused on is, is the way we bring the four pillars of the, uh, community, the, the economic development framework, those four pillars from, uh, AR 2025-159, which were truth, preemptive resiliency, um, equity, and return stackable ROI, the way those things, for example, can be brought into our scoring processes for like capital projects.

So looking at CIP reform, the way— one of the questions I had earlier were, for example, where these new subdivisions are. New subdivisions outside of certain areas cause roads to the cost of roads and expanding utilities to go up. So, I would love us to think of our capital projects a little differently as we focus on where we need to invest in our city to build forward, stopping the overexpansion. One of my areas. And lastly, I'm continuing to focus on, uh, Wildfire interface is a really interesting and important area for thinking of community and economic development.

And I don't think it has been thought. I think when we think of wildfire, we think of emergency response, we think of public safety. But when I think of wildfire interface and I think of development and I think of preemptive resiliency as a found— as a mechanism, then I think to myself, Does it cost the same to build in a wildfire dangerous area versus another area that is more resilient to fire? And, and are those costs spread out equitably? And are there better ways we could approach development that consider some of those challenges?

And is there a thing like a wildfire service area that helps to pay.

For the investments needed to prevent and secure those areas. So those are some of the things I'd love our committee to look at, and I welcome any popcorning and offline popcorning. Send them to the committee, and then we can have them on this discussion so that the next two meetings really are— we're working on things, but then what do you all want for the rest of the year that we can focus on as priority areas that may not be in our current work plan. With that, any comments or thoughts?

Seeing none, I encourage my committee members to get back to me, and we will adjourn this meeting of the CDC at 10:28. Thank you, everybody. [FOREIGN LANGUAGE].