Planning and Zoning Commission - June 9, 2025 - 2025-06-09 18:30:00

Okay, we will call the June 9th meeting of the Planning and Zoning Commission to order.

Can we please have the roll call? Andres Spinelli. Here. Radhika Krishna. Here.

Jim Winchester. Here. Scott Pullis. Here. Jeff Rahn.

Here. Brandy Eber. Here. Greg Stryke. Here.

Jared Gardner is excused. You have a quorum. Thank you.

First item of— on the agenda, the minutes from Monday, June 2nd, 2025. Is there a motion to approve the minutes?

Moved by Commissioner Krishna, seconded by Commissioner Winchester. Any discussion on the minutes?

Seeing none. Any opposed?

Hearing none, minutes are approved.

Uh, next item of business, special disclosures. Are there any disclosures?

Commissioner Streit. Yes, thank you. I was absent from the Resolution 2025-009, so would abstain from voting. Thank you. Commissioner Eber.

I was absent from— I don't know what meeting it was, so I will abstain from voting on resolutions 2025-012 through 015. Commissioner Pulis. Yes, I abstained from voting on the consent agenda as I was recused or absent from RESOs 2025-009, 012, 013, 014, and 015.

Any other disclosures?

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

Moved by Commissioner Winchester, seconded by Commissioner Eber.

Anyone wishing to pull any item for discussion?

Hearing, seeing none. Uh, any opposed to the consent agenda?

Hearing none, the consent agenda is approved.

Next item of business is the public hearings. I will start by reading the procedure by which the public may speak to the Commission.

After staff presentation is completed on public hearing items, the Chair will ask for public testimony on the issue. Persons who wish to testify will follow the time limits established in the Commission rules of procedure. Petitioners, including his or her representatives, will receive 10 minutes. Representatives of groups, community councils, PTAs, etc., will receive 5 minutes. Individuals will receive 3 minutes.

When your testimony is complete, you may be asked questions by the Commission. You may only testify once on any issue unless questioned by the Commission. Any party of interest wishing to appeal shall first appeal with the First, file with the Planning Director within 7 days of the Commission's decision made on the record, a written notice of intent to appeal in accordance with AMC 2103.050(a)(4)(a). Commission recommendations to the Anchorage Assembly are not appealable. Following approval of written finding of fact and decision, any party of interest may within 20 days file an appeal by filing a notice of appeal and paying the appeal fee and deposit in accordance with AMC 2103.050.

The notice of appeal must be filed with the planning director on a form prescribed by the municipality. If the appellant is not the applicant, the appellant's notice of appeal shall include proof of service on the applicant.

With that, we will move on to Case 2025-0014.

May we please have staff presentation?

Thank you, Mr. Chair. This is Daniel McKenna Foster, Long Range Planning. This is Case 2025-0044, I believe. Apologies, the slides are slightly cut off.

It's an aspect ratio, but if you have any questions, just let me know. So this, um, proposal and presentation is all about nonconformities in the zoning code. It's more of a general, um, sort of touch-up to some issues we've seen for a long time. The nonconformities chapter is Chapter 13 of Title 21. It's a pretty big one, touches a lot of different things.

This is just touching a few pieces in that chapter. So generally speaking, um, the, the zoning code always encourages all development to be moving towards conformity. Moving towards conformity means aligning with whatever the code says as it is now. Of course, if you— if your house or business was built in 1980 under the— and it was legal under the set of rules then, then you probably have a legal nonconforming structure. And that's also— that's technically a conformity.

So you can either have a house or a building or structure that's built under the rules as they are now, or a house that was— or a structure or building that was built under the rules when it was legal at that time. Um, but, you know, Anchorage is a pretty big city. We have, like, a lot of different sort of regulatory regimes and different changes over time and people doing things sometimes with permits, sometimes without. So there's potentially a lot of nonconformities out there. But the code does say it is the intent of this chapter to permit these nonconformities to continue until they are removed or brought into conformance with this title and to encourage their reuse and movement towards conformity.

So the code wants everything moving towards conformity, either through getting a nonconforming determination or changing the physical aspect of the property to come into conformance with the code.

So if you have a property that was built in 1980 and you say, I think it was built according to the codes then, it's the responsibility of the property owner to establish that, that it was. So you can't say, oh, I know it was built in 1980. You have to go, and you have to go to the planning department, and they will look into it and provide a nonconforming determination for you. So it's kind of hard to quantify how many nonconformities exist out there. I don't think anybody could actually give a number, but What we're looking at here is just looking at single-family homes.

So there's, you know, tons of different types of land uses in the municipality, but single-family homes are one of the most prolific. I think there's probably over 50,000 or something around 50, 56,000 single-family homes. So just looking at the assessing data and looking at when the average, you know, when most houses were built, most houses that I think the sort of average age of houses built in Anchorage is 1982 or 1984. It's something around there. So we have a lot of really old houses.

So the point I'm trying to get at is the more older stuff you have, the more likely it is that it's non-conforming. It might be legally non-conforming, but also, you know, people have a house for a long time, maybe they add something on, they don't get permits, or they do it and it didn't get permitted, their contractor didn't. So it's just sort of an association with the longer something is around, the more likely it probably is to have non-conformities. So on this chart, you'll see Anchorage and The city and borough consolidated in 1975, so you can only imagine that everything built before that is probably under a completely different— a really different set of standards. Um, and then new Girdwood, Eagle River codes came in, in, um, I think 2010 or 2011, and then new Title 21 came in.

So every time there's a code change and the code change becomes more restrictive in some way, some sort of non-conformity is being created. Um, usually they're legal non-conformities, but again, this is just to sort of represent that If there are 100,000 properties out there in Anchorage, many tens of thousands probably have some sort of nonconformity on them. Um, looking at this, if you think, well, what are the oldest types of land uses? And I'm sorry, it's kind of hard to see up on the screen, but this is looking at land uses again, taking the assessing data and looking what's the average age of that type of land use. So the oldest one on top is residential buildings on apartment land, and below that, residential structure on commercial land.

The average age of those types of land uses built in is 1958, 1959. And that kind of makes sense, right? It's old— an old house that was built on the periphery back in the '50s that's now a B-3 district because the city has grown. Um, so this is kind of interesting, and you can go through and see that there are a lot of really old structures, um, you know, built in the '60s, '70s, '80s. Um, and generally I've always learned the rule of thumb is that about 40 years a building needs to be rehabbed.

But so the older the structure, the more likely it is that there might be nonconformities, legal or not legal. So again, the— just the point I'm making here is that there are a lot of old structures in Anchorage. There are probably a lot of nonconformities. And so the code that says you always need to be coming into, uh, in conformity status, um, it does potentially pose an obstacle to redevelopment. You buy a property, you think this is fantastic, you want to change the use, that's when you might have to go and figure out if you're conforming or not.

Maybe the setbacks don't make sense. Maybe the Um, landscaping is, is no longer up to code. So that's the kind of thing. Um, here's another one, just counting sort of, as I mentioned, yeah, there are 56,831 parcels in Anchorage that have a single family as the land use category, and the average year built of those is 1982. So even just single family, like people trying to do something to their property, there's probably a lot of chances that people are going to run into the non-conformity code.

But it's not just about residential, it's about commercial too. And I think a lot of times there are issues with commercial. So, um, condominium fee, simple, but I'm going to go down the list a little bit. Like office warehouse, there are 436 parcels with office warehouses. The average age is 1983.

Or office building, low-rise, 1 to 4 levels, you know, kind of entry level, 1977 is the average year that those were built. So again, just emphasizing that there are a lot of properties, not just residential but also commercial, also industrial, that are, are pretty old and probably have some sort of nonconforming status. So that's why this code, it's sort of— it's Chapter 13, it's sort of buried in there. People don't really come across it that often, but it really does come up a lot in redevelopment. And, you know, as we've talked about in some of the policy documents, 2020, 2040, there is discussion about Anchorage wants to do infill, they want to encourage adaptive reuse, use what we have, work on existing infrastructure.

So this sometimes becomes an issue with that. Just looking at some of our data Some of the data in the planning department is on paper and some is on digital. So I just looked at what's digital and thinking about where, where do we see a lot of the non-conforming determinations where somebody came in and they asked, is my property conforming or not? And they had the planning, the land use review look at that. So the most kind of interesting are in Girdwood, GR2, the zone, but then a lot in R6, R1.

So, and these are low numbers. The top one is 87. I think we have many more non-conforming determinations, but it also goes back to that number, right? How many non-conformities out there? Are out there, what would it take to get every single one of those that is legally non-conforming to get a determination?

It's a— there's a big gap between the, the progress of getting those determinations and actually the number that are out there. So again, chain, you know, sort of narrowing that gap by allowing a little bit more flexibility in the non-conforming procedures process, and also sort of changing some of the rules so more stuff is conforming, is a way to deal with that. So the ordinance before you tonight, um, it It only touches a few pieces of nonconforming code. It doesn't really substantially address it too much. Um, in Section 1, it just says that site plan review shall not apply to standalone trade permits on the interior of the building or renovations which only change windows or affect the interior of the structure.

So in current code, in some cases, if you're doing a lot of work inside the building, that might trigger a nonconforming requirement. You might have to do something to your driveway or landscaping or something else, right? So this is kind of saying if you're doing work inside the building, we're not going to look at the rest of it, and that won't affect whether your, your landscaping is wide enough or your driveway is too wide or not wide enough. Um, the Section 2 is again sort of expanding the exemption for the work does not trigger a nonconformity. So now it just clarifies that you can make more changes inside the building as long as it doesn't change the footprint.

Section 3 again clarifies that interior work does not trigger nonconformity restrictions, because then there are a lot of different types. There's nonconforming lots, there's nonconforming structures, there are nonconforming uses, and all those things have kind of different sections in, in Chapter 13. Um, and then so special rules apply for nonconformities to commercial, multi-family, and industrial. And those say that when you're doing work— and right now it says if you're if you're doing work that's more than 10% of the assessed value of the structure, then you have to bring— you have to spend 10% of your project to bring the property into compliance. So again, I'm going back to landscaping because that's an easy one.

Say you, you're missing a landscaping bed and it's going to cost you $20,000. I'm not going to be able to do the math on the fly, but for some reason you have to spend $10,000. Well, you, you— part of your project, you have to spend $10,000 to bring that landscaping into compliance, into conformity. If it was non— it was a and not a legal conformity. So that's changing.

The threshold is changing to 50%. So rather than hitting that 10% of your assessed value of the structure, now it's 50% of the assessed value of the structure. So you can do more work on a commercial, industrial, multifamily property before you have to spend that extra money to do the landscaping or whatever the other nonconforming pieces are. So some examples. Say you have an apartment building valued at $1 million.

I know that's probably unlikely. You're remodeling the bathroom, it has some nonconformities. Under current code, if say the, the cost was over $100,000, at that point you would have to, um, 10% of what your project cost would have to go to bringing the structure into compliance. Under this proposal, it would now be 50%. So now you'd have to hit half a million dollars of project.

So if your bathroom remodel only costs $250,000, you don't have to go through that process to bring it into conformity. Another example, changing use. That's a big time when conformity changes. You know, say somebody's had veterinary services on Fireweed for 50 years and it has all its use-specific standards and rules, and it said you only needed 6 feet of landscaping, and then you're having a— you wanna— you're finally realizing your dream of the King Lear's dinner theater, and it has an 8-foot requirement for set— something like that.

This would mean that if you're not making any structural changes, so you're not changing the footprint, um, you, you don't have to go through that extra conformity stuff. And, and then for residential change, um, change— let's see this. Yeah, no change shall be made to any development unless the change is in direction of conformity. That's actually not multifamily, that's, that's everything. But this is no change shall be made to any development outside of any existing structures existing structure unless the change is in the direction of conformity.

So again, it's allowing more flexibility to remodel your bathroom within the house. So those are the proposed changes. Here's an example. You know, there's a lot of talk right now about site access and people concerned about whether— is my driveway compliant? If I redo my bathroom, am I going to have to, you know, redo my driveway?

It all kind of depends. So this— the driveway standards have also changed a lot over the past few years. So— well, the past probably 20, 30 years. Prior to 2005, you could do a really big driveway. So maybe this house was built in 2003.

It's totally compliant, no problem. And they would have to get a legal nonconformity determination. But maybe it was built in 2006. There was a time when the traffic department only wanted 20-foot driveways. So this is obviously 28 plus 32.

It's a 60-foot driveway. So somebody thinking, well, what would happen here? If you don't do anything to your house, probably nothing will happen. The conformity system it works off of complaints, or if you try to do something. Um, so like if you're doing a roof and you don't actually touch the site, it wouldn't really trigger anything.

If you were maybe adding an ADU, it could potentially trigger something. But again, this proposal is just changing the threshold so you can do more on your property before you get to that conformity determination requirement. So here's a little bit more I talked to Randy Ribble in Traffic and asked him about it. So, you know, he said 32 feet would have been allowed. There are also some flexibility in here.

This is really more of a site access question. But the reality is that the nonconforming rules apply with or without site access, and they apply in all sorts of different situations. What this proposal is doing is sort of making it a little more flexible. Any questions? I have one question.

I see no other questions.

I got a question. Aquarian Charter School, they were trying to repair their roof and fix their heater and add handicap ramps because they had student in wheelchair. I believe the handicap ramps triggered a zoning review that then resulted in landscape— they realized the site had a plan review in the '80s maybe, or '90s. I don't know when it would have happened, but there was an old— there was an old approved site plan that they didn't meet. The landscaping didn't meet it.

This is like far before Aquarian Charter School was there, but it's ASD building. My question is, does in that scenario having the handicap ramps to the outside, because I think like the roof and the mechanical improvements would, what, from what I heard you say, would have not triggered the conforming, but would adding the handicap ramps then trigger the site plan review that would then spiral into, oh, the parking lot's not built right and neither is your landscaping, and maybe you should build like a $150,000 fence.

If I may, and the director might have worked on more projects like this than I have, that one's tricky because the example I gave was residential. So residential and single-family residential is sort of subject to a different set of standards. In the Aquarian case, and I don't know the specifics It could have been that there was a— it was a conditional use, or there's a site plan review, and that anytime you go back through that process, that also does trigger the nonconformities. Or it could have been the cost piece, or it could have been just that it was like the commercial, uh, it might even be institutional and the other ones. So that's one of the things that I think parts of this speak to, the site plan review process.

But nonconformities code, it gets to a lot of different types of development. So again, I don't know how much that value was in terms of Aquarian Charter School overall, like their structure value. This potentially would help that if they got up to— if there was 40% rather than 10%. But it might have also been it just— this is a condition of the original site plan approval that any changes have to go back through the site plan approval, and then it's sort of a different legal situation. Yeah, I think that's the case there, but Either way, I had to ask.

Any other questions?

Commissioner Rahn. Thank you. Through the chair, I heard a prior commissioner commenting perhaps before the meeting about the draft findings for this case. I don't have a hard copy of the packet in front of me, and so I'm just looking at documents available here on the screen. What's the status of those draft findings?

Through the Chair, if I may. Yeah, I apologize. Sue is the glue of our department and she's out bicycling around Europe. So I have the findings here, some draft findings. It's basically, number 1, Anchorage has a wide range of developments built over different sets of regulations, so there are many opportunities for nonconforming situations.

2, The 2020 Comprehensive Plan and 2040 Land Use Plan call for facilitating infill development and reuse of existing properties. And 3, the mayor's 10,000 Homes in 10 Years strategy calls for incentivizing construction and rehab and remediating neglect.

All right. Seeing no more questions, we will open the public hearing.

Anyone from the public wishing to testify on case 2025-0044?

Going once, going twice.

Okay, staff, do you have any rebuttal?

No, but I'm glad to answer any additional questions unless the Director has anything else to add. Before we close the public hearing, are there any other questions for staff?

Oh, Commissioner Streit. Thank you, and to the Chair. I'm not sure how to phrase this, and one of the things I'm thinking about is any possible unintended consequences, whether it be applicable to commercial and/or residential, and that is You know, we had a pretty light snow load this last year, but the prior 2 years, we would have roof collapses. And a lot of that came back down to nonconformity of many of those structures that had taken— that failed. I'm just putting it out there for a conversation or for— I don't know what my question is, but are we creating any possible unintended consequences in this approach that would endanger or create a false sense of acceptance when we bypass the current nonconformity standards and repair and bring those other buildings up to grade, up to par, because we saw some devastating situations.

I think we've had some deaths. So I'm just— I put it forth out there. Are we creating any possible unintended consequences here? Thank you.

If I may, through the chair. Yeah, thank you for the question. It's a great question. Um, the— this nonconformity code deals with the zoning violations, so the building violations are sort of dealt with in a different way. So somebody comes in for a building permit, then the building inspectors, at least in the service area where they do that, they go out and do the inspection about safety.

The, the zoning non-conformity inspections are just about the site, and it's about the zoning regulations. So most, you know, and, and you're right, they're all— there are a lot of really old commercial buildings that were not built under— maybe they were built under acceptable codes, but those are the situations where it's probably— you probably couldn't even get a non-conforming determination because there's actually a health safety risk. But in terms of the zoning to bring it in, you know, in most cases, like, yeah, that building's been around for 50 years and its landscaping is a little narrower than it should be. That's— it's, I think, in most cases not a health safety, like, a real safety issue. But in terms of the building permit, you know, the building official, it's on them to permit whether something is safe or not, whether— but this is really about whether it meets the current zoning code or not.

Commissioner Krishna.

Yes, this might be a little far afield and maybe more related to Commissioner Streich's comments than the case at hand, but similar to the case or the example that the chair referenced, you know, I've known folks who've done things like tried to install an elevator and then it's triggered a code review and then it's ballooned their project costs. To, um, 10 times what they originally had budgeted. And I think, um, this, this goes a very long way to addressing those situations, which I think have created an environment where a lot of folks are very afraid to touch their, um, old buildings in Anchorage's, um, central neighborhoods. And so it's, it's completely okay if this is not within the scope of this case, but I I wonder if you have any other thoughts about providing answers and consistency, maybe, to folks who are considering doing this. Because I think there's a sense right now that you don't know what you'll find or what your project cost will balloon to if you start, you know, making changes to your building.

And so I'm wondering if you think there are other pieces that are part of this puzzle that would allow people to maybe understand what code changes might be triggered or what requirements might be triggered when they start entering into a project. I think part of the problem is that folks get into the middle of a project and then all of this happens, which creates a lot of uncertainty. So realize that's a little bit far away from this case, but I'm curious what else we can do to forestall that happening.

Through the chair, it's a really hard question because you're right, you, you just don't really know what you might come across. And you think, you know, I— all the work was permitted, and I— when I bought this place, it had the permanent work. Um, this is a step to making that easier so that if you do find something, you're less likely to have to do it per project. But I think, and I've heard I think somebody else a lot smarter than me described this, that in some of the older cities like on the East Coast where they're used to hundreds of years of building, they have different sets of codes that sort of deal with that piece. I don't know if it's like a legacy, some sort of situation.

But in Anchorage, a lot of our code has always been oriented towards new builds, new subdivisions. And so it hasn't quite figured out how to deal with that. So I don't have a great answer for it. Other than trying to push the conversation more into like health and safety and real life safety issues, um, rather than the zoning stuff, which is also important but is less of a real risk. Um, yeah, I, I think this would help, but I think for some people who really don't know, I, I, they, they might need it to go a little bit further.

But I, I don't know, that sounds like a bigger policy discussion about priorities of infill and doing that. But let— the Director might have more information on that.

Through the Chair, I think that speaks to something that the Planning Department is actively working on at the moment, just creating a culture of transparency and trying to bring folks in early on projects to ask us those questions. So that we're not as much of a black box, you know, in that you can— you know, you can come in, give us an idea of what you're planning on doing, and then we can help you figure out what those obstacles might be or what you can do to minimize the ballooning costs for projects. So we are aware that we have been perceived as sort of the mystery department in the past, where you never quite know what might come out of the department. But we are hoping to change that and address that in the future. Thank you.

Commissioner Pullis, I, I actually have a little bit of experience with some of that stuff you guys are talking about. I worked on Aquarian. Um, I do not believe the ramps caused it. I think they had to get a permit for the internal work they were doing. And by my understanding, basically if you go ask for a permit, you can be asked to do both, fill out a nonconforming request.

I've been requested to do that a lot lately. I mean, that's your first insight as to, okay, this might pop up. And then also, you know, it's always a huge burden in my experience that, you know, like some of the bigger box stores and stuff, it's not a big deal. But yeah, in a lot of the smaller commercial and stuff, I've had 3 or 4 projects get shut down by just that 10% was enough to just blow them out of the water and it was over. So, you know, I'm an engineer and I almost agree with, you know, this stuff going on right now.

I think they do need to lift the roof like they're proposing and stuff. It makes sense to me. It is quite often a burden that doesn't seem— you know, we're supposed to reuse existing infrastructure and stuff, but people can't do their projects because of this. So You know, you see where I'm going with that, but that's how that works. That's your first insight is, you know, you get it— if you get a permit, you can get asked to do this.

So whenever you go into the building, ask if you're going to end up in this situation. Every time it happens.

The— sorry, Mr. Chair, just want to clarify. In, in this AO, in Section 1, it talks about— it's actually changing a section of 2103, which is the procedures section. It's talking about site plan review. So it's trying to get at, say you have a school and it's required to do a site plan, whereas previously a site plan would make you look at all the stuff with conformity.

It's, it's bringing that back a little bit and just saying if you're doing a site plan review in the works on the interior of the structures, you maybe won't have to go through that same process. But again, the ramps might be considered exterior to the structure, and so you might have to. So just wanted to draw everybody's attention to that. Thank you.

Okay, final call for questions before I close the public hearing.

Seeing none, Commissioner Rahn.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Apologize for sneaking in late, but you gave me one more opportunity. So, um, question of staff. I see the summary of changes within the staff packet.

I appreciate that, helps orient me. On page 1 of the staff packet, there is reference to code language 2113.010.

In italics, I won't read the entire short paragraph there, but there is one phrase within it that caught my attention, and it's about minimizing negative economic effects. When I read that, my interpretation is that the emphasis is on reducing the bad as opposed to enhancing the good. And I'm curious if the department would be open to a recommendation from the Commission to change that language such that the focus is on enhancing economic benefit as opposed to minimizing economic effect or impact.

Through the chair, it seems like a positive change. Would you remind me again which page and if there's a line number on it?

Reading the COVID page of the staff packet, so page 1, in background, it's an italicized paragraph that starts with the acknowledgment and relief granted, and it's from AMC 2113.010. Okay.

Yeah, we could— we can make that change for the version that goes to the Assembly.

And just for clarification, we are trusting staff to make that change. They've acknowledged they would accept it, but if you wanted to put that into a motion, you would need to to do so.

Um, final call before closing the public hearing.

All right, public hearing is closed. What is the will of the body?

Commissioner Krishna, would you like to state your motion? Sure. I move in case 2025-0044 to recommend to the Anchorage Assembly approval of the amendments to AMC 21.03, Review and Approval Procedures, and Chapter 13, Nonconformities, to allow more flexibility for the reconstruction or rehabilitation of nonconforming structures.

Is seconded by Commissioner Rahn. Commissioner Krishna, would you like to speak to your motion? Yes, I intend to support the motion, um, and I would like to add the following findings. One, Anchorage has a wide range of developments built over different sets of regulations, and so there are many opportunities for non-conforming situations. Two, the 2020 Comprehensive Plan and 2040 Land Use Plan call for facilitating infill development and reuse of existing properties.

And three, the mayor's 10,000 Homes in 10 Years strategy calls for incentivizing construction and rehab and remediating neglect.

Thank you. Anybody else wishing to speak to the motion?

Any dis— nope. Any—. I guess we are going to call for the vote.

That motion passes.

Thank you, everybody. And that brings us to case 2025-0045. May we please have the staff presentation?

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Just waiting for the slides to load up here.

So this is a bit more of a wide-ranging proposal. It's dealing with mobile dwelling units and getting a little bit farther than that. But I think it's really just about looking at small forms of housing, small forms of shelter using land efficiently. This project started, um, we were directed about 2 years ago, I think it was Assembly Resolution 2023-102S, which allocated money for a feasibility study for mobile home parks in Anchorage. If you'll recall, there was some at that time, there's a mobile home park in Eagle River that was in the news with failing infrastructure, and people were trying to figure out what to do.

And one of the questions was, well, maybe the municipality could build a mobile home park and figure out if that's viable or not. So the assembly allocated money, um, we contracted with, uh, our, our consultant to put something together, and they did a study, um, and their study found that it's actually not really feasible anymore to do a mobile home park, manufactured home park. Um, so they found there's no prefabricated home manufacturers operating in Alaska, so that makes it difficult. You have to bring everything up, and they're pretty expensive. Uh, the wind and snow loads are a little bit different, so you have to have You know, people in, in Oregon aren't really mass building manufactured housing to Alaska standards necessarily.

Anchorage zoning has created significant restrictions on where mobile home communities can be built, limiting new developments to only a few lots around town. I don't think a new mobile home park has been built in Anchorage since like the 1970s maybe. It's always been a priority. It's written, it's in the 2020 Comprehensive Plan and 2040 Plan to do something about it. But the codes have never actually changed to make it easier.

Um, and Title 21 rewrite also added additional requirements for infrastructure development, landscaping, aesthetics, and driveways that make development more costly than in the past. So this form of housing has traditionally been a pretty attainable form of housing, but it's been harder and harder to build over time. And one thing I, I mentioned in the staff report is that, you know, traditionally mobile home parks located on the periphery of the city because that's where the land was cheap there wasn't much infrastructure. You could put things on, well, on septic, the roads, it wasn't important to have, you know, they just didn't have to be developed to such a standard. And then over time, as the city grew, those mobile home parks or manufactured housing parks are now in the city.

My favorite example is the one in Turnagain next to West High School. That manufactured housing park is actually older than all the houses around it. And you look at the Muniz historical imagery in that area, you know, that's the original character of that area. It was a manufactured housing park. So it's, you know, dates from the '50s or something like that.

And it's the same along Muldoon. And so you can look at the historical aerial imagery in Anchorage and you can see that manufactured housing parks were always placed on the periphery and then over time now they're in the center. And so, and again, they were always sort of expected to be a temporary use, temporary being 20, 30, 40 years. At this point they've become a lot longer of a temporary use. Um, and so I think for mobile home parks to work and continue to function, you need to keep replacing them.

They—. It's sort of a temporary use, is there 20, 30, 40 years, and then you build a new one on the periphery. And then as the city grows, it sort of changes. But what happened in Anchorage and many cities across the US is that the, the mobile home parks were built on the periphery, the city grew around them, and then no other ones got built. And so those— that housing type, which would provide a pretty attainable housing was just sort of stuck.

So back to the report, and this is on our website. We presented to the CDC. So the report found that new units in a mobile home community are likely not— they wouldn't meet affordable housing cost thresholds. So people at lower incomes, they would be spending more than 30%. And one really interesting thing in this, they found that if you— from what they found, to build a new manufactured housing park, you might as well just see if you can find a 20-year-old townhouse because it'd almost be comparable.

In terms of the, the prices. So cost of prohibitive for builders, particularly if you have to buy land. Um, cost drivers: transportation with the lower 48, site prep, all the off-site requirements, putting in water, sewer, and you know, it's, it's bigger. And density restrictions, which constrain the numbers of units over which developers can spread fixed costs. I think, um, the, the density, it was limited something like 8 dwelling units per acre.

So you have this potentially, you know, really flexible housing type, but then its hands were kind of tied in, in how it could be used. So currently, this, this is a rough chart, right? Because we're now, we're kind of getting from zoning into building, but everything that's green on here is stuff that can be permitted today and is legal today to live in. So the two green things, we have modular housing, um, on a foundation that is just permitted like a house, like anywhere else. A tiny home on a foundation, that's also just a house.

A post-1976 mobile home can be permitted in a mobile home park or manufactured housing park or in an R-5 lot. Everything else probably can't be permitted. It's either not considered housing or it's not allowed. For example, you can have a standalone manufactured house, mobile home, in R-5 on a foundation. You can't have that anywhere else currently under code.

The old pre-1976 mobile homes are— you can't place those anywhere because they are really so old that you can't move them anywhere. If you move it, like, the structure might fall apart. Tiny homes on wheels, tiny homes without a foundation, yurts, you know, you can't live in a connext, things like that. What this proposal would potentially do is reduce some of the restrictions on some of those. So it would allow— and, and I guess really what this proposal is doing is it's saying if the building official can permit a place as safe for occupancy, then you can probably live in it.

It's less about how, how it looks and what it's called and more about is it safe to live in. And really, this proposal came out of talking with Building Services and the building officials to say, when they said, you know, we're probably not going to build new mobile homes, what should we do? Because we still have all these manufactured housing parks where it's meeting the needs of people, but a lot of these places, they need to be fixed up, but the code says you can't replace those with anything but a mobile home or manufactured home. So the idea was, well, what if, what if we could replace things in these manufactured housing parks with different types of housing, small housing that can be certified as safe. And so that's kind of where we ended up with this.

So again, very small slide. I apologize. I hope you can see it better. This is just some of the policy guidance that really does show that this has been a problem for 25 years, and there's been policy guidance to do something about it, but we, we just haven't gotten to it. So, you know, back in 2020, public Comments received during the review of Anchorage 2020 express a need to retain mobile home parks as housing within the bowl.

Policies 58 encourage more affordable housing, including homeownership opportunities for low-income residents, recognize mobile home parks, co-ops, and common ownership interests as viable affordable housing choices and neighborhood lifestyle options. So that's, you know, dating back to 2001. Um, and again, I apologize, this is, this is a breakdown of, of what all the changes are, and this is in your memo. It's probably a little bit easier to read there. But so when we started this, a lot of it was just getting away from the term mobile home and just say mobile dwelling unit, so that now the definition is it's something you can move or something that's on a foundation.

Because there's a lot of sort of, um, cultural thinking, I guess you might say, around what a mobile home is, who lives there, what it means. We're trying to get away from that. We're trying to focus on is it safe or not, does it move or not. So a mobile dwelling unit could be a manufactured house, it could be a modular house, it could potentially be a 3D-printed house, it could be a house made in a conex, it can be anything that if the building official says, no, somebody can live here safely, there's egress, you know, it's, it's fire rated, whatever. So it's really putting a lot on them to determine whether this is safe or not.

So that's what a lot of these changes are. Um, and you know, just this was a couple days ago because again, all over the city we have this really old and aging housing stock And when something like this, when two mobile homes burn down, your only option is to replace it with a new mobile home, and mobile homes are so expensive, or the old ones that are around can't be moved. So it puts everybody in this situation in a real dilemma. Like, you can't really replace this very easily. What this proposal would try to do is, one, it splits the requirement for a minimum lot in half.

So say you could do two units potentially on one mobile home lot. And it also says you could replace a mobile home or a manufactured home with something else that was certified as safe for occupancy. So potentially now somebody could replace one of these with one or two units that were built in a different way but certified as safe rather than being a traditional factory-certified HUD mobile home. And on that, why do I say HUD cert— in, in the 1970s, HUD came up with a standard. So if you're building a HUD-certified mobile manufactured home at the factory, they certify it and they say, this has built— been built to the standard, then HUD puts their stamp on it.

And so HUD would provide funding for it. So that kind of became the standard for manufactured housing. There's also modular housing, which is different. Modular housing can just be pieces of house that are built like everything else and put on a foundation. So, um, now as we've been going through this, you'll see there are actually kind of 3 proposals before you.

So we put this out to agency review and we got some comments back, but we'd been working with Building Services. And during that, we got comments from Cook Inlet Housing Authority. And they said, you know what, if you're doing this, you should allow these in all residential zones, and you should make, uh, you should allow manufactured housing communities or mobile dwelling communities— as this kind of term change would— and you should allow them to be administrative site plan review. So Tyler Robinson works for Cook Inland Housing. He actually wrote a paper 10 years ago about this.

You can find his paper online. I think it was his thesis or something talking about this issue of manufactured housing. So And, you know, Cook Inlet sees a lot of this, and I think their, their comments should be in there, um, in the packet. And, and then since then, um, even more, we've been talking with the mayor's office, and staff from the mayor's office here tonight if there are any questions, um, thinking about, well, as we're looking at small forms of housing and we're thinking about rapid rehousing and thinking about how do we get people into housing that's fast and relatively affordable or attainable And what could the muni do with housing we do have? With, you know, some of the land where maybe there's a school, the school is closed, can we do something with that land, at least in the interim, to, to potentially solve some of our, our unhoused problems?

So that's the, that's the paper that I passed out to you, and you'll see in that. So in high— in yellow highlight is all the information that we added after agency review. In blue highlight is all the information that we added after, you know, discussions with the mayor's office thinking about that. So I'll just— the main thing, the main changes we've made, I direct you to page 3 of 18, where in yellow you see now there's, there's Ps all the way across for dwelling mobile unit, mobile dwelling unit, and the conditional use for a manufactured housing community or mobile dwelling community is now a C. And then the dark blue on the side is the most recent changes, and that's really expanding what kind of housing would be allowed in PLI, which is generally public land. There's maybe one parcel in the muni that's not public land.

But it also touches on habilitative care and transitional living. So that is a little bit bigger than what we were talking about. But working with the mayor's office, they've got a really cool project going. And a lot of the, you know, the point of this project is let's get it done and let's make it happen. So the thinking was, well, we could bring it to the Planning and Zoning Commission.

You guys, everybody can discuss it and see what you think. And see if you think that works or it needs to come back later from a different discussion. But, um, so let's see. And, and here's sort of what we're looking at. Here's, here's a rough example of some potential sites.

This is actually kind of 4 sites because we have B-3 SL zoning, we have PLI zoning, and we have right-of-way. So there is discussion about could you put these small sort of housing units in the right-of-way and then you actually don't have to follow the zoning code, or— and you can— gives you a little more flexibility. Um, I just went to Atlanta a couple weeks ago. They've, they built 40 units in, I don't know, 6 months or something. And in Atlanta, the, the city of Atlanta doesn't have to follow its own zoning code when the land is used for a public use.

So, and it's interesting, it was only after I came back, realized, oh, that's kind of what happened here. But it's right-of-way, it's not used, but by doing that allows a little more flexibility. So you're thinking, well, this is B-3, and what And it's in right-of-way. The thing is, with the flexibility of thinking about— as we go through this process, we're talking about small forms of housing. And it's just a chance to talk about, do you want to expand it into PLI?

So it could be maybe potentially placed on the Tozier tract or other land that the muni already owns. And so that's kind of where we got with there. So any questions? Thank you.

Questions for staff?

Anybody?

Commissioner Krishna?

I will start off. So the case in front of us, just to be very clear, is the version that has been laid on our desks with both the yellow and the blue highlight. That is the case that we are considering. That's the case. Excuse me, through the chair, we'd recommend you consider— if you say we don't want to consider, that's, that's totally okay.

But we, we invited the mayor's office to come and talk about it if they'd like to, if it was something that you'd like to discuss. It just seemed like an opportune time to bring it up for this discussion. But if, if you decide we don't want to discuss that one, you can make the call and say we'd like to discuss the one that came in our packet. I, I suppose I'll just start with one big question, which is on page 4 of our packet, uh, the blue highlight on lines— I think it's 42 and 43— saying all, um, MHZs within the municipality except for those located within the PLI district shall be constructed, operated, and maintained in accordance with the general standards listed below. And then below we have all of the sort of new requirements about lot sizes and foundations, et cetera.

So could you clarify what standards would apply within the PLI District? Through the Chair, yeah, the— basically, it would allow a mobile dwelling unit to be placed in PLI similar to multiple structures on a lot. And it would go under or sort of be regulated by building code rather than the specifics of a mobile dwelling community, because the mobile dwelling community has specifics about how much— how the acreage, the road widths, and a lot of specifics like that. So the thinking would be that if the muni was doing something like that, the muni would have a little more flexibility about how to cite that. So it's, it's pretty much there— that whole section is a use-specific standard for manufactured dwelling communities and mobile home parks, and it's exempting that use in PLI from that use-specific standard.

Um, I, I think we might need a little crash course in PLI since we're, um, looking at this at the last minute, but would you clarify if PLI— I don't believe that PLI lands within the bowl aren't just owned by the municipality, is that correct, or are they all?

Through the chair, they're not, but it generally is land in public ownership. There are a few exemptions, but—.

Any other questions for staff?

Commissioner Rahn.

Thank you, through the Chair. Question about site density. Page 5 of the staff packet, staff packet section 4, lines 3 through 4. Looks like there's an upsizing in density tying back to perhaps some comments from CIHA and other discussions, perhaps. Curious about why 25 units per acre was chosen.

Could we go higher?

Through the chair, yeah, I think we ended up there Based on the minimum lot size, based— the smaller— we sort of halved the lot size, and then that 25 dwellings per acre is the extension of that, I believe. You could go higher. I guess it would just depend on whoever was designing the site, how— if they could get that many separate units up to a higher density. I can't speak to it too much, but I think above a certain density, you can't really do separate units anymore. They get so close together.

By then, you should probably be building up. But I mean, you probably could. You wouldn't necessarily have to limit it there. But I believe we did that because we tied it to the lot size. So the lot size per acre, at that, you get about 25 buildings per acre, I believe.

I'll just— throw in there, having designed, looked at designing a tiny homes neighborhood in the past, what I found was I, when I was all said and done, I had designed what is basically reinvented the mobile home park. And I, having done that, I don't think you would get above 25 units per acre. Without eliminating all driveways and parking, then, then maybe you might get above that. But with traditional design, I don't think so.

So, Commissioner Pullis, how can you stay R-1 zoning if you put 14 dwelling units on 1-acre lot?

Through the chair, this, this wouldn't allow a mobile or many mobile dwelling unit community in R-1, but do you mean like multiple structures on a lot, or—. Well, we're allowing it to occur in R-1, but we can have densities up to 14 mobile dwelling units. Am I reading that wrong? Through the chair, so this change in, in the top row, it would allow you to place a mobile dwelling unit as on a foundation in, in R-1. So R-1 now allows a duplex and an ADU, so you could do 3 units potentially.

You couldn't do 4 or 14 units. It's just saying that this housing typology is now allowed to be in that zone, but it doesn't say R-1 can have up to 14 dwellings per acre. Like, it—. I—. Let me just clarify your question.

It doesn't change the fact that, um, you can't have multiple structures on an R-1 lot, right? It's just— it just allows a different use type in that case. So, so are you saying you're allowed 3 because basically the current code says you can have your main house, your you know, your mother-in-law and another unit, basically? Is that what you're saying? Through the chair, yeah.

The existing code says for R-1, you can have a duplex and ADU. So this is sort of just saying that the duplex and the ADU could, in some combination, be mobile dwelling units, but they would have to be on a foundation. So it's like you could have the little tiny house or constructed— because that's another piece too, is I'm sure many of you had the conversation where people say, what was it, a modular house or a manufactured house or a mobile? And really, a lot of it comes down to who is certifying it as safe. This is trying to get away from that and just say, if it's on a foundation, then it's okay, and it's certified safe, it's okay.

Thank you.

Back to Commissioner Rahn.

Thank you to the chair. Question about foundations and impermanent foundations. So the U-specific standard, sounds like some changes recommended there around Mobile dwelling unit shall be placed on a permanent foundation unless it is an ADU or located within a mobile dwelling unit community. Why? Why not, why not allow impermanent foundations in all residential zoning districts?

Through the chair, um, that frankly, because that seemed like a much bigger change and sort of seeing how it works with ADUs was sort of where we landed on that. I don't know if Director wants to add anything to that, but yeah, it's again our whole thing. And it's, it's great. We have such a great building department to ask them like, well, what do you guys think? Like, what's safe here?

And what— and if they say we could permit that, that could potentially be safe, that's also our main priority. It's— we're trying to implement what the mayor's trying to do. We're trying to, you know, get 10,000 homes make things a little bit easier, a little more flexible, but also make sure that it's safe. And so we're fortunate to be able to lean on the building department for that. And so if they could, you know, if they can, yeah, you could do something like that.

I think we wouldn't stand in the way of that. But on this one in particular, it did feel like that would be a pretty big jump, or it might feel like a big jump, but there's not necessarily a reason not to have it like that.

We good? Commissioner Krishna. I, I was actually going to piggyback off of that. Can you go into more detail about why temporary foundations or non-permanent foundations would be allowed as an ADU but not as a standalone mobile dwelling unit? Through the chair—.

On potentially the same lot? Yeah, through the chair. I mean, the thinking there is that it's just in terms of getting more units or allowing more opportunities to create units. And if some— building an ADU right now is pretty expensive. It's like the good old days of, oh, just pop an ADU in the backyard for $60,000, if those days were ever there, are kind of gone.

So it's just thinking about if we have a lot of people who are interested in adding an extra unit to their their property, how can we make it as easy as possible for them to make that decision? And this is, you know, a foundation does add extra cost. So it's not saying that like everything is going to be immovable or anything like that, but just sort of that you could potentially use, you know, do an ADU again if, if the building official will say yes, that is safe. It might not be safe in certain areas with bad soils or on a slope. They might say sorry, you, you can't, you just can't site that like that.

So the, the thinking there really is that A lot of the policy has aligned with making ADUs easier to build. Um, you know, we've got— there's been work to make, uh, pre-approved ADU plans, looking at even ADUs with nonconformities. So if somebody's building an ADU, you don't look at any other nonconformities on the site. So this is sort of in that vein, trying to do something similar. It's like, this would, this would make it less expensive to build an ADU.

Let's see.

Commissioner Eber.

[Speaker:COMMISSIONER TUCKER] I guess I kind of have a— maybe this is outside the scope of our jurisdiction, but like, are we requiring these to connect to utilities? Because like, I just envision a bunch of, you know, dry cabins popping up like in Fairbanks. Is that what we're going for? Like—. [Speaker:COMMISSIONER HART] Through the chair, I think within the Anchorage service area where we have water and sewer.

You're—. If you build a dwelling unit, you're required to connect to the services. If you're on, uh, like a well, or if you're on a septic system, the septic regulations, I think, I believe go by bedroom, and that's a determination I think that's still made by the state. So the state could make the determination, will this be connected to a septic or not? But I, I don't think anybody would permit, um, a dwelling— it wouldn't be a dwelling unit if it wasn't connected to some sort of service, whether it was sewer or septic.

Okay, because the reason why I'm asking is I have a neighbor who has done this. He put up, you know, some sort of unit, and we have a creek that runs across it, and she took the pipes, 6-inch pipes, put them across the bridge, across the pipe, and tried to connect up water. And I was like, well, that's probably not the best way to do that. Understood the theory, understood what they were doing, but so I'm like, are we going to have more of these, you know, popping up because people are Essentially like, well, I got to connect it to sewer and water or whatever.

Do you— what you described is illegal. And if you see something, say something. Oh, I did. I called it in immediately. But that's what I'm saying is like, this might happen more often.

Through the chair, I mean, yeah, people, they do stuff that doesn't make a lot of sense sometimes. But then also going back to the nonconformities discussion, maybe people have done stuff that if they had an opportunity that was able to do something similar that was legal, they might have taken that option. Maybe they wouldn't, but so—.

Take a hefty variance through on-site, which does not like variances, to get that approved.

Any further questions for staff? Commissioner Krishna. Either for staff or I believe there are representatives from the administration who are here. You know, knowing that the PLI language was not in the version that was sent out for public comment, I believe, I am wondering if striking those lines on page 4, lines I think it is 42 and 43, would that still meet the intent? So I, I would say what I'm proposing or asking is if it was still a permitted use in the table that's pulled up on your screen, but the standards that apply to all other residential districts would still apply within PLI, does that still meet the intent or the, the purpose of including it in PLI?

Through the chair, I'll give it a shot. I want to give Thea a chance and the director a chance to speak as well. I think the intent of exempting PLI or this type of development in PLI land from that is that that requires a minimum acreage and it requires a bunch of pretty specific offsite improvements like roads and another, maybe even, you know, sewer and water connections and that sort of thing. And the stuff that we've— I guess if they're mobile homes, we would probably be doing that anyway. But it's to change since initially this was just about it's not feasible to do a mobile home park anymore.

We're probably not going to see that many anyways. We didn't focus a lot of our initial energy on, on changing the standards around that to reduce the minimum acreage required or the separation or anything like that. There are some pieces in there, you know, as recommended by McKinley, that we could make. But because we thought it probably wouldn't go that way, so I, I guess I might ask the director what her thoughts on that would be. It's just tough because I, I don't think the municipality would do it, but it's just the flexibility of, of being able to potentially do something like that and hoping that any municipal process is going to have so much scrutiny on it and a lot of people watching very closely that there's— that it's sort of built in that you're going to have that oversight.

But I don't know if anybody else wants to weigh in.

Through the chair, I think part of the reasoning behind this was that it would be the municipality completing a project paid for by the municipality on municipal lands, and that if we were in a position where we were attempting to do something like that, it would probably be under conditions where we wanted to be able to do it quickly and efficiently and without having to provide private roads, curb and gutter, and those kinds of things that are required in mobile dwelling unit communities, along with some of the landscaping and things like that. So that, I believe, is the— some of the reasoning behind this. And I'd open it up to the Mayor's Office to maybe comment if you would like to. All right. It doesn't sound like we have any further comments from the Mayor's Office.

We got further questions from the Commission. Commissioner Krishna. I guess my— if I'm allowed to comment and the Chair can cut me off— my concern with that is that we're using zoning as a tool for a single project. Project, it sounds like. And so I would ask if there are variances or other tools that we might use instead.

I'm aware of the project and broadly supportive of all goals that increase housing and provide services, but this feels like an odd use of a very broad tool.

Through the Chair, yeah, it is— can be tricky if you're making changes that are really specifically focused. Another thing, you know, as we're having discussions about this, the fire department even made a point like, well, as the school district changes what it does with its land, then we might potentially have more land that, you know, schools that are closed or repurposed or something. So it was kind of like, well, maybe we shouldn't make a proposal for this specific thing, but also thinking if this project is successful, which we all hope it is, and then there's demand and it's sort of a proof of concept to do more. This would make it easier to potentially do that. Because— and then, you know, the downside is like, are we going to get the muni building a ton of mobile dwelling unit communities on PLI?

If we did, I mean, maybe— what would that mean? That might fulfill some of our goals. It doesn't seem that likely. But so, yeah, I would— I think it's a wise thing to consider, but also We did sort of make that proposal thinking that there might be other options in the future. And again, you could do this, you could go back and do this as its own AO and it would go through the process again.

But it would, it would be harder to do a sort of quick project like this. It just added on another 3, 4 months if the project is successful.

Can you please state your name for the record? Sure. Good evening. I'm Thea Agnew-Bemben. I'm one of the special assistants to Mayor LaFrance.

I think the key piece is something that Daniel just mentioned. So the project that we're doing right now is actually not going to be considered a mobile home. You both should stop me here if I say the wrong thing, but it won't actually be considered that. It's really more multiple structures on a lot. It'll be a temporary project.

We're doing a 2-year pilot project and our lots will be— or sorry, our structures will be micro units. They won't be probably connected to water sewer. So it's not— we're not building a mobile home community in the project that we're launching. What we are trying to do is really create this opportunity for a lot of innovation, like people coming together, putting their heads together, professionals working together to kind of put their best concept forward and to launch something before the winter. Like, that's our goal.

And what we're hoping that does is really catalyze these new ways of thinking about creating housing. We're not saying that people are then going to go forth and make a ton of tiny micro homes like, like we'll be using, but I think it is creating the opportunity for more creativity, which this ordinance would then allow. And so I think, as the director mentioned, if we then have that opportunity once this pilot project is off and running and hopefully a success, and multiple folks are coming to us and saying, hey, now I want to do this, It would be wonderful if we could say, well, here's, you know, a piece of HLB land and the HLB Advisory Board is excited about this and they want to move this forward. We'd be able to kind of move that rapidly forward. So we're really in this place of trying to prove a concept and trying to kind of catalyze this new kind of development.

Again, only within structures that are safe for occupancy and maintaining, you know, as much of the standards that we all want to see. So maybe I would just add that.

Thank you. Mr. Rahn.

Thank you to the chair. My last question is about RVs. I'm a little confused as to where they land and what the potential outcome of these changes might be with respect to RVs. My quip is, I think we've all come a long way since Matt Foley and A Van Down by the River. That kind of lifestyle can have a cachet now, right?

So when I look at Section E, prohibited accessory uses and structures, I'm still confused. Can you help clarify for me, um, where this lands with respect to use of RVs as a residence? Through the chair, this proposal doesn't change what RVs— it doesn't really touch them at all. I mentioned them because for a lot of people, they— it feels kind of like a continuum of small places to live. RVs are generally certified as safe by like the Federal Highway Administration or something like that.

So they're safe for the road and they're safe for temporary, you know, staying, but they're generally not considered safe for long-term occupancy. Zoning code right now allows you to use an RV to live in an RV if you're like building your house or if you have a caretaker there for a short period of time, but it does not allow anybody to get a piece of land and drive an RV there and just park it there. So, and this doesn't make that change at all because again, it does come back to RVs. They're great for temporary stays, but they, they probably shouldn't be for long-term habitation and long-term occupancy. And I don't, I don't think Building Services would consider that either.

So, but again, the code does have existing provisions that have been there for a long time. Like if you're building your house or rebuilding your house, you can stay in an RV for— it's a period of months and then you have to vacate for 90 days or something like that. And there's another provision, I think, if you have a caretaker or somebody. But this proposal does not allow RVs to be housing. So seeing no more questions, we will open the public hearing.

Any from the public wishing to testify, please step forward and state your name. Let us know if you'll be representing yourself or a group.

Thank you. Just myself. I am president of Turnagain Community Council, but our council has not— didn't even have no knowledge about this proposal. So this is more just me listening in on the presentation and discussion by the Commissioners and questions. A few things pop into my mind, not having read this or be intimately familiar with this proposal, but one of the last things the staff just said, that RVs would not be allowed for longer-term housing, but the graphic that was shown during staff presentation showed that ConExes would now fall into the category of being allowed as long-term housing.

If I had my choice, I'd want to live in an RV versus a ConEx. I think there's just some kind of disconnect about what this city is evolving into depending on what kind of changes we're allowing in Title 21 and code. One of the things that John Isaacs, who just left, but he whispered to me was early on, if you allow 2 units per lot versus 1 unit per lot, if I got that understanding right in the earlier discussion, what about parking? You know, what about access? Maybe a lot of these homeowners would not have private transportation, but probably a lot of them would.

If you try and cram too much into a space, you know, parking and traffic and in the context of where it is in the bigger picture of housing and housing area could be substantial impacts. And, you know, higher density. And one of the— again, another visual was yurts would be allowed. You know, and I thought that was a really good thing to bring up by the commission with regard to utilities, water, sewer, et cetera. I just— it's hard for me.

Maybe I have limited imagination, but some of the things that would be allowed under this code that I saw on that visual that is not part of, um, the public and what we just saw. But, um, you know, so all I know is what was flashed up on the screen. It just seems like some of them, um, don't feel like they would be a good fit. And then there's the— with regard to utility connections. And then yes, aesthetics.

Um, if you start allowing these just kind of popped in anywhere where we can, because the goal is housing no matter what, no matter where. I think the community at large, if they knew more about this, might have some input on it. Thank you so much. Oh, you forgot to state your name. Excuse me, Kathy Gleason.

Kathy with a C. Thank you. Thank you.

Anybody else wishing to testify?

Seeing none, we will close the public hearing. Oh, staff, before I close that public hearing, staff, do you have any rebuttal? Through the chair, the mayor's office does have a little bit more information to offer. Sure.

Thank you. Thea Agnew-Bemben with the Mayor's Office. The other piece that I wanted to share, which I think actually does speak to the public testimony a little bit, is that the— just leaving aside for a minute the micro units project that we're trying to launch, when we think about the Mayor's 10,000 Homes Strategy and the strategy that I'm partly responsible for implementing, which is our homelessness and health strategy. What we often see when we're trying to help people move from when they're experiencing homelessness into housing is that there's this giant gap, like housing is simply not affordable for many people. And so what we've done over the last few years is we actually have really increased the number of units that are very low-income rentals.

So for example, what we're doing at the Golden Lion Hotel right now is, is actually working really well. We've done some other hotel conversions that are working really well. And what we see is when we have that inventory expand, we really are able to help people move. It's not— a lot of people, it's not that they have zero income, it's just that they have very limited income. And so if we can create housing opportunities where people can spend $400 a month and be inside, people take that and they— it works really well.

So I think we, of course, want to find a balance. We all want to live in a community that we all enjoy and respect. I've lived here my entire life. But I think we— you know, I think when you read the background from the staff for this ordinance, you can see that we have made very deliberate choices to very much limit these opportunities for housing that are attainable for people with lower incomes. And if we continue— we're seeing the result of that right now.

Right. I get calls 10 times a day about what's going on. So if we want to actually change that situation, you know, it's not just creating opportunities for emergency shelter and rapid rehousing, which is the work we're doing right now. It's also creating the inventory of where people are going to go once they stabilize themselves and get some income going and get back to their, their lives. And so we have to be willing to make some choices and some, you know, some might call it sacrifices in order to create more of that inventory or else we're not going to solve the problem.

So I think if we're serious about solving the problem, if we don't want to see people camping in public places, we have to then be willing to implement some of the solutions. Thanks.

Thank you.

Any more questions before I close public hearing for real this time. Closing.

What is the will of the body? And let me just remind us that there is an alt— alternate AO here that we are being asked to consider.

Commissioner Rahn, would you like to state your motion?

I move in case 2025-0045 to recommend to the acreage assembly approval of the amendments to AMC 21.03 through 21.07, 21.10, 21.11, 21.

21.15 To allow more flexibility for small forms of housing and mobile dwelling units in manufactured home parks and all residential zones.

Thank you. That is seconded by Commissioner Krishna. Commissioner Rahn, would you like to speak to your motion?

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I do intend to support the motion. I am in favor of the steps as being proposed with respect to increasing the permissiveness of housing in Anchorage. It's been a charge of the new administration.

We as a commission have heard a lot about it. We heard tonight that this is potentially one big tool to help enable that within a segment of our community that could benefit all of us. We heard a little bit of testimony tonight. I would also like to draw attention to a public comment made, and it's in the staff packets on one of the last few pages. It was written by a resident of the state of Texas who— I hope he's a real person and I hope he moves up here.

He's moving up in the fall with his soon-to-be wife and looking to get into his first home and thinks that this could be a good way of doing that. And that to me was a reminder that we're not just looking at our own navels here. There are people outside looking at us as well. And in so doing, realizing that we've had some limitations for a while. I think the case before us again is a step in improving upon some of those limitations.

So I intend to support the motion. Thanks.

Thank you. Anybody else wishing to speak to the motion?

Commissioner Pullis. Currently, I do not think I intend to support the motion. Um, R-1 is my issue. I think if you start putting mobile dwelling units into an R-1 neighborhood, you're going to get empty R-1 houses and people are going to leave. I don't think that's our intent either.

I, I don't have an answer to that, but I just don't see mobile dwelling units as a good co-location in R-1 zoning.

Um, Commissioner Eber. Um, I feel the same way as Scott, but I also kind of feel the same way about PLI. So there's a—. I support it overall. I don't support it in all of the zoning districts.

Anybody else wishing to speak to the motion? Mr. Krishna. I appreciate the, the commissioner's comments. I do think that after hearing responses from staff, from the administration, hearing testimony, that I do intend to support the motion. And I will say that I think this is a case in which our role in revising the zoning code might not be— our role is not to the end of any specific project here.

It doesn't mean that this particular use or these developments may even be economical or feasible or desired by many property owners. It just means that we're providing flexibility for future uses and developments. And, um, I will add that in my experience working in a variety of Anchorage neighborhoods, that mobile homes, which is not what we're calling them today, um, are one of the most affordable last affordable options within the municipality, and they've been greatly eroded by the last couple of decades. And so it may not be the choice, um, that anybody in this room would make for their neighborhoods or for their lots, but it doesn't mean that it's not a valid and desired choice by many, many people within the municipality. And so I think for those reasons, I do think I will support this motion.

Anybody else wishing to speak to the motion?

I will add that I also intend to support the motion. And responding to mobile homes in R-1 areas, I, I think that that's a little bit of a boogeyman. Comment concern. I've seen R-1 lots that have existing mobile homes on them with vacant R-1 lots around them. The only reason they're vacant is their areas are so undesirable that nobody would go and invest what it takes to build a new home in that area.

Now, having something in the middle— and when I say in the middle, If you were going to move a mobile home onto a lot in a code-approved way under today's building department, you better believe that it's going to be a lot nicer than half of the homes, the pre-'80s, pre-'70s homes that might be existing in the area side by side with it. So therefore, I don't, I don't have the fear that a new mobile home is going to be the end of the world. And, and then I just Also add that the idea with this is that there's a lot of different mobile housing types that are all being brought in under one tent. So it's not just the manufactured home that you might picture. Um, and I'll just leave it at that and call for the vote.

That motion passes 5 to 2.

Okay. That brings us to Title 21 discussion and/or commissioner comments.

Are there any commissioner comments?

Commissioner Krishna, you're tapping your screen, but I see nothing. Would you like to say something? I have a commissioner question, which is, since we were just talking about the economics of mobile dwelling units. I'm curious whether the new tax incentive that was recently passed would apply to communities of mobile dwelling units.

Through the chair to Commissioner Krishna, I don't know the answer to that question. I believe that it applies to multifamily, and if it's a a development that is multi-family, multiple dwellings on a lot perhaps. So I can find that out and provide the, the commission with that information. I, I, uh, I don't need the answer personally. I just think it's, uh, since we have everyone in the room who might be interested in that, I thought it would be an interesting question to bring up.

Any other commissioner comments?

Hearing, seeing none, we can entertain a motion to adjourn.

Moved by Commissioner Stryke, seconded by Commissioner Winchester. Any discussion? Any opposed? Hearing none, we are adjourned.