Anchorage Assembly: Worksession re AO 2026-85 amending Anchorage Municipal Code Title 21 to create a new missing...

Some members may want to keep that in mind should we hear dire warnings later about unintended consequences. With that, I will turn it over to Member Baldende. Thank you, Chair. Let's— if we can pull up the presentation, we'll get rolling.

While you do that, I will also note for the record that we have some of our Assembly Council staff here. Dean Gates has joined us. And then our intern as well. Do you want to introduce yourselves? Hi, Zach Christie.

Zach Christie is here. And then we have also joining us—. Matthew Hurt, Legislative Counsel to the Assembly. Matthew Hurt, great. Did you want to introduce yourself, Dean?

No, no, no. Okay. The man, the myth, the legend. No introduction. No introduction required.

All right, we're waiting to pull up the presentation, so bear with us. Did you want to start us off with it? Yeah, I— while we're waiting for the presentation to come up, I'll just give a brief background. So this ordinance has actually been in production, one might say, since 2024, since the summer of 2024. In your packet today, you have a memo from the Planning Department that's dated 2024.

Our previous planning director and planning staff inked a memo with respect to the initial version of this proposal, and particularly on page 2, they had some interesting recommendations which reflect where we've actually— close to where we've actually landed with this ultimate version of an overlay that actually addresses our transit corridors and our need for missing middle housing. You'll notice that Member Martinez is the only member that is listed as a sponsor in that memo from Planning, and that is because I was not Even running for office yet, I was still working with the Anchorage Housing Club and organizing support for pro-housing initiatives. So as most of you are aware, this is a follow-on piece of legislation from the Transit Supportive Development Overlay, or TSDO, which was introduced last fall, and it was paused pending additional community dialogue. You'll see lots of references to TSDO in the materials before you for this reason. Again, this builds on the work of TSDO, and I want to be very clear about that.

This is not a bait and switch. This is the continuing work of the Assembly doing the iterative process that gets us to ultimately better legislation that serves the needs of the community. So you have before you, in addition to that Planning Department memo I just mentioned from 2024, you have a document that outlines the process that the TSDO ordinance went through. There were a whole slate of meetings conducted by various members of admin and the assembly. There are— is a list of articles that have been written, lots of opinion pieces that you can consult for further background.

The Planning and Zoning Commission resolution from November 2025, which ultimately recommended passage of this piece of— or consideration of this piece of legislation, along with some recommendations that I would love for you to take a look at. In some ways, those recommendations suggest a more robust TSDO might be appropriate, and that is not what actually we are actually doing here today. Finally, you'll see a memo from S4, which is a local business that supports entities and individuals that are looking to rezone. They were kind enough to put together a rather comprehensive list of rezones that have occurred over the past several years and indicate which of those rezones would have been unnecessary and duplicative processes if TSDO or something like it had been in play. And the reason that that's important is because that list represents an extraordinary amount of staff time, of public resources, of time on the part of our neighbors who are trying to maximize their own properties.

And it reflects a lot of that red tape that we've been talking about wanting to cut. Thank you. And I think it's also worth pointing out that the fact that we have a cottage industry that has cropped up around shepherding people's applications through the rezone process for the municipality is its own comment that deserves further review. So let's get into it. First of all, what problem are we trying to solve here?

And I think it's pretty self-evident, but I'm going to say it anyway. Mandy, would you move the slides forward? The problem that we are trying to solve is Once more. Housing supply. That is the point of what we are doing with the Missing Middle Housing Opportunity Overlay.

And the goal here is— Mandy, would you advance one? The goal is more housing at more price points for more people, for more of our neighbors. And we care about this— Member Martinez and I care about this because the future of our city depends on who can and cannot afford to live in Anchorage. How much safe, quality housing is available? Who can afford it?

Is it for rent or sale? Does it meet the various needs of our residents? And does it mean that, for example, my children will be able to afford to move back to Anchorage after college if they so choose? And this is, this is a, this is an effort to ensure that we have enough housing to meet our existing demand. Thank you.

So here's, here's what we know. We know that we don't have that right now. We know that working folks in backbone industries are being priced out of Anchorage homes. We know that housing that is attainably priced is often extremely old and it requires significant reinvestment. And we know that rents continue to rise.

And to quote another individual who has had some things to say about housing, the rents are too damn high. One more, Mandy, please. I'm just going to pause to note that we were joined by Member Scout at about 9:55 AM. So I want to take us back to 2012. And Member Park as well has joined us.

So in 2012, we did a housing market analysis. McDowell Group and ECHO Northwest did an analysis of our housing demand. And I believe that this was prescient writing. So the study's key finding is that there was not enough buildable land to accommodate future housing demand. Again, this is in 2012.

Under historical development patterns, current land use policies, and development options. And they called out that the mismatch between future housing demand and land supply demanded our attention, and if not properly addressed, the housing gap could affect population growth in Anchorage as well as decrease affordability. And here we are, nearly 15 years later, and we are seeing this prediction come to fruition. Uh, the—. This market analysis also critiqued our land use policy, specifically predicted outmigration to the Matsu Valley and counted the cost of doing nothing, which is essentially what we have done.

And now we find ourselves exactly where the economists predicted that we would be. One slide, Mandy. Thank you. So why are we in a housing crisis? This is a non-exhaustive list, but here in Anchorage, we have limited land.

A lot of our housing stock was built in the '60s and '70s. The cost of infrastructure is high and is increasing. The cost of capital for construction is also increasing. It's currently 12% for a construction loan. There are significant regulatory barriers in our own code.

The cost of labor has gone up, the cost of materials has gone up, and mortgage rates are also rising— mortgage interest rates. Now admittedly— would you advance one, Mandy? Some of these we can do nothing about. Some of these are squarely outside of the Assembly purview, but there are some things that we can in fact do something about. There are levers that we can pull as legislators, and those pertain to land and regulatory barriers.

I would argue that there might be some things we could do with respect to our aging housing stock, and that in fact we are doing. And there are also things we could do about the cost of capital, were we to think about some sort of a revolving municipal loan fund specifically for housing production. But for purposes of this presentation, I'm going to focus on the top two: limited land and regulatory barriers. We can in fact influence our own land use regulations. We have enacted some tax incentives which have helped with projects penciling out.

We can address permitting timelines, and we can address carrying costs— what it, what it costs a developer to carry a piece of property from the point of purchase until that property is developed and can be sold. Those are things that are actually within assembly control. And all of these things contribute to more projects being buildable and more housing options coming online in Anchorage. So I would pause it to you. Feel advance, Mandy.

That supply and choice equals affordability, which is really the target here. And there is a trend across the country. It's not just here in, in Anchorage, that there is this gap in our housing supply, and it's been termed missing middle housing. And that doesn't necessarily refer to people, it refers to housing type. So essentially anything between, if you picture it on the far left, single-family construction, and on the far right, the apartment building that you see, anything between there that is neighborhood-scale multifamily is missing from the housing stock across the country.

And it's not just in our jurisdiction. There are other, and other local governments, many, many other places who are working to figure out how do we incentivize missing middle housing? How do we make it possible for these types of housing to be feasible? Because in many places they are not. And right now in Anchorage, our zoning doesn't allow for development of many of these missing middle housing types.

By right, or they require, as I mentioned, expensive and time-consuming rezone processes. The market is still producing large, expensive single-family housing because that is still what pencils out. But what we're seeing across the country is that cities that have managed to build more diverse types of housing in the last decade have seen rents and home prices stabilize or come down. Thank you.

Where might I have seen this photo before? Oh my goodness, many, many places. I believe, if I'm not mistaken, I'm going to verify, but I think this photo is in our 2040 land use plan. So just want to say that. I would also note that there are missing middle housing types illustrated in our comprehensive plan and our land use plan, which I actually have copies of.

If anyone would like to peruse them later. And interestingly enough, most of them cannot actually be built in Anchorage. They're nice illustrations, but they can't be built here because of the restrictions on our zoning code. Can you go one more? It's page 41 of the land use plan map, section 2 in 2040 land use plan is a similar photo with Missing Middle described.

Thanks.

So returning to that land use plan, there were some corridors identified in our comprehensive plan as transit supportive development corridors, and that is where the original TSDO name came from. One of the reasons that we chose to move away from TSDO as the name, because it was— because it really referred to a planning tool, a technical sort of jargony phrase, as opposed to really sticking to the goal of what we are trying to do here, which is produce mixed missing middle housing. Now, the way that that happens is by ensuring that there are more types of housing available along our most traveled corridors in Anchorage, where we already have amenities, where we already have infrastructure, where we have access to resources and transportation options. So, um, again, lots of factors that influence our housing supply, but the levers that we have available are levers like this, activating our transit supportive corridors in the ways that were suggested by our comprehensive our land use plan. This is what our plans say should have been happening all along.

And so for decades now, we have had this instruction, this aspirational language in our land use plans that say we should have more types of housing buildable in these areas. And we have never made the leap from plan to implementation. Mandy, would you go forward one slide? So, at a very high level, Our land use map and our land use plan together are the comprehensive plan. Or yes, I think I said that correctly.

And the way that those get implemented— those are aspirational documents until we take them and we put them into action in Title 21. This, for those of you who are uninitiated, is Title 21 in print form, uh, with some changes that have been made recently. But this is the way that our land use plan gets carried out. And we have never made the jump from our comprehensive plan to actual code change when it comes to these transit supportive corridors. Places where, again, we've said this is where additional density belongs in Anchorage.

And so I would like to suggest that we think about the comprehensive plan as like a blueprint for a house. The blueprint says, this is the kitchen, this is the bathroom, this is the living area. [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] And it suggests what fixtures might go where. But ultimately, it is code that says, well, actually, sinks only belong in bathrooms and kitchens. You wouldn't put a sink in your living room, right?

It's, it's the thing that takes the conceptual idea of what goes in a kitchen and what goes in a bathroom and actually makes it practical and actionable. And so this is an attempt to move us from this comprehensive plan to an actionable step. This also builds on past zoning actions that the Assembly has taken. And again, this is sort of a cursory list, but in the last several years, the Assembly has moved— would you go one slide, Mandy— to remove required parking minimums in Ingraham, which has allowed lots of different construction to occur, especially things like senior housing. Resident, um, multifamily senior housing, which generally doesn't need the same level of required parking as, say, a regular apartment complex.

The assembly moved to allow accessory dwelling units in all residential zones in 2023, duplexes by right everywhere in the Anchorage Bowl. That was the HOME Initiative. 3 And 4-plexes were reclassified from commercial to residential construction, and some residential design standards were paused. And with all of this work that's been done since 2022, we are just now beginning to see an uptick in residential permit So 261 residential permits, residential units permitted in 2023, 299 in 2024, and 393 in 2025. And I'd like to posit that that trajectory does not get us to 10,000 homes in 10 years.

It doesn't. The math doesn't math. However, what we're seeing here tracks with national data that zoning reform is very hard work. It takes a lot of time, and inertia is real. Overcoming decades of underbuilding is a real challenge.

And I would say that I think my co-sponsor and I would agree that that is why continued action and bold action is necessary. I'm just going to note that Chair Brawley joined us around 10 o'clock. Thanks. 10:05. Mandy, would you go forward one slide?

So interestingly enough, even though we had a study in 2012 that called out some challenges with our regulatory framework for building housing, we instituted a change to Title 21 in 2015, and you can see the impact on residential permitting. These are permits—. This is— these are the number of permits pulled, and the new Title 21 regulations taking effect had a precipitous drop in the number of permits that were actually pulled, and those numbers have continued to generally decline over time. We're seeing that upswing from 2023 to 2024. We are gaining ground, but our regulatory framework became even more restrictive in 2015 and has never really been corrected.

So what the Missing Middle Housing Overlay aims to do is to reduce some of those regulatory barriers and to create flexibility in the places we've already said it makes sense. Would you go forward one slide, please? So MHOP— in practicality means flexibility in how a building can be placed and oriented on a lot. What size that lot can be and what size the building can be, the number of units or structures that can be on a lot, and the removal of those roadblocks that often force people into a rezone process. Again, this is a— this is strategically along our most traveled roadways, and I think it's important to note that this is an opt-in situation.

An overlay is not a rezone. It does not change the underlying classification of any of the properties. It simply allows property owners to opt in to a more flexible regulatory framework. And this is where I would love for you to take a look, and when you have time, at the memo from S4. So how do we do this?

Well, I'd like to welcome you, friends, to the Title 21 Dimensional Standards Tables. If you've not looked at these before, I apologize in introducing them to you this way. But essentially, every zone has a set of dimensional standards that pertain to it. The lot size, the lot width, the maximum lot coverage, the number— the amount of the lot that buildings can cover, where those buildings can be relative to the, the front and the side and the rear property lines, how many structures can be on a tract, and if there are any height restrictions or any other restrictions or permissions. All of this lives in the dimensional standards table in Title 21.

And mhop as an overlay would essentially— how many of you remember transparencies? Am I the old person in the room that remembers transparent? Yeah, exactly. Yeah, exactly. Okay, great.

Okay. Yes. Zach is like, I don't know what that means. It's fine. So if you imagine an overlay, it is as though you laid out the zoning for all of Anchorage and you flop the transparency on top of it, and you said, in this area, the, the most flexible standards apply, whether it is the underlying zone that is more flexible or the overlay that is more flexible, you get the most flexible option.

And so what the Missing Middle Housing Opportunity Overlay does is it says that minimum lot dimensions are not static. They are determined by subdivision requirements, which are located in a different place in Title 21. Mm-hmm. It increases maximum lot coverage to say you can cover more of a parcel, up to 70%. It says that you do not have any minimum required setbacks from the front of the lot.

So if you want to bump your house right up to the, to the right-of-way, you can do that. Side setbacks are 5 feet or not applicable if you're building on a common lot line or an alley. Essentially, this allows for townhome construction or something like a zero lot line. And the rear setback is 10 feet, or not applicable if you're on a common lot line, or again, an alley. You can—.

If you're on an alley, the building can go all the way to the back of the plot. And the maximum height is 40 feet, which is 10 feet higher than what is currently permitted in most residential zones, 30 if the underlying zone is R-1. So one of the things we heard during the TSDO process was a really significant current concern about shadows in these R1 neighborhoods, the residential single-family neighborhoods. And so this was a response to that concern to say, okay, in, in R1, we will maintain the height as is, as it already exists in that zone. Anywhere else, the height is 40, or if it's a zone that allows for a more permissible height, could be higher.

For example, in R3 or R4. The maximum height would be higher than 40 feet. Any questions to this point?

Yeah, Donald. Oh, excuse me, Mr. Handlin. Yeah, so I just had a question here. So with the minimum setback requirements and stuff, so for front, it would be— you could go right up to the property line. Have you looked at, I guess, any impacts that would have on sightlines with any of the transportation corridor?

Yeah, the only place where that could potentially have an effect would, would be on a corner lot. But there are also— there's also, irrespective of a zoning call, there is also permit review that happens. And if there are right-of-way or sightline infringements that are expected, those generally get called out in the permitting process, not necessarily in the zoning code. Okay. Any other questions from members?

Great. I think you may get to this. I haven't had an opportunity to look through your slideshow, but in the preparation that I did do before this work session, what I found was super helpful too was the crosswalk between the sort of former versions of the trend of supportive proposal that did go through Planning and Zoning Commission, and ultimately there was a version that was recommended for approval. And what we're talking about now, the missing middle housing opportunity overlay, some members may want to check that out too. Cool.

Back to Member Baldwin-Day. Yeah, thank you for calling that out, Chair. I do not have the crosswalk reproduced in this slideshow. I trust that my colleagues read, so I don't put it in front of them. However, that is a great call out.

Is you can see chronologically where TSDO began and where MHOP has ended. So the goal here really is to provide, again, flexibility, also risk reduction. So one of the things that, that we've heard from not just, you know, developers and builders, but from individual property owners, is that moving— trying to work through a rezoned process to say, Add an additional unit on your own property where it's not currently allowed, or to try to subdivide a parcel, or to do anything that really interacts with our regulatory framework carries a significant amount of risk, and it's expensive. And, and so people are hesitant to take on that risk. Developers in particular are hesitant to take on that risk.

And so this is a way to say we are going to reduce the question marks and let you know exactly what you can and cannot do on a parcel that you own., and then ultimately leading to a more efficient, more efficient movement of folks through our regulatory system. The outcomes that we hope for are neighborhood-scale multifamily. These are images of multifamily housing from all over the country. One of them is actually here in Anchorage. It's the third from the left on the top.

Those are the Cordova, the Cordova development, which has been wildly popular. And all of these are what we would hope to see in Anchorage. So stacked triplexes, stacked duplexes, side-by-side duplexes, more of this kind of housing that looks like it belongs in a residential neighborhood, not a high-rise, not a, not a large format apartment building, but something that fits within our existing neighborhoods, but also gives us more density and more housing options for more folks.

And this is, this is a not exhaustive list of some of the goals that we're trying to meet with this policy. So I again will not read it to you because I believe that you all are literate. But the idea here is that by doing all, by giving these choices for dimensional standards, we allow folks who say potentially have an oddly shaped lot to orient a piece, uh, to orient a building on that lot that would actually allow them to develop where the, the current lot coverage standard wouldn't allow them to develop on it. Or it allows someone who has a larger lot who potentially wants to add 2 small ADUs to their lot for, say, a, a kid coming back from college and an aging parent could do so because the lot coverage would allow them to do that and to place— and MHOP would allow them to place more structures on that lot. We're also hoping that this promotes the kind of infill development that has been out of reach for a lot of folks because the, the existing home or the existing structure was grandfathered in under an old set of regulations and can't necessarily be rebuilt.

But this would allow for rebuilding in a similar fashion or even something that is more adequate. Thank you. And finally, reducing infrastructure costs, building where we already have infrastructure in place, is part of this equation too, preventing additional sprawl and making sure that our development and our density happens where it was designed to be. So I'm going to pause there because that's— that is sort of the meat of what this ordinance proposes to do. The rest of this presentation is really sort of backstory and a deeper dive into Why?

But what—. Wait, aren't people leaving? Why 10,000 homes in 10 years? It's more of the larger scale of the 30,000-foot view, and I hesitate to go there if folks have questions on the nuts and bolts at this time. Member Brawley has a question for you.

Yeah, thank you. And I caught the beginning of this on the phone on the way from an appointment. My question is to the sponsors, but I think really just a bigger question to put on the table, and that is, I appreciate your kind of overview of how this is, or at least a policy like this is represented in our comprehensive plan from 2001 and our land use plan for the bowl in 2017. So I'm curious kind of from the sponsor's perspective, you know, did you, in terms of kind of implementing what the language of that plan is, are there other alternatives that you looked at? Obviously there's been multiple versions of this, but I guess can you speak to kind of why you believe this would be the the way to implement that.

And then I think just, again, the big question I want to put on the table is this policy has been written into the plan for 25 years. And so the question I keep asking the community is, if not this, then what? And so I think— so again, that's not the question to answer, but I do want to dig into kind of the connection between the intent in the plan and then, you know, what this ordinance actually is. Thank you. Yeah, that's a great question.

Thank you, Chair Brawley. So we, we explored a lot of different options for activating transit corridors. Again, this, this policy has been in development for upwards of 2 years at this point, or nearly 2 years at this point. And the, the, the challenge is that our plan is not terribly specific about what the implementation looks like. It just says that we should.

And so there's this delicate balance to be struck between what actually gets us the, the critical mass of intervention that produces more housing in these places where we've said it would go, and also what our, what Anchorage is ready to receive as a change. And ultimately, change management is extremely difficult. And a lot of folks, for very, very valid reasons, have concerns about what kinds of structures might land in their neighborhood. And so trying to walk that line between what is the minimum, minimum effective dose, as it were, of zoning reform versus what kinds of changes are acceptable to our neighbors has been a really tricky thing. And I think that's, that's why we've landed where we've landed.

I will say it now and I'll say it later. I don't believe that this is the silver bullet. I think there's a lot more work to do in activating our town centers. Mm-hmm. Which have even more flexibility than what transit corridors have suggested.

And I think that is a follow-on— that's a follow-on project to the Missing Middle Housing Overlay, is to address town centers and some of the places where we've said, actually, we would be willing to accept much bigger buildings, much larger structures, because that's where they fit. And I would say the same about the, the commercial element that was part of the Transit Supportive Development Overlay and was removed from the Missing Middle Housing Overlay. Thank you. That is another project that is related to this transit corridor idea in terms of mixed-use and incentivizing that in Anchorage.

Yeah, and one other follow-up. So on the map, so there's the land use plan map that's been amended several times. There's the tax incentive map that this body amended to expand areas. For example, it didn't include all of Muldoon, which we all talked about didn't make a lot of sense. So can you just clarify, is the map that you're utilizing now, is that the same as the tax incentive map, or just kind of what are some of the key differences?

Yes, it is the, it is the tax incentive map that offers tax abatement for developments of 8 or more units. Thank you. Okay, Member Johnson. Yeah, thank you. So you mentioned town centers, and I I had a question from a constituent with some expertise in Title 21, and they noted that the memorandum does mention town centers, but they seem to have not been included in this ordinance and sort of made some suggestions that they could be added in.

But it sounds like maybe this was an intentional choice to not include town centers in this framework, and that that would be a follow-on project. Am I reading that correctly? That is, that is correct. We, we decided ultimately that having the conversation around what types of commercial uses would be appropriate to pair with this particular overlay was going to end up being really complex. And that's generally because our use tables don't make a lot of sense.

There are some commercial uses that we all probably think make sense in a neighborhood setting or in a main street setting that, you know, that are fairly innocuous, but then there's others that are grouped under the same heading that could be potentially problematic. And so So we felt like there was a lot more work to be done in sussing out what kinds of commercial uses fit in a neighborhood and putting that as a separate project, potentially with a lot more engagement with the community to understand what we need to change in our use tables to be able to make that happen. Okay, thank you. I appreciate that. And then one other question, or perhaps comment.

It's on page 5, it just mentions driveways shall not exceed 20 feet. It seems unclear whether that is— or the length of the driveway. I'm guessing it's the width. It is the width. It might be worth stating that explicitly.

Yes, thank you. That's a great flag, and I will make a note of that.

Mr. Herker. At the top of this presentation, Member Valentin said that the administration declined to be here to participate in this. Is that— can you walk me through that a little? Were they invited? Did they decline, or did they just say they weren't available?

What's kind of going on there behind the scenes a little bit, for what you can say publicly. Thank you, Member Gerker, for that question. So I will say that I think there are some considerations at this point for the mayor's office, which I would prefer to allow her and her staff to speak to. Obviously, TSDO was a very controversial piece of legislation and went through many different iterations before eventually being paused. And at this point, I'm not entirely clear on why the support for this particular ordinance has waned in its current form.

That's a conversation I look forward to having with the mayor. She and I have a meeting to discuss this very thing next week, and I hope to hear directly from her where she stands on this piece of legislation. And I will, I will, I will say that You know, land use, land use is by definition contentious, and every single piece of legislation, zoning legislation that I referred to on the earlier slide, it came with a whole slew of negative feedback from constituents, of a lot of alarmism, a lot of fear. And, and I think what, what we've seen is that every step of the process has come with really significant opposition from certain corners, and I think that likely factors into why, why the mayor is not thrilled about this particular piece of legislation. I have a couple people in the queue, but I kind of want to just briefly piggyback off of Mr. Gerker's question.

It was— so as I understood it, TSDA was put on pause sort of at the the will of the mayor, although it had already been recommended for approval by the Planning and Zoning Commission. There was a recent ADN article that talked about the pause and further— there was— it was messaged, I think, by the administration that they were going to do some further public process or dialogues, but then I think we saw Ms. Morse, who's in the room with us today, quoted as saying that there hasn't been any public meetings, that the administration has not facilitated any more public process on this proposal. Is your understanding that that is accurate, or am I unaware? Has there been further outreach by the administration in this interim, or—. I can't speak to what additional outreach has occurred on the part of the administration.

I do not believe that any public meetings or large gatherings have occurred on this particular topic. Okay, we're gonna go to Ms. Scout and then, let's see, sorry guys, my queue is filling up. Yeah, Ms. Scout and then we're gonna go to Mr. Martinez and Mr. Handeland.

Go ahead, Sydney. Thank you. Similar, keeping on the same track as Member Gerker's questioning, I know that the mayor's administration introduced two new proposed tax incentives just like yesterday, one for starter homes and one to promote mixed-use development. How would those proposals impact or work with this? Proposal, if at all?

Well, I hope that they would be a really lovely pairing, and that would be my goal. One of the things that is tricky, particularly when it comes to mixed-use, is the financing. It's really difficult to create a funding stack that actually makes mixed-use pencil out, especially in Anchorage. And so I'm really grateful to see that these proposals are coming forward, and, and I, I see them as complementary, that they would dovetail really nicely with what we're attempting to do here.

Yeah, it is interesting, as you mentioned there. So in the tax abatement, it's 8+ units. The focus of this is missing middle, sort of small multifamily, which the Assembly has done a lot of work on. That might be something that we all want to reflect on. Um, with that, I will go to Mr. Martinez.

Thank you, Chair. Just to go back a little bit and to answer the question with respect to a little bit of origin and then also an observation with respect to where we are in the, the work process and the administration's relationship. The— from an origin perspective, The starting point is very, very simple to me, that people in the past were able to identify things that they knew the city would need to have the thinking about for the future, but that they weren't ready to take on at that time. So when, when, when I got elected, I didn't make up the term Transit Supportive Development Corridor. It was already on a plan.

When I got elected, East Anchorage District Plan called for activating what we're essentially talking about now. So the reality is a lot of the visioning, the hopeful future, were created in language and in plans by a lot of the folks by people in the past who weren't at the implementation phase. And so then my only retort would be, when people talk about the TISDO project, I disagree that it was a contentious item. But I recognize that when you get from visioning in the past, when people at that time don't have to necessarily do the work, but they get to say this would be a great idea for the future. I recognize that it seems that as we get closer to implementation, contentiousness increases as we get ready to get the rubber to the road.

So we have a disconnect between visioning of the past and where we should get to, and it seems like every time you get closer to the rubber meets the road, the level of contention increases. I wanted to note the difference between the visioning of plans that we inherited with the obligation of implementation meets the implementation moment of an excited public working through challenging issues. I think those are very different. And the reason that I wanted to land on that is because we committed as a body to continue the process and the progress of activating of these plans through our legislative levers. This is an attempt to continue that work, but I would just respectfully recognize that this work at the implementation stage where we are now is really built on the vision of people from the past that we inherited, and I think that's a critical to recognize.

Lastly, I would just say with respect to the tools of the current administration, I think that all roads lead to progress, but that from a vantage point of really taking on the challenge of meeting the implementation moment, meets the vision of those who thought these were great ideas at the past, when there was vision, we're at that implementation stage now. Thank you.. And I, and we welcome, I think, the administration's all the various tools that they can lean in on. But I just wanted to really clarify, this is really old language that we're bringing to implementation, and Anchorage seems to have a problem where the rubber meets the road. That's where we often seem to not be able to get past, but I recognize that this body has been committed to getting past the implementation snafu that we often find in our community, piece by piece, and this is the next attempt.

Thank you. Okay, thank you. Mr. Handlin. Yeah, I was just kind of curious if you guys have, I guess, talked with or had discussion with any kind of developers of, I mean, as with some of this as it regards to cost, 'cause I guess a little bit of background, we just recently had a constituent who had shown us, "Oh hey, this is some new properties that are supposed to be built," and I'm like looking at it and it's like, "Oh well, hey, in terms of like what people are getting versus the cost, it seems like, hey, the new construction, those ends up and end up being almost more expensive to the point where it's like you're paying essentially the same amount, just, just for less. And as I look at like, hey, when my grandmother was kind of— we were looking at maybe trying to find her some other options.

We were like, oh, well, hey, can we sell, sell her house, maybe getting her something smaller? And it's like, well, it's essentially the exact same price. And so what's the point of essentially doing all that work for less space versus, hey, this is the home you've always lived in. Thank you for the question. We, uh, we've had a lot of conversations with developers and, and builders to understand how, uh, how the regulatory framework increases cost.

And, um, and whether, especially with new construction, what we're also hearing is that there are more and more individual property owners who want to make adjustments to their property. And the process to do that is really unclear, really cumbersome, and really expensive. And so it's, it's sort of this twofer. It's, you know, this is a mechanism by which property owners can make changes or adjustments to the property that they already have. And it is also a mechanism that brings down some of those costs and in the regulatory space for folks who are developing from the ground up.

So I'm The, the goal here is that we do both things. Um, and we've gotten excellent feedback, really positive feedback from the development and building community, and also from individual property owners who are interested in, like I said, adding a couple of ADUs to their property or subdividing a large lot and building property, building on the adjacent or the new adjacent property. Um, there is a ton of interest in maximizing our land right now, and And I hope this speaks to that.

I know the question was not for me, but one of the things I've sort of been struck by as I've sort of watched this process go through the Planning and Zoning Commission hearings is some of the testimony from builders and developers saying, hey, we could add units if this thing were to go through.

One of my questions that I don't think would be possible for the sponsors to accurate or 100% accurately answer would be, how many units have we left on the table by delaying some form of this for so long? Now we are well into our building season. How many units of those 10,000 homes could have started getting built that now are not getting built due to this delay, I think is interesting. Do you have any sort of ballpark idea of what that might be, Erin? Yeah, up through the end of last year, the Planning Department was tracking incoming rezones and permit requests and had started to put a number to that.

I don't know that that number is still accurate. There is some, information in the supplemental memo from the Planning Department on Version 6 of the TISDOH, which is available online. And I believe, let's see, 36 plus 24 plus 18 plus 10 plus 24, so over 100 units left on the table that were not built. Okay, Member Brawley. Thank you.

I just have a couple of kind of big questions to put on the table again.

Not necessarily seeking answer from the sponsors, but certainly interested in this because I keep coming back to the comp plan. And the reason again, this is connected to this ordinance is because at some point the idea of a comp plan is you implement it. And so again, the question really before us is, is this a good idea, and also is this implementing our Comp Plan? So I want to make sure that as this progresses, we address both of those questions. I will say the more that I've looked at the Comp Plan, the more that it feels like much of it basically is a policy failure.

It assumes a scenario that has not happened. Most of the major pieces of it have never been implemented, and indeed there's been significant resistance to doing that. We also have a number of neighborhood plans that are part of the comprehensive plan that are older than the most recent version of the plan, and yet those plans say go back to the neighborhood plans for detailed implementation. And so we're in a circular loop that cannot be closed. And so I put that on the table because that is a huge question this community needs to grapple with.

And I think it again needs to be asked in the context of this ordinance, because this ordinance at least represents one way that we can implement the main piece of the plan. And so I think the— Thank you. Questions that I'm putting on the table for everybody to consider is that big picture kind of what do we do with our Comp Plan? And if this is not the way to implement the major piece of the Comp Plan, what are we doing with that plan? And I think that those questions cannot be disconnected as we move forward in this process.

And also to the folks who had a direct role in writing these plans for the last 25 years, I was one of them, at least in the Land Use Plan as a community member. I was not here in 2001. What does this plan actually mean? I think that is a question that I would like to put back to the members of the community. Certainly sponsors are able to answer if you would like, but really it's the whole community's question.

If we've had this for 25 years, what does it actually mean? Because if, if we keep running into basically people saying we don't actually want anything that's written in this plan, then we have to rewrite the plan. So I, I just want to put that on the table. Um, again, it, it is directly connected to this ordinance. I don't want it to overshadow the ordinance.

But if this was not in the plan, that question would not have to be asked, but it is. And so again, sponsors are welcome to respond, but I think I again just want to really put that on the table as something that we need to reckon with, with this ordinance and overall. Thanks. I have no response other than to say amen.

Any other members want to get in the queue?

Okay, I think I'll just turn it back over to— well, actually, you know what, I, one thing I, I think would be helpful, can we just take a look at that crosswalk together? It's as part of the, it's the ordinance packet. And it's right after the memo, so toward the back here as an attachment for the map.

And so we have the TSDO version 6. That, again, that was the recommended version by Planning and Zoning Commission. And then the missing middle housing opportunity overlay. But then I guess I'm also interested, I had not seen this document that Member Baldwin-Day provided going back to 2004 from the Planning Department. This is from Ryan Yell, who was in the Planning Department Department at the time, now it's in real estate, and the former— through the former director Craig Lyon, and that Section 4 of this page, their recommendations, I'm wondering how that compares, how that stacks up with this crosswalk.

So if we look at just Version 6 of TSDO, Missing Middle, and these, can you kind of—. Do you have—. Feel like you have a grasp on that, Member Baldwin-Day? Sure. So if we're looking at At Section 4 in the 2024 planning memo, and the, the minimum lot size that's suggested is 2,700 square feet.

For most sort of conventional lots that are in the missing middle overlay, the, the lot size— again, there's not a predetermined lot size because we're using subdivision standards which are flexible depending on context, but that would generally be somewhere in the neighborhood of like 2,100 to 2,400 square feet, so slightly smaller than what was suggested here. The minimum lot width is really—. That's—. That 30-foot minimum lot width is pretty standard because that is what AWU requires for access to water and wastewater pipe. So in order to put that pipe in the ground and then maintain it, a 30-foot lot width is pretty, pretty much essential.

And so that's an AWU standard that, that supersedes what our zoning code even has to say about things. And that would be different if, say, a lot within the missing middle housing opportunity overlay had water and wastewater access from opposite sides of the lot. You could potentially have a slightly skinnier lot in that if that were the case. As far as maximum lot coverage, They have not applicable, meaning sort of unlimited lot coverage. We landed at 70%, which was really based on feedback from, from builders and from developers who said, you know, we're really never going to need more than 70% lot coverage for the types of structures that we're discussing here.

The setbacks are pretty similar, I believe, and we landed on a slightly lower maximum setback. Maximum height, 40 feet as opposed to 45. Okay, thank you. Any other members have questions?

All right, if you'd like to wrap us up then, Member Baldwin-Day. Sure, so I, I think I will, I will leave the rest of the slides for you all to peruse at your leisure. These deal generally with with population, with how we sort of arrived at this idea of 10,000 homes in 10 years, what housing needs actually look like. I pulled some data that is from the forthcoming Midtown District Plan, which illustrates, I think, very clearly what our— what the blend of housing needs really looks like. Again, this is Midtown-specific, but it's instructive for all of Anchorage.

Some data about our— the age of our housing stock. Stock, purchasing power, what starting salaries look like for some of our backbone industries, and then, you know, gets into a little bit of what else is happening at the municipal level. But before I really tie a bow on this, I want to talk a little bit about some of the opposition and some of the feedback that we've received from the community on the TSDO ordinance specifically. Because it has informed where we've landed with this particular overlay. So one of the things that we heard a lot about was a concern about sunlight and shadows, and larger, taller buildings really getting in the way of people having access to sunlight.

And that was, that was really the thing that brought the heights down from, you know, an initial height of 75 feet down to 40 for, for this overlay. There's also some really interesting shadow modeling that I was able to access that illustrates that there's really, especially in the winter, not a substantial difference between the shadows that are cast by a 30-foot building and a 40-foot building because of where the sun actually is. I learned the word azimuth as a result of this, where the sun actually is relative to the horizon during the winter months. If anybody's interested in doing their own modeling for, you know, your neighborhood or where you, where you live or a part of town that might be of interest to you, there is some free software available online where you can actually see what shadows look like given at really any time of year. And so I feel like we really were able to come to a place where we got some additional height, we got some additional dimension without significant neighborhood impact.

Another thing we heard about was concern around parking and traffic. And in neighborhoods where off-street parking is already challenging, we heard a lot of feedback on that. And the Muni is in the middle of, and I think is drawing to the conclusion of a right-of-way management study that actually looks at parking in particular, and I have not seen the results of that. I, anecdotally, I hear that that's forthcoming in the next month or so, but I think that will really help illustrate whether we actually have parking challenges in Anchorage, and if so, where. So I look forward to seeing that, but I'm— anecdotally, I've heard that what is forthcoming is actually quite encouraging.

Thank you. And that there could potentially be a slate of recommendations as to how we might deal with parking challenges if they were to arise in neighborhoods, and what tools might be available to us to do that. There were also some concerns raised around, around traffic, additional traffic if there were more units and more cars coming into neighborhoods, and especially for some, you know, larger format developments. And I did some digging into what What the, what the permitting process looks like for these kinds of structures. And I think it's important to distinguish between what zoning speaks to and what permitting does.

And it really is in the permitting phase where there is this project-level review for things like site access and traffic patterns and impacts and parking and stormwater management and drainage and fire safety, like all of those things are evaluated at a per-project level, not at a zoning level. And so there are some protections, as it were, built into the permitting process that I think it's important that the public understands, that zoning is not the only place where parameters are given or implemented, that there's a— the process of permitting also deals with some of these questions. Thank you. And we have really competent people doing our reviews when it comes to these kinds of impacts. And then the last thing that we heard about was snow removal and challenges around snow removal, which is a perennial question, I think, everywhere in Anchorage, is how are we doing in snow removal?

And as a northern city, I don't know that there's a way around that. And it is— that kind of right-of-way management is a perennial question, and I think it's one we'll continue to grapple with. And—. As far as I'm concerned, as a sponsor, the question of snow removal is not one that I think we can set up as a reason not to build more housing and not to create more density. And the last thing I heard was a real mistrust of builders and the market.

And there was an assumption, especially around parking, that the wholesale removal of parking spaces the removal of required parking minimums meant that nobody was building parking. And if you look at the developments that have happened since the required minimums for parking were repealed, every development has had off-street parking. Every development has had garages attached. Every development has had these things because that is what the market requires, not necessarily what our regulations require. Thank you.

Require. But that has really— that has been, I think, absent for a lot of folks. And there is definitely a fear that because we don't have these required minimums anymore, greedy developers and builders are just going to cut costs and they won't build any parking. And what we're seeing from the developments that have happened is that that's fundamentally false. It's not actually happening.

And then the last piece that I've heard is some questions about neighborhood character and maintaining neighborhood character. And my hope is that as we move forward in this conversation, we are talking less about neighborhood character and more about neighborhood compatibility. I think we all recognize that we have some really hideous buildings in Anchorage. There was some junk that was built in the 1980s when we were just trying to slap together as many houses as we could because we were in boom time. And so we have a ton of of big ugly boxes in Anchorage.

And this is where the distrust of our development community comes in because what has been built, built recently by the folks who live here, who are our neighbors, who do the work of development and construction, have built really attractive buildings that are multifamily. And I think that that needs to be amplified as well in this conversation is we are not in boom time. And the people who are doing development work in Anchorage are doing an excellent job. And I, I understand the fear of the 1980s. And also I think that where we are now is fundamentally different.

The position of the market is fundamentally different than it was in the '80s. So I am, I'm quite confident in our developers' ability to do excellent multifamily at neighborhood scale. Uh, would you go to slide 28, Mandy?

So to wrap us up, what else is happening? Because again, this— MHOP is not a silver bullet. It is not the thing that is going to accelerate our housing supply to where it needs to be. It is a critical piece, but it's not the only thing. And so I think it's important that we talk about what else is happening.

So, and what else has happened. So property tax abatement for multifamily construction and dilapidated building renovation. Are you— relocatable dwelling units are now allowable on foundations in every residential zone. We talked about duplexes and ADUs being allowed by right everywhere. Nuisance property abatement and demolition is underway.

Kudos to the administration for making sure that nuisance properties are getting taken down and that land is being repurposed. We're working on permitting modular housing. The permitting folks are They're reviewing and digitizing their permitting processes. We're going to be able to actually pay for permits online. Hallelujah.

The parking right-of-way management study that I mentioned is in progress. There's some creative infrastructure financing that's being explored right now. The property tax abatement for first-time homebuyers just dropped. That's in progress. So there are other pieces, other levers that we are working to pull as a municipality, the ones that are available to us.

And this is another step in this ongoing process of getting us the housing that we desperately need. Would you flip to the last slide?

Oh, no, other way. Beep. Nope, back one.

Back one more. Back one more. There we go. So to wrap us up, MHOP is a decade overdue, as we heard from Member Martinez, it is a proven concept. This kind of development, these sorts of zoning overlays, have proven to be extremely success— successful elsewhere in environments like ours, and it reflects a decision point at whether we are willing to take the steps that are outlined in our comprehensive plan to incentivize housing in the places that it already makes sense.

So I will continue to harp on this. Zoning is one of the many layers of levers that we must pull goal. If we want more people to be able to call Anchorage home, and that is my stated goal here. So with that, I will pass it to Member Martinez. Do you have any final thoughts for us as we wrap it up, sir?

Thank you. You did a wonderful presentation.

Thank you. I did. Hear, hear. Okay.