Community and Economic Development Committee - October 2, 2025

Good morning everyone. I'm going to call this meeting of the Community and Economic Development Committee of the Anchorage Assembly to order. It is 9:01 1:00 AM Thursday, October 2nd, and we begin with member introductions. Uh, Tina Scott Myers, Anna Brawley. On the line we have Mr. Johnson.

Yeah, I'm here. Thank you. Thank you, Chair.

Are there any other members on the line?

Okay, not yet. Thank you. And We'll begin with our moving today quickly through regular, unless we do have kind of some substantial items in discussion time, and I want to make sure we have adequate time for those discussions. And again, these are discussions, presentations, not work sessions or debates. Uh, we'll begin with regular reports, and we'll start off with Planning, Development, and Public Works.

I see Mr. Wilbur here. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'll be brief. Just a couple of highlights of what's going on in our world right now. May— or first of all, we have regarding the AV upgrades in this room, we've got to put the RFP out on the street, competitive bid.

We've selected a candidate, we'll be reaching out to them to start that work. Their contract is requirement that the work be done by the end of the year. I've been moving around with other commitments in my room, so I just want to let you know that that is in progress. Um, also, I'm working with Courtney Peterson and Public Works Administration to calendar a time for a meeting of the heads of the limited road service areas. There was a time when we got all of the service areas together.

Just going to want to touch base and see how they're doing. We're going to talk about communications, contracting, if they want to make some changes to some things, appointments. I've been talking to Barbara Jones. She's offered to give them a little bit of tips and tricks, and so we can get to that calendar here pretty soon.

Mr. Col may talk about— we're just doing a lot to prep for winter, not only in the street side but in the facility side. So it's a lot of activity going there. On the budget world, we're doing— been working with departments for year-end to find out how they're going to turn out this year. Most of them are doing pretty good. That's So anyway, that looks pretty good.

Looking forward to reviewing the administration's '26 budget on the operating and the capital side, make sure that we've got some changes. As you noted in the 120 memo, administration is proposing a slight reorg inside Planning, Development, and Public Works. And really the change will be that Mr. Bohl has Public Works rather than reporting to Planning, Development, and Public Works. He'll report directly to the manager. I will report to the manager.

He will keep the public works departments. I will then have planning development. Um, GDIC, GIS, and real estate. So, looking forward to working with that. I'll be talking to my crew about how we do that transition.

Assuming that continues my last item, Mr. Chairman, just for many of you who might not be, or are following Holton Hills. The first community meeting for Holton Hills was on September 29th. It was a Tuesday night assembly night. I've was down there, Miss Briggs, with, uh, at the assembly. So had a really good discussion.

I think we probably had 80 folks in the room. Um, a lot of comments about the offsite improvements and the pending onsite improvements, the development of Holton Hills. That was primary purpose. Um, CY Investments has decided to have another community meeting. That one will be with the group with Board of Supervisors on October 21st.

Follow up with more information. Looking down on the horizon, their submittal to the Planning Department for their planned unit development, um, will probably be in about a month with the Planning and Zoning Commission hearing their case in January. So, a lot of other activities going on, Mr. Chairman, and I think the other departments will address specifics. So, that's all I have. Okay, thanks.

Any questions from members at the start? Right on. Moving along, we'll start off with the departments that are here. Good morning. Development Services.

Excuse me, Chair. Yes. Oh, yes.

I do have a question for Mr. Wilbur, if it's all right. Just on the record, Ms. Baldwin-Day is here with us. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Mr. Wilbur. I'm curious how the reorg that you just discussed is envisioned to contribute to the mayor's 10,000 Homes in 10 Years strategy and how you see the reorg supporting that work.

Yeah, thank you. Um, I think the efforts that the administration is doing and the assembly are doing, um, I'm going to be really focused in on helping them on a variety of things, code changes, resources. Um, and then we've been actively chatting with the home builders about some ideas they might have. Vacant and abandoned properties is really something that we're working on. There's a lot of interest in that and the tax incentives that are continued.

So those are the things that are right off the top of my head, but that's kind of where I'm at right now.

Gotcha. Okay. Yeah, was there— I'm curious of what the—. I'm curious what the impetus was for making the distinction or drawing the org chart lines the way that they were. Could you provide a little insight into that?

Um, I will try, and then Mr. Colhays can weigh in. Um, in talking to the municipal manager, I think they just— instead of having what might appear as repetitive between Mr. Colhays and I going through, um, the administration or to the manager's office, I think having Mr. Colhays focus— continue to focus on Public Works, not have to work through me through that process, and then, um, have me report directly to the manager, have a lot more focus and attention to just on those three major departments, but Mr. Coase can add to that. That's exactly what I would offer, is that right now the organization is double-stacked. I report to Lance, Lance reports to Becky. I think they envision that there'll be a little bit more efficiency if, if Mr. Wilbur doesn't have to stay up to on the day-to-day items that are under the Public Works umbrella, and instead that I can work directly with the manager on those, still keeping Mr. Wilbur surprise because we'll be working closely in the same building, but eliminating that double-stack reporting structure that exists right now.

Thank you. Yeah, I can see how the, the, the game of telephone and also trying to keep tabs on that volume of detail would be really, really tough. So yeah, it makes a lot of sense. Thank you.

Right. Thank you, Member Baldwin. It seems like the distinction is between like potholes and policy. If I'm landing the plane, like, who to call with the depavo, who to call with the code change and the bigger conversations of strategic alignment and as you describe resourcing, et cetera. So that makes some degree of practical sense.

I look forward to seeing how it comes to us as well. Thank you. You were— I was going to turn it over to Mr. Lay and Mr. Campbell and—. Thank you, Mr. King. Thank you.

Morning, Mr. Chair. Greg Suley, Public Services.

Today I'm lucky to have, uh, Daniel King here to talk about, um, the third-party land review update, and Scott Campbell with the city to talk about dangerous property foreclosures. That'll be happening later on under new business, so I'm going to keep my brief this morning there, but Just a couple updates. We are on track to hit about $600 million again in constructive evaluation, pretty much right exactly where we were this time last year. Today we're anticipating we'll get confirmation that we were able to successfully transfer our unspent 2025 labor budget into the capital account for the purchase of new software. So we have every intention of getting a new vendor under contract very soon and beginning implementation of our new software system.

What we've been told by the vendors is that it's a 9-12 month implementation period. So optimistically, we should be live by September 1st, 2024, as far as software solutions go. So that is optimistic. That's all I have. Any questions from members?

Mr. Sulek? Moving right along. Planning Department. [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] I will probably start with an overall view of the Planning Department itself and then hand it over to Long Range to catch you all up on some of the AOs and the activities from Long Range Division. But for the department as a whole, we're almost fully staffed.

The first time in a very long time, we have, um, believe we have one or two positions open in policy candidates. And, um, in the meantime, all of the divisions in Planning Department have been working with other departments on, uh, things like the Recovery Residence Project, which is going very well. Uh, that I believe has its permit and in production actually at the moment. Um, we're starting to slow down for the season. We'll be working on special projects over the winter.

The building reviews are slowing down, request for requests are also slowing down a little for winter. Um, AMATS is having a technical advisory committee meeting today and a PC meeting next week. We'll be talking about the, the TIC those meetings. And just some minor news regarding communications with the public and the boards and commissions. We are planning on adding stickers to our posters, the posters that go up to inform the public about projects that are happening outside of the project.

The sticker will take— it's a QR code, and it will take the person who scans the QR code directly to CityView so that they can look up the case right there instead of having to, to punch it into their phone or try to figure out how to look for it that way. So it's a minor technical improvement. At some point when we have the new software, we're hoping it will take them directly to the case itself, but we don't have that capability in the moment. So we're pretty excited about that. It feels like a small step, but it's small steps here and there that, that get us to better communication with the community.

Um, and then for our boards and commissions, we're working with the legal department to provide them with some ethics training later this year. With that, I'll hand it over to Long Range Planning. Thank you. This is Daniel from Kenneth Foster Long Range Planning. Um, I'll go through really fast.

We have a lot of items. Uh, first thing I want to announce, and it's not only my news, it's sort of everybody's news, is we have 371 residential permits for the year compared to 300 for all 2024. Um, upper trend, I'll put that dashboard in the chat here. Uh, so that's really exciting. A lot of great work getting that together and getting everybody working together on that.

Um, a lot of— actually heard from about 4 projects this week. People interested in TSDO want to do multiple 6-plexes, multiple 4-plexes. Somebody wanted to do 24 units. So a lot of people interested in both the zoning reforms and tax abatement. And there's been a lot of interest in abbreviated rezoning procedure.

A lot of people are pretty excited about that. Community Council boundaries is in OnBase. It should—. That project should be going, getting on an assembly agenda soon. The Transport Development Overlay, TSO, going to the October 6th Planning and Zoning Commission meeting.

Applied to the University Area Community Council last night. We're talking to the TAC today. Also the policy meeting, committee meeting in a few weeks. We've been doing a lot of outreach on that. We also got our newsletter going out, getting some good growth on that every week, getting more subscribers, trying to get direct information out.

So that's a way we're trying to connect with people a bit more. Title 21 updates, we're working on an omnibus. There's always little things that have to be fixed, so you'll see that at some point. It's going to be a lot in there. Looking at agricultural uses, some of the things that, uh, Chair Martinez had mentioned in the early ordinance and some other items about farming, food production, food security.

So we'll be bringing that forward at some point. Looking at temporary uses to work on the recovery residence project and make sure everything's aligned there. Also looking at higher heights and R3 and R4, take a look at comp plan, 10-year targeted comp plan update, focusing on housing. That work is— we sort of set that down for a little bit, work on some other things. We're picking that up soon.

We're also looking more at some of the 2040 land use plan and some of the sort of lingering issues with that, but we might bring that forward in the next couple of months. CDBG-R, that's the Community Development Block Grant disaster relief projects from the earthquake years ago. Got some—. We're moving forward on that. Eagle River Comprehensive Plan, Streets and Highways Plan update, big update, Wetlands Management Plan update, and really getting those wetlands remapped.

That's an issue we've seen a lot of questions about. We're also looking at tracking building fires in Las Vegas, working a lot with Development Services. As you've probably seen in the news, every once in a while there's a new apartment burns down, or we're losing some of those units, and we're trying to track more how many units we do lose even as we add more. As I mentioned, the newsletter, we're putting that out, encouraging more people to subscribe so we can give you all the information that we have. And we're working with street maintenance to do just a lot of education on what it actually takes to manage the streets, what it costs to manage the streets and the snow.

And we're looking at putting together a little video. We had a really great meeting where Paul Vanlandingham showed us with his models, like, what it actually takes. And I think everybody was kind of fascinated by it. We're trying to get that out to everybody. Thank you.

Questions, Member Brawley? Just pause just to acknowledge Member Constant and Chair Constant is on the line with us. Member Brawley. Thanks. I guess 2 quick questions.

One, could you give an update? It can be offline. Where in the queue, in the planning and zoning queue, the ordinance that I think it was AO-2025-63, the one that has to do with self-storage units in B3, we had referred it to PNC. It wasn't a high priority because we know there's a lot of other things. Going on, but just want to see when that's scheduled because there was another draft ordinance that I am the bottleneck on that we were going to add to so that they can be discussed together.

So, if you can just give me a rough timeline, that would help me with that hard deadline. Follow up for later. And then that's really interesting. I'm happy you guys are tracking units that have come offline or that are not habitable. I wonder if— I was just trying to look up in the tax records.

I know there's like building condition and there's one for I think it's zero. It's like the worst possible. So, it'd be interesting to also add those, not, you know, whether or not it's been lost in a fire. There's plenty of buildings that aren't on the VNA list, but I think just characterizing how many, you know, buildings or houses, residential buildings are literally not able to be used for one reason or another. So, just to add that to your list.

Thanks. If I may clarify, we don't have that. We're trying to figure out how to track this. Sorry. I think that we actually have a solution to that problem yet, um, because it, it looks like it's one more— because those units that are damaged in the fire, sometimes they come back online, sometimes they don't.

So we, we are working on that. We will be sharing information whether it's a number or just a—. Yeah, and I would encourage looking at that building condition in the tax records because I know it does track with like It's literally— you literally can't live in it. Thanks. Any other questions from members?

Thank you. Thank you, Long Range and Devin. Moving on to Public Works. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Touching on the 3 departments in Public Works, not, not a lot of updates since last we met. Most of their work is routine. Maintenance and Operations are— they're finishing their last round of sweeping In the street maintenance world, some good news. Paul's been able to fill some of the vacant positions he has. He's also— he and Shea have also undertaken a really interesting effort to reclassify some positions into what they're calling street maintenance assistants, which would be a little lower-class position that would allow for some entry-level people to come in, have the opportunity to work and get the hours and have the have their CDL costs paid so we can bring people on board early, maybe attract some high school students or people who are graduating high school.

So looking forward to all being able to fill some positions through that new model. Um, we have several new pieces of equipment that have arrived recently— some graders, uh, some sanders. I don't have the exact list, but I'm welcome to be glad to get that to folks if they'd like to see it. And then there is additional equipment that is currently on order that was funded by the, the levy that was passed this spring. Street maintenance is probably for snow because it's around the corner.

And in the facilities world, probably the big item of note is that either at S Company Assembly or Blue Company Assembly, there's a contract for renovating, beginning renovation work at the Golden Line for the Alaska Center for Treatment. And the first phase of the contract will focus on the second floor. So I can get more information on that if folks would like, but that's a— I know that's a priority of the administration to get that work underway. In the PM&E world, mostly wrapping up projects right now. We typically see the asphalt plant shut down in about 2 weeks, the 15th of October.

So a lot of scrambling to get things wrapped up. Many projects I think have already been completed. I've mentioned some of that Forest Park Drive. Jewel Terrace Street Maintenance has done some paving work on Crawford and Terry Street. There's a couple others that I'm probably forgetting, but quite a, quite a few projects have been completed, and there's a couple of others that are now wrapping up.

A big one that will continue work next summer but will be available for use this winter is the Northwood snow disposal site. The members are familiar with that. It's been a very expensive Um, but highly needed project, and we are going to be poised to use that site this winter, even though there will be some additional work to be done next summer. So that'll be a huge benefit to street maintenance and particularly to West Anchorage. So, then in the traffic world, again, mostly routine work right now.

They are striping. They've had some challenges with their striper truck being up and down. And we have a plan in place to replace that piece of equipment as well as some other traffic equipment this winter, which will be a big benefit for Paul— or for Brad and his folks. They continue to have staffing challenges like other departments, but they're working on that. And so striping and other routine work to get ready for winter, of course, are the traffic department.

But to answer any questions, Mr. Chairman, are there any questions from members? Members on the line with questions?

Mr. Chair, this is a guest.

Um, are we allowed to ask questions, or is there only assembly members? There's only time for members. I'll have public participation at the end of the meeting. No, no problem. Thank you.

Uh, and I'll follow with the question, uh, just Can you just give a little more sense of who the target is for the job reclassification of the assistants and why, why that? So there are, there currently in the equipment operator world, there have been 3 classifications. There's a heavy, medium, and light equipment operators, and historically they've had challenges filling the light equipment operator, and the classification didn't really allow for them to do much in the way of operating heavy equipment. So that they— Paul took, I think, 10, around 10 light equipment operator positions, converted several of them into medium equipment operator positions, which he is now in the process of filling, that they do more attractive to candidates. And the other, the remainder of that, that quad rate was converted into these assistants, street maintenance assistants, that are really a very entry-level position that allow them to, to reach out to somebody who maybe has no skills in in operating world, bring them on board, and as I said, do some training, provide them an opportunity to get their CDL at no expense to the candidate to attract people into our— hopefully the pipeline to stay for a career.

How many positions were that? I think there were 10 that were converted. I'll get the specifics, Mr. Chair, but I think that's pretty accurate. All right, thank you.

I'd love to continue to track that, the progress of that. Appreciate that. Just one other note as I think about the distinction between the organizational hierarchy and the chart separation, and this is probably a larger question that my AMATS folks who are like Aaron Baldwin-Dagnum and Paul Dubeil are interested in, but when I think of community economic development and I think of traffic, I'm thinking of other things like, where does the policy team work live with respect to speeds in the streets? Because that speaks to, in my mind, community economic development opportunities along corridors. And, you know, so certain things like that where we're talking about pedestrian traffic flow, just where does that live in the organizational chart?

Okay, or tomorrow. That's a good question, Mr. Chair. I think it would be a mix. I think the, the Legal authority for setting speed limits and other words like that, rest with the traffic engineer.

But I think that that's a very broad discussion that would obviously involve the planning department, the traffic department. Mr. Wilbur has the oversight of the planning department and, uh, to some degree, street maintenance, because they're, they're affected by the changes that we make. Maybe not just to speed limits, but to the rights of way overall. So very broad mix. And Mr. Wilbur and I speak multiple times a day in the current structure, and I don't see that changing.

Well, um, recently we've been having multiple conversations and meetings with interdepartmental and interdivision meetings with Traffic and PM&E and Planning Department, AMATS, and DOT, just to discuss those very, um, those issues. We have one recently where we brought in, like Daniel was saying, we brought in street maintenance and they gave us an explanation of how they clear streets of snow using little models and everything. So we do work very closely with the other departments, even if there is a paper division between the two groups. Right on. And just to note that we— I think that's an important conversation for this committee, this kind of body of work of community development and economic development to track and be reported back into space.

So, appreciate that. Thank you. Nothing further. We'll move on to real estate and Director Briggs. Good morning.

A couple updates. The draft HLB 2026 annual work program has been released for public comment, and that public comment period runs through November 16th. We'll be looking at having a work session at our December HLBAC meeting, and then we'll be coming to the assembly probably in January, hopefully late January. Um, and then, um, Real Estate Services specifically has been, um, going through the general real estate inventory. And at the next housing roll-up meeting that the administration has, we'll be going through some properties.

We have a handful of kind of one-off parcels, figuring out the best way to get those back out, get some development on them, and, um, hoping that the bears will—. That's it for me. Any questions for the real estate?

Hey, I don't have any questions. Again, just send them if you have them, or text me if you want to be in the queue. Um, and we'll move along to— I saw Mr. Rob— Mr. Robbins here, if you want to give an update from the Anchorage Community Development Authority. Can I come up here so I have trouble seeing you? Absolutely.

I just put together a quick presentation of Since it's been a while since I got a chance to talk to you guys, I like graphics and displays, so put together a quick presentation for you to look at to give you an update on the things working on and things are coming.

I'll keep it quick. Um, so go to the next slide. That's just a pretty graphic for the front. So, uh, we have a lot going on at ACDA right now. Uh, Mike Robbins chair, executive vice president, or executive director at ACDA.

Some of the projects we have in progress, you might recognize these murals from downtown. We put these murals on the Nordstrom's building, and ever since we did, my first couple of years when I got here, we were getting all kinds of questions about what's going on with Nordstrom's, what's happening. Well, even more questions now. And so I've been working, we've been working with the administration and real estate services to affect the development or to start working on a development program for that building. The first step is to transfer that property that we, the city, owns to ACDA so that we can perfect our interest in the building.

No plan in terms of what we're going to do with it yet. We know we want to have some kind of development happen there, but that'll be informed by the community and by the Assembly and by the administration. The JC Penney garage purchase, is in its final stages. We've been working with our partner on that, MASH LLC, and we anticipate closing on the purchase of the garage in the next 45 days. Fireweed Housing Project, we got our plat approved, and we're going to be putting out an RFP to put in the— to put hopefully 34 units of workforce housing on the property we acquired from the city on the tax foreclosure.

That'll be be restricted as we agreed to with the 80 to 120 AMI. So we'll be putting in a— like I said, that RFP is going to come out. This is October already, it's the 2nd, so it'll be coming out this month. Next slide.

This is the micro units for recovery. Just wanted to give you a quick update on that. We did hold our first, uh, in conjunction with the administration, we held the first, uh, community meeting, if you will, thanks to Daniel McKenna Foster He's been going out to the community councils and answering questions for us. This is just a graphic that shows sort of the layout and the location of the building. I know you're very familiar with it.

If you want to go to the next slide. We have been— Visser Contracting has— was awarded the bid. They have been building in their factories. They have two warehouses. They've been constructing the units.

This is what they're going to end up looking like with small roofs on them. The colors that you see in the upper left and these two on the right-hand side, those are the additional colors that the buildings will be sided with. So it's not going to be just all black over there. And he was really excited at the community meeting. He talked about the fact that he's designing the site so that when you're in the community buildings, and there will be two of them, they're going to have glass doors that are going to be facing the mountains.

So it's going to be quite—. He's really—. This is a passion project for him, and he's really excited about it. And so there is a— I wanted to let you all know that there is going to be a tour if any assembly members would like to go on a tour of the factory and look at the finished units on October 9th at 9:00 AM. And we'll send out an invite to you guys just to remind you.

And if you could just respond so we know how many folks are going to be there, but we're going to tour them and just take a look at the units before they're delivered, before the site construction begins. He has got all his permits and design's been approved, and I have to compliment the Planning and Permitting Department. These guys, like, they did a great job. They worked through a lot of issues, a lot, but several issues, and they were really good at getting things approved for us. Next slide.

Wanted to give you a quick update on the RV resort. Next slide.

As you know, this is our vision project for here at Third Ningra. We are going to be issuing an RFI this month. We've received more than 3 phone calls from developers interested in this project. And so we're going to put out an RFI to solicit ideas from the community on things and ways that they could see us executing this project. We had a first meeting with several other departments to talk about right-of-way and utilities and things like that.

And as we move forward, we're going to be setting up regular meetings with other departments to make sure that we're not forgetting anything or making any errors in terms of our planning. But that's happening. So you'll see an RFI come out for this, this month as this project continues to move forward with our goal of selecting a contractor and a developer right around the first of the year. Next slide. So the program that we talked about a little bit last week, and I was asked to come and talk a little bit more in depth about it as ACDA celebrates its 40th anniversary along with EasyPark.

We are investing in downtown. We have a new program that we've introduced called Park It Forward. And basically, the program's goals are to enhance the downtown experience, support arts, culture, and the creative placemaking, strengthen downtown, and activate underutilized spaces. Next slide. This is the funding source for the project.

If you look at the down—. This is the—. An outline of the downtown where the street meters are. So part of the qualification for you to be able to apply for one of the grants is that you have a street meter in the vicinity or in front of your business. It's very, very simple process.

If you have a street meter, you can apply. It's open to profit, nonprofit. As long as you meet the funding goals or the program goals, you can apply for a grant. We have two forms of grants. We have a small grant, which is $1,000 to $3,000, and then We have larger standard grants, which are $5,000 to $25,000.

The board of directors approved $150,000 for this year in grants that we hope to have issued out by the end of November. Next slide. This was in an answer to a survey that we did. We conducted an extensive survey. We hired Ivan Morris Research, and we surveyed adults, and we found out how they were using downtown.

More or less why, what would cause them to use downtown more. If you go to the next slide, uh, we, we asked people what would cause you to go downtown more, uh, and these are the answers that they gave us. And so we programmed these answers into the downtown grant program so that we could support these activities and development of these programs, uh, and try to increase, um, again, community events, strengthen the business, the small businesses downtown, Obviously, there's— we've been working hard to— we don't have much to do with transportation, but we put a lot of effort in the Transit Center downtown and cleaning it up and making it safe and secure and pretty, better, nicer. So this program is currently underway. We opened it for grants, opened it for applications on the 15th of September, and it will end on the 9th of October.

We have put together— it's being run by Melinda Gantt, our External Affairs Director. She's—. We put together a committee of folks to analyze the grant requests that we get, and we'll let these out. And again, it's anywhere from $1,000 to $25,000. Next slide.

So anything left? Oh, that's it. Any questions? All right. Yes, we'll start off with Member Constantine.

Thank you for the presentation. Member Constantine, the floor is yours. Yeah, thank you. At some point in the not too distant future, I think we need to see a kind of comprehensive view of all of the land you have accumulated over the last 5 years and what position each of those properties is in, in terms of becoming developable, because we continue to see proposals to acquire more land, but we see lots of proposals for moving towards development, but we haven't seen too much in terms of development. So I think at some point We need a comprehensive kind of snapshot of all the acquisitions and all of the projects that are ongoing.

I know there have been some questions raised about the substantial increase cash in your financial position after the assembly approved the refinancing essentially of the police department building that took us from paying for a $17 million building to a $40 million building, all fully financed, and that, that is a real question of financial stewardship for those of us who are in the fiduciary seats over here. And so I think that there's at some point in the not too distant future a need to paint a broader picture of the overall moves that are happening right now so that the Assembly can be confident that it's making the right investments.

Thank you, Member Constantine. That's a great idea. I would love to do that, any, whatever mechanism we'd like to set up. Are there any other questions from members?

Not at this time. Excellent. I just wanted to highlight, Mr. Roberts, the second to last slide, point number 6.

Yeah, the bottom point there. Well, that's a good point. I'm going to read it out loud for everybody who may not be able to see it. It says, utilize downtown's natural strengths, capitalize on downtown's walkability sketchy. Scenic views, definitely.

And summer beauty.

I just wanted to pause on the idea that we want it to be a year-round city, winter city, and we're about to celebrate the Mushing District's inauguration. So let me— let's probably rewrite that a little bit more and bring out the more full of wholesome vision of that. Right on. Thank you, Mr. Robbins. I appreciate that.

Moving into, or right along into, there are no items for unfinished business, and we'll move into areas of discussion. I'll open up with the first item on the area of discussions for A, discussion of AO 2025-96, pending for progress. I'll do, we all have it here. I'll do a pretty straightforward presentation. I have a slideshow.

Admittedly, there may be some, uh, let's say, salesmanship language in there. I, I'm— this is not the sales pitch time. This is just straightforward. Any questions, we kind of just matter of fact, uh, high level English. Um, but I want to recognize that initially after the Project Anchorage final kind of fail vote, I met with all of the stakeholders and continue to meet with stakeholders and Randy Salt.

And Randy Salt's parting words to us was, keep it simple next time. And so this is a 3-page ordinance, a 3-page proposal. And so essentially, we'll move forward to the why, first part of the slide. Clearly, we uncovered a lot of these questions during the Project Anchorage discussion. And just to remind folks, part of the genesis of this particular proposal that was offered as a best version of a 1.5 version during the Project Anchorage time.

It's essential that we invest in our public, essential that we recognize that no one's coming to save us, and it's time for new ways to invest in ourselves. It's a full stop conversation. I think there are a variety of ways that people can interpret that, but every day we hear more uncertainty with respect to our ability to maintain what we already have. Next slide, please. This body passed an economic development framework, the Resolution 2025-159, that was introduced primarily as a response to, from my vantage point, failed project anchorage, because One of my critiques of Project Anchor was it was devoid of an economic development framework, and so that's why there were things that were what people call bells and whistles.

And it turned into a different type of conversation where this is more about strategic investment following the framework that we established, which has these 4 points identified: truth, stackable ROI, preemptive resiliency, and equity. Next slide.

What Penny for Progress does, it's a flat sales tax, 1%. It is a permanent voter-approved sales tax with 3 buckets that we'll identify and talk about. It is standalone, not subject to political cycles, not subject to assembly, not subject to, uh, mayoral elections. There is no cap per transaction. Uh, it is the only way you establish the framework around equity.

All in, everyone contributes. The only exemptions are the ones that— I think this may be an error, the groceries might be an error in terms of language, but the state has mandated exemptions. Some of those mandated exemptions are around food, for example, and the purchase of food with Public support, for example, and so there are only state-mandated exemptions. Mr. Hurk gave me a one-sheet that we worked on, and so we'll make that available to members as well, and we'll circulate that if Mr. Hurk can get that around too, just so we can all be clear about what those mandates are according to the state. And if you all recall, there was a lot of political discussion around the exemptions in the past one.

This is only the state exemptions, all flat tax, 1%, all in. And what we did uncover was the same basic scale of dollar revenue matches the model that Project Anchorage gave us, which is for every 1% sales tax, you approximately can generate $60 million. They gave us a 3% sales tax and they projected $180 million, and then they broke it into the buckets. So essentially, we expect that that revenue pool is similar—. Meets—.

They gave us a projected nature of about 30% of the revenue from visitors and non-residents. Everybody gets to contribute, and we think that's back to the 4 principles: all in, even visitors. Next slide, please.

Uh, how the revenue is used. Infrastructure Investment Fund. This is the, uh, roads, sidewalks, snow, utilities, measurable ROI, public visibility, not roads to nowhere, roads that have to be built around the stackable ROI of why we're investing in the infrastructure, because it's the corridors where we want the housing, because it's where we're building The, where the tax incentives for the, the bigger housing units come online to go in. Those are the sorts of ways that we think meets how we have a livable city year round with the things we need to maintain that were paid for with dollars that we don't have the ability to maintain with. So we often are not getting the value These are permanent buckets.

Every dollar we don't raise here is a dollar we will see in property taxes because we are still going to pay for this city to be a connected, safe, and thriving city. And this is all about starting with measurable, visible impacts on dedicated, obvious projects. Workforce Housing Trust. This is the big conversation that we're having now when a third of the penny can go to where we all have been moving, and this body have been talking about, and the public as, as well, toward substantial investments in continuing to open up workforce and housing in line with the 10,000 Years Initiative. And behavioral health stabilization beyond crisis response, supportive facilities.

Uh, the ordinance has a little bit more reducing the long-term cost emergency services. One question I will flag that the hospitality retailers raised with respect to alcohol sales tax and dollars that are associated with crisis stabilization and the behavioral response. This is broader because we are already in a highly challenging environment for wellness, behavioral health, already beyond just the small nuances of alcohol dependency that we deal with to the extent that the alcohol sales tax can deal with. We're already in a community that even if you're not alcoholic or not have alcoholic or alcohol-related issues, we already have high levels of chronic illness around seasonal affective disorder or other illnesses that people are challenged with. And the state's response to our mental health is not there, and the city never really stepped into this game, but we're paying for it in a variety of ways.

This helps to build a wellness framework around behavioral health and mental health stabilization, uh, and it's pretty straightforward, at least it has a permanent bucket. Uh, advance to the next slide, please. Bills for accountability, uh, reporting to the public, 5-year program review. How are those projects that we've identified in those buckets doing? Uh, there's this— this ordinance calls for citizen oversight committee so that we actually have public involvement in the selection and the discussion of the, uh, the rubric around the projects that would come from the funding of these buckets.

Public dashboard for tracking every dollar and amendment pathway for future proposals, but only with voter approval. This is a permanent 1% sales tax, non-negotiable. It's a charter change, and we'll get to the mechanism. This is a charter change. That creates a permanent 1% sales tax.

If anyone wants to change the buckets of those permanent buckets in the future, it would also have to go back from the way this is written, from my understanding, to the voters in the same process that it was brought in the first place to change those buckets. To add another bucket, to add another cent, it would have to be the same voter-approved process back to start one. There is no mechanism for the assembly or any other mayor in this particular framework to slip and slide the sales tax in, in any other direction except what the voters established, full stop. Those things need to resonate because there's a lot of information that people won't have, but just based on historical discussions And this takes into consideration lots of those. Next slide, please.

Uh, the truth. Back to the 4-point pillars. Federal, state support is shrinking. Every day we hear about more uncertainty. Grants are competitive, unreliable.

Infrastructure liabilities are certain and are growing. Relying on property taxes is unsustainable. We are not getting the value of our property taxes because the liabilities are greater than the ability for those property taxes to cover the liabilities. And so, but without any new revenue, the shift will continue to be on the property taxes, property taxpayers, and we will still not get the value.

So we can't run a first-class city. Back to little sales pitch, you all read that. I'd rather not say it on the record today, but we've inherited liabilities that we can't pay for. Next slide, please. Stackable ROI.

Invest a penny, gain a future. New infrastructure enables housing, businesses, and tourism in those places where we are already identified the patterns. We have a lot of data. This is data-driven to where we need to invest. Not political, not boutique, not pie in the sky, not shiny bells and whistles.

Functional, workable community. East Dallas works across sectors, unlocking matching dollars from grants and partners. Places that invest in themselves go to other people and say, "Match us. Come with us. We're doing money.

We're putting money into this. Join us along the way." I encourage nonprofits that come to ask for municipal dollars to do that all the time. I always tell them, "Go build something first and then come back and talk to us." and it usually is more successful for that. Next slide, please. Preemptive resiliency.

Every snow burn pothole that we delay costs more. I mentioned this week at one of those things, a potential project connecting the, the ability for us to have sidewalks, streets year round is critical, fundamental. Um, and so, We often are also seeing projects that don't have the ability to get funded, like trail projects on the Chester Creek Trail without a bond project nearby, and then stretching the goodwill of a bond project to maintain. So we have all of these wonderful assets that we rely on in the core of our city that are not funded for any sort of ability to maintain. So deferred maintenance exponential.

The more we wait, more expensive it gets. And moreover, the more development opportunities keep looking and say, I, I would love to build something there, but the cost of these other things is so overwhelming, can't bring my development opportunities to the city. And that's a problem for us. Penny for Progress helps us to get ahead of some of these problems. Next slide, please.

Shared equity contribution. Everyone contributes, including visitors. That businesses benefit from improved infrastructure. Neighborhoods benefit from visible upgrades. Communities win.

Visitors come to the city, see communities winning. They get to win and be a part of that. No carve-outs, no loopholes. There are no tax breaks. Everyone is in.

We need revenue to maintain as a full stop conversation. Next slide, please.

Not a gimmick, not temporary, not for just downtown, not open-ended, not— there are no tax cuts for out-of-state anybody. There are not even extra exemptions beyond what the state is. Everyone has a little skin in this game. All the way. Its target is trackable.

It anchors local jobs and continues to help us actually build our community and have some, some ability to begin to invest in things outside of our current framework, but that help us build the economic arc of tomorrow. Next slide, please. Let's build Anchorage together. And in my mind, in 5 years when we review, and if you think of a $20 million investment stack per year in walkability, connectability, livability, what if you did a project across 5 years? What if the housing project, if it's $20 million bucket in one year, but all of a sudden in a 5-year, we have a stack of $60 to $80 million for housing.

Projects. What does that look like in our community for a penny? So a couple of penny for project signs. I would love people to take pride in these things, love visitors to say, I love spending dollars in those cities, I love visiting there because they're doing that project, I can't wait to come back next year and see that penny project. Because that's what they said happened in Oklahoma City.

They said it started with a penny, but we got the version that was like the fourth, fifth tranche And we need to start with what Oklahoma City said. It worked for them. A penny's a good idea. Change for change. Communities that invest in themselves, they're the ones that send the signal of what tomorrow's possible.

Next slide, please. Thank you all. If there are any questions that I can help answer immediately, I'm open just now, but This is much more of the opportunity to present, and if you have any questions, feel free to send them to, uh, Mr. Hurt. Or this is coming for public hearing on October 21st. I'll pause now for any member comments, questions.

Member Brown in the stack, and if any members on the line want to stack up, Mr. Myers, uh, is in the stack, or that's just— right, right, thank you, sir.

And I just saw Ms. Baldwin-Day's hand on the team. So, yes, so I'll just— I have several questions, but I know we don't have a lot of time, and I'll put them in writing as well. One is, I know you mentioned there's no transaction cap, and I know with the project anchorage piece, the transaction cap was, I think, on $100 or whatever it was. So I'm curious, like, how much that actually does change the estimated revenue. It would make it more, obviously, because you'd be paying more on, on a larger transaction.

So, so I would— I guess the bottom line is I would like to see a summary of economic effects, and I know those come from the administration. I think that's really helpful because we have to understand the magnitude of what we're talking about. A couple questions on implementation, and again, I'll put these in writing and email as well. You mentioned a committee. Would this committee be deciding where the funding goes or advising?

Because I think that's an important distinction. And I guess what's on my mind is having gone through several implementation of recent taxes or fiscal changes, there's been a lot of either things that weren't contemplated when something went to the ballot or things that were unclear or became kind of difficult to implement. So, so I'm— so I've started asking these questions more and more because, you know, those of us on the body will be having to deal with that eventually if this passes. So that's kind of one big question is what that committee would do and what its scope is because it's—. Anyway.

And then the next one is, you know, it is a fair amount of money. Also, infrastructure is way more expensive than a lot of other kind of items that we could fund. So I'm wondering if the sponsors contemplated an order of priority or, you know, essentially if there's not enough money to do all those things, is it splitting up? Is there— is it just a menu that can be used over time? You know, that's a general question to think about.

Setting public expectations for how we would fund all 3 of those areas if doing it at the same time. Last one is, um, uh, and maybe this is something to be answered today. Um, has the sponsor already been talking to external parties who would potentially, you know, either build a coalition or run essentially a campaign for this ordinance? I think that's also a relevant question because we know Project Anchorage came from another group to us. And I think it's important because at some point it's on the ballot, we cannot do certain things as the municipality.

So that's my question. Great question. And I'll start off with the last first because it's the one I remember. I mean, I asked what Daphne said in the first one. The last question, yes.

So from my vantage point, it was important that first an economic development perspective was brought to the conversation of that Project Anchorage initiated, but that didn't have it. And so that was important. And I started off by meeting with AEDC the day after the vote. We voted on a Tuesday to kill it. I met with them on Wednesday, and then subsequent parties, folks who voted against it, who testified against it, because I thought it was important that folks recognize that we did that work, and I at least talked around.

And there is some— I don't want to speak on behalf of any particular community coalitions, but I have a pretty good sense that the compromise here between the rub of what to exempt meets how much property tax to give away from Project Anchorage that has been muted into this flat for all has brought everybody to at least the collective space of some degree of the level playing field. And so I know that at least by those meetings and We'll see where it goes. But to the point of a coalition, that's my hope, is that if you were supportive of Project Anchorage, you would be supportive of this because this makes sense. And at the very least, if you were not supportive of Project Anchorage because of one of those two tensions, you'd see at least enough of the, the neutral brother for the investment strategy to move forward. So that would be that vantage point.

Uh, the contemplation of the buckets, yeah, like initially was Even the initial version from the project bank, which for me would have been one penny into infrastructure. But those other buckets really are emerging as critical, vital areas of our larger investments. And so the stack would be— the answer would be like, well, is there a 2-year project stack of the buildup before we put capital out? Or are we doing kind of smaller projects? I think that's how we think of how to raise this capital stack in each of those buckets.

And then the final point of— last point, maybe? Well, I think just is there or when would we see a summary of economic effects to understand what the magnitude is in terms of implementation startup cost as well? Yes, we'll work on that part, but I think to the earlier point of why the no cap 1% at a cap is no money. It just doesn't do it. And so to get to the number that was on par with a thing that had a higher percentage, this is where it landed.

But I will be able to pull that out, at least from that point of why the 1% gets us to that number. But the summary of economic effects and the implementation, we'll try to advance that with the administration. Thank you.

Any other questions from members? Ms. Bulwande, I think—. Ms. Bulwande, you had your hand in the queue. Thank you. Yes, Member Barley actually asked the question that I was going to raise, so I'm good.

Thank you. Excellent. And again, this will be going before for opening for public hearing on October 21st. We'll invite members of the public I hope that, uh, oh, oh, just to describe the process, as a charter amendment, the body would be voting with a supermajority to put this on the ballot for the voters to decide with the majority whether they want to approve it. So this is not the Assembly's vote to implement a any strategic investment plan, the Penny for Progress.

This is about getting it to the voters. And so the process would be a simple majority for us. That's 8 votes. And then it would be a majority at the ballot box for the voters to be able to make this choice. Thank you all.

Any other questions, feel free to send them to legal and we'll try to answer them So this way we don't violate the open. Thank you all. Next on our agenda, we have a discussion, third-party review system member drawing. And I think you're going to defer or work with—. Yeah, I mean, I'll just say, um, uh, just very briefly.

So, um, the— this ordinance, it's in the packet, AO 2023-136S, as amended. Um, that was passed in February 2024.

Commercial things. So we already have residential buildings, and then critically, um, and why we need to look at, um, so the ability to do that will sunset for commercial building. Thought it was residential in addition, and that was actually the way I had intended to, to write it, but I think it was an amendment from someone else. Anyway, um, so just the commercial part will go away, and there's a requirement for the department to report back on any audits that have been done and just kind of how it's working so that we can be informed, uh, because otherwise if we take no action, that will just go away. So I don't have the information to say whether we should do that or not, um, but it will take an ordinance, or it'll take action by ordinance to extend this, or otherwise it'll go away December 31st.

So it's timely. And with that, I would just ask the department, um, just to kind of tell us where it's at.

Everyone, Daniel King, Engineering Services Manager for Development Services Department, and I have a memo that we put together that is a report on where they audited at. And on my computer, I can share that with you.

Memo on third-party audits, please. Hey, you got it. Yeah.

Uh, so effectively, uh, yes, we have our original, uh, optional third-party review, uh, that was implemented in 2012, uh, and that was limited to residential construction only, uh, and the 2023-136S version amended that to allow third-party review for all commercial projects as well. The reviews are limited to the engineering services, which would include mechanical, electrical, plumbing, architectural, and structural. Would not include any zoning reviews, and it does not include fire review when necessary. Um, when this passed in February of 2024, uh, in April, we were able to implement the change, and that allowed us to track, uh, the third-party reviewers. This AO required that they be approved third-party reviewers.

Before this, they just had to be licensed engineers in the state of Alaska or licensed architects or certified plans examiners. And this required that they be on an approved list so we can maintain them. And if they are not performing the way that they're supposed to as third-party reviewers, they could be removed from the list. So it added a little more teeth to that requirement. Um, the audit period that we selected is from June 1st, 2024 to June 1st, 2025.

Uh, since that was a, a full year period that we have since this was implemented. Um, in that time, there were 700 commercial permits that included new buildings, alterations, and additions. Uh, 1% of those was, uh, done by third-party review. So 8 of the Almost 700 were done by third-party review. In that audit period, we did not do the one required audit.

That is due to staffing shortages. That was for commercial. For residential, it's allowed us to track better where these permits are happening. There are almost 900 residential permits that included new buildings, alterations, and additions, and about 20%, 19% of those were done by a third-party review. You'll see in the table, 62% of the new buildings that came through were done by third-party reviewers.

We completed 3 of the required 24 audits that were required due to staffing shortages, and of those 3, to clarify, when you do a third-party review, you're not required to have all of the engineering disciplines be third-party, and so you can select if you want only mechanical only electrical, only structural, and then the rest would be done by the department. In the case of commercial, all, all 8 of the third-party reviews were for structural only. For residential permits, 94% utilized structural third-party review and 89% utilized the fire life safety, meaning a smaller portion were using fire life safety requirements and they were relying on the department to handle that. But they still have the structural review completed by the third party. Uh, as far as the results go, results are categorized into pass, corrections, or fail.

Uh, pass means that we had no corrections, no issues were identified in our audit. Corrections would be if our audit had a correction, it would have to be something that's not life safety oriented to be just a correction, to be something that is just a clerical error or potentially something small that usually gets handled by the department before it gets out into the field, so it doesn't create issues in the field. And so we usually have additional comments that we'll ask them to put on the drawings. An example of that would be, if you identify for a bedroom egress window and you say existing egress window, we'll typically require that you add on that it's an egress window meeting our current policy, because there are specific dimensional requirements on egress windows that is retroactive. Meaning when we get out in the field, if we like, if we said pass and it just said egress window, people will sometimes argue saying that we allow them to keep the existing and not recognize that there's a requirement that they upgrade the window so that there's better egress out of the bedroom.

So that would be a corrections item that can still be handled in field, but it saves time. Fail would be if there was a fire life safety issue that was identified or a major problem identified with the design. These things would be, uh, one example that we have is a fail was when they didn't include the fire separation between dwelling units, which is a major fail. There is a fire on one side. That fire separation is supposed to protect the occupants of the other unit.

That was a fail, and it required some coordination between us and the owner and the designer and the third-party reviewer to make sure that was corrected properly. Another example that is not life safety, but we still considered fail, was the third-party reviewer did not include any insulation on their architectural drawings. That was considered a fail because it is supposed to have insulation, and in reviewing it, we found that they wouldn't be able to fit the required amount of insulation in the design that they had. That installed that project. If that one made it to the field and had the inspector find the problem, And by the time we identified it, it held up the project a couple of months because they had to go redesign their structure to be able to have the required installation.

So, of those 6 items that we were able to audit, there were 2 pass, 2 corrections, and 2 fails. I identified those 2 fails for you guys. And in that time, we have 2 more that are not added to this list because they were identified during the audit period. But we're still waiting for the third-party reviewer to respond to our corrections and see if they have a reason why they don't need to correct it.

Yes, to speak on the staffing shortages, when I came into this position, we had— myself was a structural third— structural reviewer, and another structural reviewer retired, and so that left us with 2 of the 4 structural reviewer positions filled, uh, and it's taken us a year and a half to be able to fill those two positions. In November, we will be fully staffed, um, which will be great, and that will allow us to complete more of the audits that are required by code. Um, we have identified that there are issues with being able to do these when there are slow periods. The problem being that when these come in, uh, we don't want to do the audits after they've been issued because that will stop projects happening in the field if there are corrections that need to be made. And so we try to identify permits that are coming in to be handled before they are issued.

And so that happens to be the hardest part, because they— all of the stuff comes in at once. We haven't had the capacity to do audits, which are secondary to our primary job, which is completing plan reviews in a reasonable amount of time. So with just our two, we weren't able to complete them. And we didn't want to be going back on audits that are currently in construction unless they identified in field as a problem. Um, further commentary is that our third-party plan review process is unique in Anchorage compared to other jurisdictions.

Um, engineers have commented on this before to me that typically, and, uh, our insurance audit has commented Typically, these physical third-party reviews are handled by an engineering service that is hired by the municipality or the jurisdiction to complete the reviews on behalf of the jurisdiction. In this case, these third-party reviews are being completed by, uh, engineers or architects that are hired— that are expected to be hired by the owner, but often the owner is the contractor, uh, and so there is a conflict of interest when that hire— the person hiring is the person that is paying them to do the work, and they want to continue to get paid. We found— we've talked to people that hire third-party reviewers, and they've told me directly that they had to change reviewers because they weren't able to complete it in under the 2 weeks that they wanted. And so there is this requirement for third-party reviewers to complete it quickly and complete it with few review comments to be able to maintain that relationship and to maintain that revenue cycle. So that's just a conflict of interest that's important to point out.

We are unique that we do have this option, and expanding these commercial does expand that discrepancy.

Yeah, I think that's the, the majority of where we're at. It's expected that the department will be fully staffed by December of this year. It's our goal that we were going to provide a 10% audit for next year's report. The reporting requirement does end at the 2026 reporting for the AO. So there would not be further reports on the audit if that does not get extended as a requirement.

That's it. Thank you for the presentation. Are there any questions from members? I don't see anybody in the— text me in the queue. Yeah, I'm on the line.

Can you—. Oh. Sorry, uh, who is that? This is Daniel Voland. Oh, hey, Member Voland.

Hey, thank you for presenting yourself. Do you have a question?

I do, yeah. I think it's maybe, uh, well, a comment and a question. You know, I think the capacity and the staffing issues, the fact that we can't maybe do all the audits even, um, perhaps speaks to the importance of of the ordinance of this legislation and the option that folks have to utilize third parties.

I guess, you know, it leaves me with the question of why do we think that the structural reviews being done by a third party are such a popular option for residential? Is it because we're having issues with timely reviews by the municipality? What's the reason that so many folks are wanting to do the third-party structural review? Sure, and Daniel King with Development Services again. It is a very popular option because it ends up being one of the more contentious review items.

For residential permits, you'll see 62% of the new buildings go through third party. It is because the requirements Residential are limited to structural review, a fire life safety review, and a zoning review. Basically, there are not mechanical, electrical, plumbing reviews that go with those. Those are all prescriptive in-field designs, so you won't find those there. Fire life safety is typically easy to meet on a single-family home or on townhouse construction because they're very prescriptive, and so the Crux of the issue is going to be for structural, which is specific to every single project and your decision to lay walls out here or there, and if they're going to be staggered.

So, they usually end up being a lot more comments that we have to have addressed, um, on those designs. It's a popular choice because what we found is, uh, we are typically able to complete our first cycle review for most residential projects within 4 days. 4 Business days is what our goal is, and 95% of the time we meet that for new residential construction. What ends up happening is our comments end up taking time to address, and they don't always address them in the first cycle, first re-review cycle, where they will sometimes come back and say, okay, this is what we're going to do, and we have to explain why that's not going to work. We found that is an issue sometimes.

One project, one large addition project that we had that was converting a residential into a commercial assisted living home ended up being quite the problem because of how complicated the design was. And the designer ended up leaving the project because it was too complicated for him to complete. The engineer they had substitute was vocal and was able to handle 90% of the comments. Wasn't able to finish it out and required a 3rd engineer to come in who was able to complete it in a day because he understood what the issues were. Um, so it can be very complicated on these projects to be able to make them meet the code, where I found structural review on third party will often go through in one cycle, um, because they are not looking for the same amount of issues that we have found.

Um, we've also identified a conflict in that conflict of interest. We had one that we haven't been able to confirm, but from discussion with the contractor, the contractor stated that the third-party reviewer was also the designer on the project, which is a large problem. Uh, they identify them as being the one that did the design, and they're doing their own review of their work to justify the design. That is a large conflict that wouldn't exist if they came through our department, and we had comments that we had to issue on that project. Going through our department, if you hadn't completed an audit, it would have been done.

Thank you. Member Vohlen, you want to wrap that up? Yeah, I just want to, I guess, follow up. I feel like what I'm hearing is sort of a subtext of maybe the department not supporting this third-party review process? Is that what I'm hearing?

Uh, well, we're not going— that's a different level of a subjective conversation y'all might want to have offline, Mr. Bowman. Um, with respect, Mr. Chair, I think it—. I think it's a valid question.

I mean, I think with, with the presentation that we're hearing and, and the, and the audit and, you know, the fails and, and the potential conflicts of interest, is what is— what is the perspective of the department on whether this should continue? That's my question. So, uh, Daniel King with Development Services again. Uh, I, I am—. I'm going to ask you to just keep it direct to the answer to the question and not go meandering.

Yes, I am in support of a version of this, uh, third party. I do agree that it is a great option. I don't believe we've been able to control bad actors in third-party review because we haven't had the staffing to complete the audits, because we've been focused on completing the reviews that are required in our time more than the audits. All right. Thank you, Mr. King.

Mr. Voland, I want to just jump in and use my gavel right now and just describe that the question that was answered by Mr. King essentially is, Um, from a municipality's perspective and a staff perspective, they're dealing with what they're dealing with as best as they can. But you— I think you asked a question about the intentionality of a person's, like, preference, and I think that that's a little beyond this particular space. And Mr. King correctly didn't meander, it's kind of stayed in the lane of you're dealing with what you're dealing with And so there's a presentation of the observable, and we're getting the facts as policymakers. And so I think, Mr. Voland, your point about some of the—. He answered my questions.

I'm good. The uncertainty is there, but I don't think the subjective nature of the question is appropriate at this time. You could do that offline with Mr. King. I'm going to move on for time. Member Brawley.

Yeah, I think I was going to suggest, um, that we, um, put this on— if the chair agrees— on the agenda for next month. And I want to just put some questions in the record because I think what we need to understand is what is the recommendation to keep this as it is, let it sunset, or change it in some way. Those are the options. So I'm curious, and I'll put these in writing, I just want to say them out loud. Um, do the problems or the weaknesses of this approach also extend to residential review?

I think there's issues raised. So I'm curious, and again, not to answer today, um, should we also be looking at any weaknesses in residential third-party review? Is there anything in this that we should keep? Um, so maybe we did make changes to code because otherwise it reverts back to what it was. So that's a question.

Is there something that we should keep? Um, should we model this on what other cities do? That was offered. And then lastly, we, we would— I would be seeking a department recommendation, but I would ask that that would be, uh, maybe either a follow-up memo or just something that we talk about next month. So that's my recommendation.

I appreciate that as the sponsor. I think that is a wise call, and this committee obviously will accommodate your time and the additional time for the next meeting. Thank you, Member Brawley. Thank you. Just for the essence of time, we're going to move, and I know that the final piece was not much time in the presentation today, but we're going to move to discussion of Dangerous property foreclosure fees violations.

And Quincy? Yeah, right. Uh, so Quincy Arms from the legal department, and I have Scott Campbell from code enforcement. Um, so this ordinance, it's up for public hearing on Tuesday. Uh, it's a product of a work group the municipal manager, uh, Scott's team, legal, police, fire, also land use enforcement.

I missed anybody? Uh, some other people from the mayor's office, OPIA. Um, and we're really targeted on nuisance properties and what can we do about them. Uh, how can we get them— how can we get these property owners to either get the work done, get them back on the market, or otherwise just divest of the properties and let somebody else do it. So, one big category of nuisance properties is dangerous buildings.

Yeah, you can go to slide 2, Nina.

Wow, I didn't know it came in all fancy. I haven't done a slideshow in a while. Sorry, Vee. Dangerous buildings live in Title 23, our building code. This is kind of just a rephrasing.

The actual definition in Title 23 is like pages long. There's 17 different ways you can be a dangerous building. And it's used very often in our notices of violation. Just structural issues. What can you— yeah, tag in here.

What other— how else can be a dangerous building? A lot of dangerous buildings, vacant and abandoned, are considered dangerous buildings. Um, I think this really applies and will help code abatement in that area. Um, we encumber a tremendous amount of board-up fees on a weekly basis. Um, our staff goes in and typically with some of these properties that are bank-owned or owned by a negligent property owner, um, they're often broken into.

In fact, One of the new tactics is using Sawzalls and battery-operated chainsaws to cut holes in the side of the building so they can gain access. Our team goes in, boards those up. We do it very effectively, and what we try to do is maintain security on premises. When we do this, it, it, it's a cost that's encumbered by the municipality. We apply those costs as a lien on the property.

And in the past, we have struggled to reclaim some of these liens. So I think the legal team and Quincy have been really helping us to get another tool to put in our toolbox so we can, uh, be more effective in the field. Thanks. Look, can you move just two slides up?

Uh, so this is the substance of the ordinance. Uh, This is what the underlined language is, what will be added. The lien that will be created by Scott's team may be enforced as provided in Alaska statutes, including foreclosure. And then here's your reference to Alaska statutes. So like Scott was saying, we used to go through this complicated procedure of trying to do collection efforts, or we just record the lien and hope someday when that property is sold, we might get to collect the proceeds.

Didn't lead to a lot of success. If we could actually institute the foreclosure ourselves and collect the proceeds that way, we're hoping, you know, that will up our chances.

That's— and that's just the Alaska statute, just to prove to you we didn't make this up. And next slide. This is another statute also just showing we actually do have this power under Alaska law. Um, and next slide. And this is just showing you we are also already exercising this power in the vacant and abandoned property world.

So this language already exists in our code in Title 15, where we basically copied and pasted it into Title 23. So we think it's pretty straightforward, but if you have questions, that's why we're here.

Thank you. Yeah, all right. That's awesome. That's something that we need done, and we all know about these properties. It's been high on our radar, so appreciate that.

Any questions from members?

Excellent. And with the With the few minutes remaining, we'll probably take a couple extra minutes at the end of the meeting for public comments. So I'll just open that up, but we'll go right now to Daniel McKenna Foster and AO 2025 Unnumbered Relocatable Dwelling Units.

Hi, everybody. Daniel McKenna Foster. Sorry, Lance. I'm going to do a speaking. So this is just A update to an ordinance that will be coming to the assembly next week for introduction, AO 2025-112, uh, item 10G2.

Um, and this is the, the sort of end product of a lot of work over about 2 years. Um, so I'll go over it quickly, and just, I want to highlight a few things. So because there's a lot in this ordinance, and I'm sure people have questions about it, and we'll all of course be on the end for more questions. People have a work session on And we will, we will have a work session on this as well. So, what problems is this ordinance attempting to solve?

Confusion, just clear up language in the code, what a mobile home is, manufactured home, tiny home, other small forms of housing. We settled upon relocatable dwelling unit. There's some feelings on both sides, but that's sort of what we landed on. So, I'll be referring to them as relocatable dwelling units, but these are formally known as mobile homes or manufactured homes or even tiny homes. In some cases.

So the ordinance will make it easier to repair existing relocatable dwelling units or replace them with other safe forms of housing. Right now, in a mobile home park, you can only replace a mobile home with another factory-certified mobile home, and those are no longer feasible to bring up to Alaska. So we're looking at a way to sort of remedy that. It'll also allow relocatable dwelling units with foundations in more places across the bowl. It'll make it easier to create new relocatable dwelling unit parks in the place they're already allowed in those zones.

So going from an additional from site plan approval, and also reduce the lot size in existing, like, minimum lot size in existing parks. And then the ordinance expands what is allowed in PLI zones. So, PLI zones are definitely zones owned by the public, it's public lands and institutions. And this was to help the MOA anticipate future housing and ability to care needs on public land. And the rationale behind that is that anytime the community is using PLI land, or there's a project on public land, there's usually that extra level of review.

So that's not to sneak anything in, it's just thinking we're going to have those procedures in place, and so it makes it easier to do that review at that sort of different level. So I kind of think of it— there's a lot in this ordinance. It's sort of like a container ship. We had to load a lot of things in it, but thematically all the cargo was related. Um, so quick timeline.

Um, the Assembly allocated funding to the Planning Department, um, to commission a feasibility study back in 2023. So AR 2023-102S, you can see it says planning for feasibility study. We commissioned a contractor to produce a report. They worked on it in 2024, and that report found that mobile home parks are actually no longer really feasible. Yeah, thinking then, I understand, was that maybe the municipality can play a role in building a new mobile home park, developing a new mobile home park, or relocating a mobile home park.

And this report found that it just doesn't really make financial sense anymore. So that was not what we expected, and so that encouraged us to look in some sort of different directions. We had a lot of really productive work with Building Services Department to address some of the issues around this aging housing code. And one thing they mentioned is that, you know, a big issue is that people can't repair existing manufactured dwellings, relocatable dwellings, mobile homes. So that sort of became our focus is rather than building new parks, what if we focus on fixing up what we have and making it easier to use what we have and making sure those, those Many of those properties can be safer than they are now.

And then the Planning Department brought the item to the June 9th, 2025 Planning and Zoning Commission meeting, who recommended the item for approval. And I can put all those links in the chat. So, key items in this ordinance. One, it renames that— this category housing to relocatable dwelling units. So that's a lot of the ordinance.

If you're looking at that, you'll see a lot of just name changes. And relocatable dwelling unit community. It changes the use table where RDUs are allowed, how RDUs are approved. And also expands where rehabilitative care and transitional uses are allowed. So that I really want to emphasize, because I'm sure people are wondering, well, how does that relate to RDUs?

That came out of as we were working on this project, working on the Recovery Residence project here at Tudor, and thinking about could these fit in or not? Could rehabilitative care be used? Could it be a transitional use, living use, or not? And so you'll see that in the use table that those are really in the PLI. So, so the ordinance expands what's allowable in PLI zones.

And use specific restrictions for relocatable dwelling communities in FLI zones. So, it's a little easier to do a relocatable dwelling community in an FLI zone, but again, that's assuming there's always going to be more process for you to plan. And a lot of smaller lot sizes in these communities, but provides— requires the placement of new units to consider the state of existing sewer and water infrastructure. So, we've had multiple meetings with the Alaska, it's the mobile home owner and renters group, and they had some concerns, and we were able to take some of their concerns and put it into the language. So, you know, of course, if it's an AWU system, AWU is going to verify it.

For private systems, we have something in the code that says, no, you can't place a new relocatable dwelling unit on a failing infrastructure system. It's a private system, you have to verify that. So generally, feedback has been positive, a lot of support from a lot of different angles. I mean, the need is really high. A lot of these Mobile home communities are— they've been around for a long time and they need a lot of work and people want to do work and this will hopefully facilitate that.

Multiple meetings with the Alaska Mobile Home Owners Rent Association and multiple calls from park operators interested in upgrading units and replacing mobile home units. People say, "Oh, cool, you know, we have some spaces that are— they're not conforming, but we'd love to replace them, but we couldn't until now." And so it's been great for me to give people the good news. So, Here's the use table. As I mentioned, everything is highlighted. So some of this stuff, you'll see that the relocatable dwelling unit is allowed in all residential zones.

That's with the foundation, right? So, um, so that's not a temporary. And, and then, um, the manufactured home community or relocatable dwelling community is moving from conditional use to site plan review in the zone where it's already allowed. And then in— you'll see in the PLI column in that last column, there's more flexibility for a number of uses, including adult day care, transitional living. So, any questions?

Yes, Member Bromley. Yeah, I mean, I'll say also there's a work session. This item is going to be discussed tomorrow along with another ordinance. But my quick clarifying question, you said you cannot— you can only replace a mobile home with another mobile home. Is that the pre-1976?

So not—. I can't do like a 2025 manufactured unit. It has to be a pre-'70s unit. Is that right? Currently, the code says you can only place a mobile home in a mobile home park.

So, and it has to be a mobile home. The pre-1976 mobile home code, you can't place those anywhere. Those are considered so old that you can't move them anywhere, even to an existing mobile home park. Okay. You could place a new mobile home in a mobile home park.

The problem is the feasibility study found it's so expensive to get new mobile homes up here that it just doesn't really make any sense. So, if we had a big supply of mobile homes, folks up here, it would be a little bit easier to replace those in parks. But this is saying now, instead of having that restriction, you can replace it with anything that the Building Services Department can certify as safe for occupation. Okay, thanks. Any additional questions from members?

And just— I just wanted to ask confirmation of that last, uh, table. Essentially RDUs could be used as an ADU if there's a permanent foundation upon which the RDU sits. Yeah, it's sort of— it's a relocatable dwelling, but the second it gets onto a foundation, it just becomes another dwelling. So, yes. Thank you.

That is new and clarifying, I think. Support. Thank you very much. Um, with the— with the, uh, I just asked my colleagues for the grace for a few extra minutes for public comments. Uh, are there any members of the public who are interested in test public comments?

This is not a time for questions, but public comments. Mr. Mike, I know you, but come on forward and just introduce yourself, and you have, uh, Good morning, my name is Mike Grant. I'm a member of the University Area Community Council. I'm going to do a Dan McKenna speed run. Yes, um, the logo looks like Miss Minutes from Loki, and yes, it makes sense.

Uh, I like to make sense. Um, I've testified before. I'm not rich, and I'm working for free. I'm a Fed essential according to somebody. Um, but I want to put skin in the game.

I want to be a member of this community, both member of the community of Alaska at large, but also a member of the community of Anchorage. And so if that means that I have to pay more in taxes, so be it. I don't— it's not that I don't care, but I want to be a member of this community. Let's have some joy. The guy was talking about the new vehicles, the mini.

I want to— that's the name of the new equipment. Let's have a competition. Let's get it online. My first nominee is a nitty-gritty sand spreader, and the next is Ice Busters. Uh, so, um, regarding the homes, I brought this up before, um, and, uh, for our use, uh, repurpose existing space to manufacture homes.

We have the—. There's existing warehouse space, for example, the Northway Mall that has a large open area. Uh, there's— and, and we also have that crazy-ass tent that the previous administration purchased. Uh, it could be used to be inflated, and you could actually build the RDUs simply in a controlled environment, disassemble them, and then reassemble them on site. Uh, it doesn't always save money, but because that's how they do it in Europe, but it does allow the trades and other crafts to build on, on on a controlled climate, build year-round, which is one of the challenges we have, and build a safer, more comfortable structure for our community.

And then for Member Brawley, if you could add to the record a question about will there be a pink tax exemption. I'm concerned about—. I looked online. And I could not find the list of statewide exemptions. It said medication, but often women's hygiene products are not considered medication, even though they're necessary.

And I would like to make sure that there's not a pink tax. Thanks. See, time. See the other members here. Mike, was that you on the phone earlier?

Yeah, I recognized your voice. Right. No, I appreciate that because I want to make sure that you got your time. If there are no other members, we'll, we'll adjourn. Thank you, everybody.

Oh, we have one more here. Heather Harris. Yes. Hello. Just wanted to say real quickly hello and thank you.

Really appreciate hearing your perspectives and seeing where AADC and your proposal align and kind of noting those differences and look forward to the conversation. I'm the interim CEO and president here at AADC. So, thank you. Thank you. And thank you for making sure you got heard today.

And thank you, Mandy, for flagging that. And with that, we will adjourn 10:35 for—.