Anchorage Assembly: PlanningandZoningCommission: Live

Okay, it is 5:31, so we'll get the work session started. See a couple few Muni folks in Andrea is in the room.

Does somebody from Planning want to introduce what is going on here?

Chair Spinelli, we have in the room with us the Director of OMB who is prepared to make a presentation if requested. We also have Director Dole, who I think would also like to speak. And then we also have a presentation from Long Range Planning on the memo that you all have received on the topic.

Okay. Well, should we start with the planning presentation like we normally would, or are we doing something different? What do we want to do? I'm seeing a nod from the Director of OMB, so I think if we start with the— planning presentation, that would work great, just with the understanding that we do have limited time and we want to save some space for questions and for OMB to make their presentation as well. Yes.

And we do need to wrap up by 6:15 to have time to get ready for the meeting. All right. Let's, let's go. Good evening, Commissioners. Daniel McKenna-Foster, Long Range Planning.

I'll go through very quickly on these slides, but It's really just sort of a snapshot of some of the things you've seen in the memo. So the code requires PCC to review both the MOA CIP and CIB and the school district CIP, CIB. We do it every year. Long-range planning brings CIP to PCC every year for review. You all make a recommendation and then it goes further.

We're not generally involved in creating the budget, just reviewing it. This is the section, I believe it's 2103, that the other powers and duties of the Planning and Zoning Commission shall review and make recommendations to the Assembly and school board regarding the annual capital improvement program of the municipality and school district. 2040 Land Use Plan speaks to the need to align capital planning with the plans. You know, this is in 2040. 2017 Said, given the reality of diminishing state operating capital, the importance of maintaining existing infrastructure investments, cornerstone in Planning 2040, coordination and focusing public funding on new infrastructure improvements and serves those areas best able to accept new growth.

And there's also this policy to land use policy 2040 1.5 align Anchorage's land use, transportation, land infrastructure planning, design guidelines, and investments. Account for existing infrastructure and transportation system capacity and plant facility investments when determining areas of growth. Link capital improvement priorities with elements of the comprehensive plan, including the 2040 and area-specific plans. So with that, and I apologize, I think the, our, the actual binders are coming, so we will have some paper copies for the meeting. But this is the map of, of the proposed project for 2027.

I think you've probably seen a digital version as well. Just an overview of sort of our review is, of course, everybody's heard Anchorage faces considerable uncertainty about revenue and expenditures for municipal operations in the coming years. The, you know, some of the big expenditure areas are PM&E road projects, public transportation, maintenance operations, police and fire for the period of 2027 to 2032. Now, all these kind of come from different places, some from federal, some from states, some from bonds. PM&E costs are budgeted to consume about 60% of the bond funding for the period, although PM&E staff have noted in discussions that all funding may not be used.

We were able to talk with a few of them a few days ago and they noted that. And again, while the Comprehensive Plan calls for this alignment, sometimes it seems that, you know, quite frankly, the need is greater than the resources available. So it is hard to align that. And that is not to impugn anybody or say anything. It is just We are dealing with a situation where 20 years ago we got a lot more state funding.

We could do a lot more things. And today we just can't. And so finally, zoning and land use can be used to encourage targeted investments around capital investments like roads or schools or that sort of thing. Any municipality can use tools such as zoning to encourage growth in these areas. So just wanted to show a couple data on specific projects, future and past, and think about how do projects align with the plans.

And again, this is— These are tricky, right? Because projects take a long time. Funding sources change over time. And it's difficult to align things. You know, many people— there's the big comprehensive plan.

There's area-wide plans. There's a lot of pieces. So it's difficult to do, especially with such a large area. So here's a future project, 57th and 58th Avenues. This project has been sort of on the list for a couple of years.

It was originally going to be $4 million, then went to $4.2 million. And then in the latest budget, it's about $6.7 million. This is what it looks like. It's the Norand subdivision. And it's really right here.

This is an interesting one because this is an area that probably doesn't have a lot of through traffic. Probably most people benefiting from this investment will be the ones living there. So it's interesting to think from a long-term planning perspective about where we focus our resources, where we make our investments, and are the land use and plans lining up with that. So there— I think there are about 57 dwelling units here. So it's, you know, pretty big investment, $6.7 million, not that big in the cost of road projects.

But just looking at this from a long-range lens, Thinking about this is an area that in the future is designated to stay about the same. So this is one area where you can look at zoning and land use and think about when we make decisions about how we invest, should we be looking at the plan? Do we expect a lot more growth in that area? Do we expect things to change in that area? So, you know, we're not really taking a position one way or another.

We're just presenting these numbers. But this in the future is pretty much projected to stay about the same under the 2040 Land Use Plan. Another thing we've looked at is just looking at projects in the past and just seeing how those projects aligned. Did they align with the plan? Did they solve the problems we were trying to solve?

Did people get what they were looking for out of it? This project is Dubin Avenue from Patterson to Muldoon. Let's see, here's a picture of it. It's about half a mile or so. Initially, again, as I mentioned, the initial design for this was paid for the state back in 2012.

So things were different back then. And the expectations at the time were probably really different about where the funding would come from. 2016 Budget was $7.5, then 2017 went down a little bit. The final cost was around $8.2 million. And so you're thinking, OK, what does this have to do with the 2026 budget?

We're looking at sort of what this road looked like initially and what the road became. It became a bigger road. It has a lot more infrastructure around it, right? Those retaining walls are expensive. The curb is expensive.

That guardrail is expensive. So those are great, but in the long term, that does become more stuff we have to maintain. And more infrastructure that gets on our books. And so that's one way to look at many of these investments. There's not only the initial capital cost, but there's long-term maintenance cost as well.

One thing that's interesting about this one and just measuring, is this what we wanted? Is this what people were looking for? I believe the 85th Street percentile went from 28 miles per hour in 2013 to 37 in 2025. So it does look like people were driving faster on this road. I think at the same time, volume actually went down on the road.

And in 2013, about 12% of drivers were going over 35 miles per hour. In 2025, about 27.3% were going over 35 miles per hour. So this is just the data. We're just saying that it's interesting to look at these projects and think about when we make an investment, we spend a lot of money to— this is a really nice facility, right? It's really well-designed facility, but there are costs associated with that.

Behavior might change as a result of that. And then after that, you know, how does that cost factor into things long term? Another project that we here to talk about, and I see we have the AMS director here. They know a lot about this project as well. Academy Vanguard off of Abbott.

This project has been basically identified as a need since about 2009, so a bit over 15 years ago. Initially, it's sort of this area, the intersection, and it's preparing for what might one day be an undercrossing under the Seward Highway. So that's been in the books for a long time, been discussed for a long time. The project was originally around $8.7 million. Went to $11 million, and the 2025 design report is going to be $20 million, and the 2026 budget, it's budgeted at about $21.2 million.

Now again, we heard that what it's budgeted for, it doesn't mean they're going to use all that. Well, you know, so, but it does show that many of these projects, they start in a different time, and then over time, the costs just tend to increase, right? So this one is interesting. I'll skip this and just thinking about the original purpose and need maybe has changed slightly. And so that's another thing is we have projects that last a long time and the purpose and need begins to change over time.

One thing that's interesting about this and others— actually, sorry. So we've already spent a lot of money on this. This is already— you know, we haven't built it yet, but we've had 2 contract amendments. It's been $2 million. And then other pieces too is there are sort of attendant pieces of projects like this is we— the muni purchased this property.

So we now have a property that the muni owns that's no longer producing tax value or tax— as much tax revenue. So you can see it went from about $11,000, $12,000 a year to now producing about $300,000. And again, that's, you know, you have to break eggs to make omelets, right? But there is a cost to some of these, and especially when they sit, there are other costs that don't always factor in. And then even small stuff like the cost of demolishing the building on the property we're holding, $134,000.

And then also just looking at the purpose and need. Is this still solving the problem we want it to solve? I think this is a KDOT— they project there's going to be 14,000 vehicles here in the future. So could be. It's hard to say.

We've mentioned this before. When we've gone back and looked at many of these traffic projections over years on many big projects, in most cases, we found that the projections were often over than what the results were. So again, you build for a high volume. Whether you get that volume or not, you still— you have that much infrastructure that you have to pay for for that volume. So there are some maybe interesting questions there about digging into what we're building, to what scale we're building, and what the long-term costs are.

Another piece is— and many of you working on road projects have probably seen this— is many times our projects, they have to ask for exceptions from our own standards. The DCM is the Design Criteria Manual. And in many projects, we see that the standards no longer seem to necessarily be aligning what people are asking for. So in this Academy Vanguard project, they were asking for 4 exemptions. And this is from rules.

We sort of— the meeting asks itself if we can exempt ourselves. But this is a process too, right? Having to pay for somebody to go through this and not be able to design it firsthand. So you're again thinking, well, what does this have to do with planning, this and that? We are working with PM&E on updating the streets and highways plan.

And also they're working on the DCM, the Design Criteria Manual. So are there pieces in what we can change in the standards that impact the cost of these capital projects long term? And that is something that we can take an active role in. And we've seen this with other cases too. This is the Spinard project.

They also had to take exceptions to standards. I think you all have seen when we see a number of variances on cases, right, we tend to say, maybe we could change the standard in the code because we're always approving the variances and people are always asking for the same thing. So there seem to be— maybe there's some examples of that across the municipality. And then future project, this is an interesting one just because Arts Alley paving has been on the books for years. Great project, 2018.

And I don't know if these were filled, but this is kind of just what got budgeted. In this latest version, it's about $3.5 million. And we mention this because there's been a lot of discussion here about housing and zoning, a lot of discussions about alleys and alley access and how alleys affect urban design. Really what it comes down to is when you have alleys, it allows a really different type of built environment, something that we really hear people value, right? They want fewer driveways on the front.

They want more of that sort of street urban feeling. The alley access requirement is how we affect that. So this project of Arts of Alley Paving— I got an extra S there, I apologize— is really related to that, right? By doing that, especially in the areas that have unpaved alleys. So everywhere on this map that's in red is an unpaved alley.

So, you know, if this program continues, it's the kind of thing where this type of investment is enabling that type of development that people have been telling us they really, really want. So it's kind of a chain to get there, but there is a direct connection between this type of investment and the kind of things you all look at. And so you'll assume, as I'm sure you saw in the packet, and I'll go through really quickly, we just talk about some of the trends we're seeing with recent changes to Title 21, the land use plan, School district closures, we talked about a little bit. As schools close, travel behavior changes around it. And then that seems to end up changing the road designs around the schools, charter schools or neighborhood schools.

Road projects under DOT control that get transferred to the MOA, like Fireweed, for example, is one. But there have been many of those. AMATS covering the cost of a lot of local projects. Sometimes we start a project, the money's no longer there, and AMATS has to step in to fund that. And so AMATS, which generally doing big regional projects has to do a lot of these smaller projects.

Long-range transportation strategy, right-of-way management strategy, drainage, stormwater utility potential, new service areas, 10,000 homes, Ted Stevens International Airport expansion over time. That's an interesting one because if you read the master plan, it seems like they really kind of did that without plugging it into the broader system, which could have been an opportunity maybe to connect with our great bus lines or maybe some of our great PATH. Infrastructure we have over there. So our recommendations, these are just general, right? These aren't specifically for the Commission to make a proposal, but it's just generally thinking.

Align investments with big picture priorities. That's pretty, you know, kind of a non-brainer, no-brainer. Think about treating capital projects to spur other investments. You know, invest in areas that we want to see more development. That's what COMP Plan says in areas of growth and centers and corridors.

Some projects seem to have been project list for years but no longer maybe have a connection to any present need. There's no good way to off-ramp projects that maybe no longer are needed. And if things don't align with the comprehensive plan guidance, then maybe update the comprehensive plan, right? If we keep doing projects where people need them but the plan doesn't support it, maybe we need to look at the plan, which there probably will be a plan update in the next few years. And finally, the long-term impacts of road infrastructure and attendant infrastructure, right?

Like everything we build, we're going to have to maintain.

Or somebody's going to have to maintain, or somebody's going to have to pay to maintain. So just considering that. And we've had that discussion many times. So we saw in the Long Range Transportation Strategy, a big priority is just consider maintenance costs when you're talking about the cost of the project. And finally, the maps always show these initial priority reinvestment focus areas.

While the tool exists to create a reinvestment focus area, we've never actually created one. So it's this weird kind of situation of— just people expecting, oh, that's the reinvestment focus area, what do we get out of that, even though we've never formally gone through the process to designate it. That has to be approved by the assembly. With that, any questions, or maybe I'll let OMB Director or anybody else go forward. I think we used up one-third of our time, so we should go to the OMB Director.

Thank you. And then we'll go for questions from there. Hang on to your questions.

Good evening, Planning and Zoning Commission. My name is Ona Brause. I'm the Director of the Office of Management and Budget. Because we are short on time, I would like to know the Commission's interest. We have two options here.

The presentation material includes both the general government operating overview and the specific capital detail by project. When I've done this in the past, we sort of do some of the general government information because the Commission finds it interesting in terms of the flavor of the rest of the Capitol design. But I'm more than happy to adjust for what the information is most useful for.

Any feedback?

General. I'm hearing general. General. Will do. The presentation materials that we have in front of you, I don't know if we have a slide deck that can go up on the big screen, but you have it printed in front of you, and I believe it should be available online.

Um, the, uh, 2027 proposed capital improvement budget and program review starts with our general government and 6-year fiscal outlook, and then we go into the general government capital budget and department review. Um, the, the general government capital budget does not include any of the capital projects specifically assigned or performed by the utilities and enterprises. So any, um, AWU infrastructure or solid waste infrastructure are not part of this presentation. Those utility capital budgets, and this is the general government process, so we talk about the general government department specifically. If we go to page 4 of the slide deck, you see this is the review of the annual budget process.

There are two separate processes, one for capital and one for operating. They go through different review and development phases but they all land in the same final approval cycle at both approved and revised in November and April. That's our traditional budget process. Nothing there has changed since being before the commission last. The next page is Mayor's Priorities.

These are the pillars that the budget is drafted under with the understanding that the efforts under good government, improving safe streets and trails for safe Anchorage, Anchorage and building our future for economic development are all part of the considerations that we take when we are operating in our departments and doing work throughout the year, and that is the focus we are pushing towards all of our outcomes. The next page is the 2027 priority list: continuing to build a strong local government, strengthening the municipality's recreation economy, Revitalizing and reenergizing neighborhoods, as well as common-sense solutions for energy resiliency and preparing for growth. Any questions so far? Okay. Next, page 7, the 2027 budget highlights.

Overall, the capital budget continues to invest in street maintenance, supports existing public safety efforts and infrastructure, as well as proposing some new opportunities, tackling the housing crisis, invigorating creating Anchorage public spaces and funding crisis care outreach and connections to housing. Overall, the, uh, the funding of crisis care connections to housing, that's not just municipal dollars that are in that category of activity. There is federal dollars, state dollars, private dollars all being braided together in order to get to the system that we currently have, which is much more stable than the system we had a few years ago. But we are still working on improvements Next page on slide 8, community development, economic indicators, specifically the unemployment rate at 4.2%. Here the slide deck says that as of today, our new housing permits are 428, 7% more than all of last year.

I believe Director Dahl can tell us that that number is even higher than when this deck was originally created. And the overall private sector growth associated with many of the large projects, Mr. McKenna-Foster mentioned some of them. There are expansion out at the airport, the Touchmark Senior Facility. I will tell you as a person who has lived in that area my entire life that I have been waiting for that corner to turn into something, and it's turning into something good. So I think that that, plus many of the other projects that are already moving on the private sector side, including the Jay Bear Fighter Town expansion.

If those, those of you who may not have heard about this specifically, Jay Bear is potentially bringing thousands more residents to Anchorage that will contribute to our local economy. And preparing for that growth is part of this budgeting process that we are going through right now, understanding how Anchorage is changing and what the landscape looks like and being prepared to capture that opportunity as we can with what we have or what we can make by then. Any questions?

Many, I'm sure. The next page, the slide 9, looming fiscal cliff, $15 million budget gap, that has been talked about in the press. We avoided the cliff this year by using one-time funding specifically from some legacy MLNP accounts as well as an increased general government dividend from Anchorage Hydropower, which is the utility result of the MLNP sale. And we also reduced vacant positions within a handful of departments that were either deemed duplicative to current processes or were proposed by the departments to be deleted. That was about $1 million in reductions.

And we also cut some of the contractual service costs within street maintenance because their labor team is now staffed up as opposed to 40% vacant. So they are able to perform the duties in-house as opposed to via contracts.

Slide 10, the challenges ahead. As I said, we closed a $15 million budget gap this year. The projected gap for next year, as we will see on one of the slides ahead, is $15 million plus because there are projections and considerations that are not currently included in the fiscal program that we know are costs that are coming. So we project the potential deficit for 2028 to be between $15 and $30 million. There is significantly less, less state funding, decreased alcohol and marijuana tax revenue, and not as much federal support as has— as we have had in the past, as well as very limited one-time funds left.

Why, as I said, we have spent all the remaining balance of the MLNP sale account and some of our other one-time dollars over the last 3 years. Slide 12 is the key funding source changes overall between the tax cap and all of the other combined service areas. It's a property tax increase of $19.8 million, which on the next slide, 13, you'll see totals $11 per $100,000 of assessed valuation. So the property tax increase for the 2027 proposed budget is $11 per $100,000. Any questions there?

Okay. The next slide, slide 14, the property tax comparison. This is always fun for people who haven't seen this detail before, but in the 1980s, our operating budget was $194 million. $625 Million in 2025 dollars. And in 2025, our budget was $648 million, which is $500 less per capita than in the '80s.

So we are spending less money than we were 40 years ago doing what we're doing right now. And it's not getting us as far because we are also missing about $100 to $150 million of state funding every single year. We're aware of that because it lands on our streets and our schools. There is not enough funding to support the needs of the community.

Next slide is the department percentage. These are all of our municipal departments and their total budget overall. So you can see how they rank on spend. Police, fire, maintenance and operations, and debt service are the top 4 and have been the top 4 in municipal operations I think forever, at a minimum for the last 20 years on cost.

Next slide are the key direct cost changes. You see the adjustment between the revised budget to the proposed budget.

And slide 17 are the financing sources. These are the— this is the kind of money that the budget is made up of.

Slide 18 are the budget categories. That's where we spend all the money. We have 60% property taxes and 60% salaries and benefits. That is not entirely a coincidence, uh, but it is that we try to fund the recurring costs with recurring money. And the recurring money that happens at the municipality are property taxes.

Uh, the questions that we ask our voters every single year are capital budget those are not programmatic dollars. That is voter-approved, and we cannot bank on it in order to make plans happen. That's why we have a year-over-year process that could do better if we had a longer planning process with funds attached. As of right now, the only funds attached within the general government operating budget are $475,000 for maintenance and operations within facilities. There are small dollar amounts of O&M increments that have been added over time to the road projects, but that is not enough of a budget to make the maintenance and operations of all of these facilities work.

The budget constraints of the municipality over the last 20 years, but over all 50 years, are very constrained by the way we do business and the way we ask our residents questions about what they want. So part of this, as Mr. McKenna-Foster mentioned, is that it takes some change to move into a transition space, and that is where we are right now. So when we are looking at the demands across the community, millions and millions, billions of dollars are necessary for all of the infrastructure that we need to be the community we want to be. We do not have a funding stream that provides that funding. The year-over-year process for our capital investments is a challenge to make a long-range plan and actually assign those values that exist in our plan to our built environment.

We are 10, 15, 20 years behind all of that infrastructure. The next slide. Skip through the org chart changes.

I should actually mention those. We made some adjustments to the org chart with the removal of the chief administrative officer and restructured back to a more traditional municipal operations that includes the municipal manager and the chief fiscal officer, but now has the economic and community development director reporting directly to the mayor and involved in all of the conversations for planning and operations across the board that all of the other senior managers have so that there can be an integrated process in how we think about these things.

The next slide is the 6-year fiscal program. As I mentioned, that is the outlook on the next 6 years. The bottom line on slide 20 shows you the projected deficits, but these numbers are an apples to apples comparison. They are not every apple we have in the comparison. So there are items that are left out that we know are cost increases in the millions of dollars category, mostly on the labor side.

So we have seen that in the last 2 years, The missing variables from that year-over-year comparison are between $5 and $7 million of additional expense that are not currently included in these projections.

Any questions? Okay. Onto the next, the capital budget and facilities segment. The actual Oh, this is the wrong deck. But that's OK. You can skip ahead to the right one.

Sorry to interrupt. This is from the— I think a different presentation. That was the mayor's on the 16th. Scroll forward to section 3.

Yep. There you go. OK. Capital budget goals. The next slide. There you go.

Thank you. Critical road maintenance and drainage work, including life safety access, the replacement of fire apparatus, investing in additional ambulance for better service, as well as firehouse expansion and replacement, energy efficiency upgrades, traffic calming and pedestrian safety, and repairs and enhancements to neighborhood parks. When you look at the next slide, this is the breakdown by general government department. So these are the departments who then manage the capital projects. And you see that the bulk of the funding comes from the bond column.

The proposed $87.95 million capital budget includes all of those projects listed under bond funding, $21.4 million from state that has been acquired or state requests that will be made, federal funding that has either been acquired or will be received, Other funding comes from various places, but some of it comes through the operating budget. Our intergovernmental charges within the operating budget support fleet and the capital management under the fleet division. They also support some of our other maintenance departments, but they are costs under, let's say, OMB's department that end up in maintenance and operations if I drive a municipal vehicle, which I do not. So overall, the property tax portion of the capital budget is $87.95 on request, uh, in April. Next slide, please.

The capital improvement budget sources, it was as we just talked through, majority bonds, uh, and then minority state, federal, and other funding, as well as the amount of bonds being retired in 2026 and 2027.

Next page. The category of capital improvement budget. This is slightly different than you may have seen in the past, specifically because of the energy efficiency category of projects. We have turned the corner into what is now not only a deferred maintenance demand, but now an energy consumption demand, because the building that we are in right now has a terrible energy consumption profile. And recently, I'm sure we've all experienced this being in this room, sometimes it's really hot, sometimes it's really cold.

The HVAC system within the Lusak is broken and they had to close the library in the last month and release people from the rooms because they were 95 degrees and then the next floor was 84 degrees and then downstairs was 62, right? So all of these— the challenges in some of our primary community buildings because of deferred maintenance also mean that they are huge energy hogs. And so this building with an energy efficiency retrofit can save not only money, but can save our community the ability to use the library, as well as the cost and consumption of gas that this building uses. So there is specific project details for energy efficiency within LUSAC, also within a sort of annual program for municipal facilities. The Performing Arts Center has a very large energy efficiency project assigned to it.

There are undebatable benefits to investing this kind of project in our deferred maintenance because it not only saves us money, it saves us the building. So any questions there? No. Next slide. As mentioned, this is the historical state capital grant profile.

So from 1997 forward, this is the amount of funding by, uh, municipal department that came through the state legislative budget. And this is their discretionary spending. This is not the community assistance municipal revenue sharing program that brings, or used to bring us, anywhere between $20 and $70 million a year depending on the year. This is the, as I said, the discretionary funding from the legislature itself. And if we look in the far right, the total column of $1.15 billion pretty much stops 10 years ago.

And the $1.15 billion total is only is less than $300 million in the last 10 years. And that $700 million differential— please go to the next slide— lives on that map. So that map would look very different if the investment with state funding had continued. But it stopped over a decade ago, and we are just now getting to the point where we are able to accept and update our process to agree that that's probably never coming back, and what are we going to do about it, and what does that mean for the way we ask these investment questions to our community. So the traditional bond packages are between $40 and $55 million depending on what year you look at it.

This bond package is being proposed at $87.95 because of the deferred maintenance, but there is a limitation on what we can actually ask of property taxpayers. So part of this conversation is the beginning of the full budget conversation and the review of what do we do about this and how do we change, what are our priorities, and what does that mean for the planning of this community and the investment within this community. And you as commissioners already do this work. You invest your time, your effort, your brains, and you have a very specific perspective and view on what you see on a regular basis in these meetings and what that means within the community. Part of this budget process is to understand what you think, but also what you can do from this commission.

It may not be the most, uh, proactive line of activity that you can get into to be on the PCC Commission in terms of impacting the budget, but what you know and experience on this commission can help us So what you learn from your perspective as commissioners and community members, bring that to me, bring that to Director Doehl, bring that to Director Babb, bring that to any municipal leadership figure involved in this conversation. Come to the meetings that we are hosting with the assembly and with community councils and tell us what you think, because we are listening to understand how we really can transition Anchorage into the next decade and beyond.

So we can go through the specific department review, but I'm also happy to leave it there. I think we should open it up to questions because we're not— we don't have a ton of time here, maybe 10 minutes. So, Kate, go ahead. I have a couple of questions. So the mention of the drop in the state revenue, is that tied to the change in the oil and gas tax structure?

Through the chair, no, that's the historical trend. I think that frankly we might see the potential for additional funding coming out of the legislature this next year depending on what happens with the state election and legislative activity. And that actually is another factor in the timing of this conversation. We had— there are a lot of changes that are occurring right now, as I mentioned, private sector growth, JBEAR expansion, but the state is changing the state landscape on gas line funding and what that may mean for Anchorage. There are lots of different activities that are occurring that all impact the community differently, but can impact what kinds of choices we make and how we respond in those other categories.

And then my another question I had is, you know, in the Mat-Su, they've implemented a sales tax to help close their city's budget gap. And, you know, we've got this looming fiscal cliff with a pretty significant budget gap. What kind of a sales or income tax would Anchorage need to be looking at to not only close the gap but reduce this risk or be able to improve our funding that we have available to, like, schools and other really essential services? Through the chair to Commissioner McKee, I believe the answer to your question is there are lots of different— not lots of— there are a handful of different revenue sources that the municipality could implement either change what is currently levied or to implement new taxes. The magnitude of those taxes vary greatly, right?

So the bed tax is a specific $4 million per cent, and a sales tax is hundreds of millions of dollars depending on how you look at it. So the question becomes, which gap are we trying to fill and what is palatable to the community? It may not be just a bed tax or just a sales tax. It may be a blend of these, all of these outcomes at the same time. One of the things that I look at is what are the tools within the toolbox of the municipality, and right now we have two tools: property taxes via the tax cap that is on an annual sort of calculated basis, and then the other one is, oh yeah, property taxes via the bond questions.

And the other funding that comes in is on the decline in terms of the report that, you know, the numbers show us we lost $3.3 million in non-property taxes this year. And so the question becomes, how do we really do this, and what is the transition into a different structure that lets us be who we want to be? So yes, that kind of goes back to that question, is did the MATSU with implementation of a sales tax see a budget gap close. Could Anchorage expect to see something similar if we implemented even a sales tax just in the summer? Through the chair, I would hope so, yes.

And then my last question, because I don't want to monopolize time, is the, the mention of the funding crisis, care outreach, and connections to housing. And I'm not an economist, I don't follow all of the tax laws, but my understanding was that the tax revenue generated from the sales of marijuana would be used to help implement this, and it seems like there's a lot of marijuana businesses all over the city that I would assume that's generating sufficient tax revenue to help offset the increased costs needed for fund crisis care and outreach. I don't know. Through the chair, you are correct. The challenges that the revenue streams identified in both the marijuana tax and the alcohol tax— the marijuana tax brings in about $5 million a year, and the alcohol tax brings in between $13 to $15 million a year.

The marijuana tax is dedicated to early education and, and child care. The alcohol tax is dedicated to 5 categories, of which are child abuse, domestic violence prevention, first responders, homelessness, mental health Preparation and administration is the other one. And the $15 million within that fund has been spent year over year on mostly those three categories of child abuse, sexual assault, and domestic violence prevention, as well as homelessness and first responders. So I think the real answer is $20 million is not enough for all of those very large issues, particularly early education and child care within Anchorage. So doesn't quite get us where we want to go.

I'll jump in here and go back to the department recommendations about aligning the capital improvement program with the goals of the Comp Plan. I guess I'll ask to shine a little bit of light on the— on what we are doing here and what the department does You know, we have a work session in 2 weeks looking at the role of neighborhood plans, and it gave us a chance to look at the elements of the Comp Plan. In all, they totaled more than 1,000 pages between the Comprehensive Plan itself, neighborhood plans, district plans. And I think we are all getting a sense that in some ways the long-range planning process through the Comp Plan is moving in parallel with some of the capital improvement program planning. So I would ask for— I think as we move into these conversations, I would be very curious about OMB's suggestions or take on how we can— because I think we are a little bit overdue for a comp plan process— create the comp plan for the next 20 years and start having those conversations about how the comp plan can be a more useful tool in the capital improvement program.

Through the chair to Member Krishna, I will say that the comp plans are very useful. The challenge is when we do not have the funding available to support the execution of those comp plans in a knowable and practical way. And that is the limitation of the way we manage our funding in terms of a single year-over-year capital program that does not get us the $250 million that we need every year to go through our development and maintenance phases. It gives us maybe $50 million a year. So we are less than 25% funded and mostly funded in the brake fix and maintenance department as opposed to the planning and growing department.

So It's really about where can we put our focus and our money and design the municipal structure for what we want. It's not currently designed to be flexible and offer us millions of dollars of opportunity.

Thank you. Any further questions? We're right around time. We got to take a break.

Any final statements from staff? Chair Spinelli, I believe that Director Dole would like a few minutes if possible. Take it away. You are the closer. Bob Dole, Director of Community Economic Development.

I don't need two, maybe one. We have reviewed the long-range memo staff provided you and believe some additional context is important. This document was a new approach prepared outside of the usual process and without coordination. Frankly, it was also prepared in a very compressed timeframe amid some other big requirements going on. The report was prepared without consultation with those in other departments that prepared and prioritized the capital list and how they took into account the Comprehensive Plan, the Long Range Transportation Strategy, and other planning documents.

As such, there is no opportunity to incorporate the technical information behind projects, instead relying on paper high-level project summaries going forward. Accordingly, we believe the report should be disregarded. Thank you.

All right. With that, we will adjourn the work session and get started back up at 6:30.

You expecting that? Sorry. Full stop. Yes. Yeah, really.

Yes, I should have said that. I finally realized.

I read all of Ben Walker's pieces for the past few years. Yeah, it's heartbreaking. Heartbreaking. You know, any piece of—. Alice got invited and we're just this former colleague.

Yeah, he brought him on today. I was asking him, how was your experience at the PhD program? It's great. Yeah, yeah, like all of it. It was like a joy.

Are you guys at West?

Okay. Cool. Yeah. So I reached out to Ben. Hi stranger, how's it going?

Yeah, it's Mike. Mike Timelord. Yeah, yeah, totally. Do you know anything about the IB program? For my 7th grader, I took her to Anchorage in July.

I know. I'm like, what are the benefits of the IB program? Does that sound like an option? Yeah, my daughter's, you know, older daughter's school didn't have that. That's a good question.

Well, we'd just be using it as a tool to have both our kids go to the same school. Oh, okay. Right. Well, yeah, I mean, yeah, I think there's like 50 people on the board, and then, you know, 20 of them have accreditation or whatever. So I just want like a state-run concept to be great about Colombian peers that are also—.

That's all I'm looking for. I'm not after like special degrees or graduating 2 years early, duty houser. I just—. Yeah, yeah, yeah, because otherwise we'd be lottering for neighborhood options or sibling preference. But I have an older one going there before the house stronger one that might be an HD there.

And I don't want them to, you know, girls, I don't want to, you know, social relationships, friends, school's an investment. You don't like just kind of jerking them around.

Anyway, that's cool, you made it. Oh yeah, they definitely started that. So, yeah.

Okay, so just to hedge up on the consent agenda, just in case we put up consent by accident, so I'm actually going to ask the board to approve the, the, the ID form.

No, it says the regular Deda, not Tiffany Deda. So it'll be full from there. Got the correct name. I had to walk in the bathroom for it for so long. Huh?

Especially the guy from the air, remember that? No, that's a good name.

I'm here, I'm on. Are you on? Are you on? Yeah. Okay.

Lori, can you hear me?

Can you hear me? Yeah, I can hear you, Lori. But I don't hear you.

Jared, can you try again, please? Yep. Can you hear me? Yes, thank you. Okay.

Okay, let's call the October 19th meeting of the Planning and Zoning Commission to order. May we please have the roll call? Andres Spinelli. Here. Jared Gardner.

Here. Radhika Krishna. Here. Scott Pulice. Here.

Jeff Raun. Here. Brandy Eber. Here. Radhika Krishna.

Here. Megan Mills. Elizabeth Appleby. Here. Edith McKee.

Here. You have a quorum. Thank you. Thank you. May we have a motion to approve the minutes?

Moved by Commissioner Pulis, seconded by Commissioner Eber. Are there any comments on the minutes for Monday, September 14th, or Monday, September 21st?

Hearing and seeing none, any objections?

Hearing none, minutes are approved.

Next item, special order of business. Are there any disclosures?

Commissioner Eber. I was absent from both September meetings and will abstain from voting on the consent agenda. Thank you. Any other disclosures? Questions from the commission?

Seeing none, move on. Um, there was a typo on the original agenda. Case 2026-0124 was added to the consent agenda, so we'll be looking to pull that item from the consent agenda.

So is there a motion to pull any items from the consent agenda?

Okay, okay. Is there a motion to approve the consent agenda?

That is moved by Commissioner Krishna. Krishna, seconded by Commissioner Mills. Anyone wishing to pull any items from the consent agenda?

Commissioner Rahn. I move to pull, uh, what's currently identified as Item 5A. That's Case 2026-0124 from the consent agenda.

Thank you.

Are there any objections to the remaining items on the consent agenda?

Hearing, seeing none, consent agenda is approved. Next, move on to our regular agenda.

First case 2026-0124. May we please have a staff presentation?

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Sorry. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Good evening, Commissioners. Daniel McKenna-Foster, Long Range Planning, talking about PCC Case 2026-124, which is the budget and capital investments, uh, CIP/CIB. We just— for those listening, we just discussed this in a work session and the slides discussed during the workshop are available on the OMB website. Encourage everybody to look at that. So why do we do this?

The code requires PCC to review the MOA, CIP, and CIB, and the ASD, the school district CIP, CIB. Long-range planning brings the CIP, CIB to PCC every year, and the planning department is generally not involved in the creation of the budget, just reviewing it and bringing it to you to make a recommendation. So again, in 2103, there's— this is a, a shall activity of the Planning and Zoning Commission. The Planning and Zoning Commission shall make review and make recommendation to the assembly and school board regarding annual capital improvement program of the municipality and school district. The land use plan talks about the need to align capital planning with the land use plans, and of course more specifically land use plan, 2040 land use plan policy 1.5 calls for us to align Anchorage's land use, transportation, infrastructure planning, design guidelines, and investments account for existing infrastructure and system capacity and planned facility investments, link capital improvement priorities with elements of the Comprehensive Plan, including the 2040 Land Use Plan and area-specific plans.

Director Brouse talked a little bit about some of the limitations of this in a constrained fiscal environment, so I encourage anybody to watch the work session to hear her comments on that. And also in our report, we provide just some overview, some trends that we've seen with some changes. Big-level policy changes, other plans or things that have been adopted. So I'd be glad to answer any questions about that. Finally, our recommendations just mostly align investments with big-picture priorities of the plan.

Treat capital projects as investments to spur other investments in the surrounding area. You know, find out a way to off-ramp projects. Sometimes we have projects that end up on projects list for years and years. And the Muni doesn't have a clear way of sort of letting those go, even if there might be some invested time in that. But there's sort of a sunk cost fallacy related to that.

If practical investments don't align with the Comprehensive Plans, then update the plans. And also consider long-term impacts. Every time we build new infrastructure, we have to think about there will be a cost to maintain that. One day there will be a cost to rebuild that. And finally, we recommend sort of either honestly clarifying it priority reinvestment focus areas or just taking them off the map.

They show up in the map every year, but we don't actually have any adopted reinvestment focus areas. Those are an official process that the assembly has to approve, and we have not— the media has not gone through that process. So you'll see our recommendations. Just review the CIB, CIP, make any suggestions or recommendations for forwarding to the assembly. And we have some suggested findings that we talked about this at a work session and now here.

And that also there's— municipalities face some uncertainty about revenue. So with that, I'd be glad to answer any questions or provide any additional information. Thank you.

Start with any commission— any questions from the commission for planning staff before we move on to Director of OMB.

Seeing none, we— I guess I'd invite up Director of OMB to share some comments about the plan.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Ona Brause, Director of the Office of Management and Budget. I believe this is the follow-on from all of the information we just discussed for a very long time. If there are any questions related to any specific capital projects or the capital budget planning process, I am available.

Otherwise, I think that the presentation traditionally before the Planning and Zoning Commission involves the sort of approval or agreement that the capital budget presented in front of you includes projects and plans from municipal master plans. If there are additional findings that the commission would like to make related to the capital budget, I'm available for any questions to clarify.

Any questions from the commission? Commissioner Rahn.

Thank you. Through the chair, thank you for the presentation you gave during the work session and being open to questions during, during the public hearing. My first question is with respect to the Budget Advisory Commission resolution. That's been issued. Nodding suggests that you've seen it, which is great.

Working backwards, I'm most interested in their— what they resolved, items 7 and 6. For those of us following along at home in the planning staff memo, it's on page 23 and 22 of 26. Item 7 is a recommendation that the administration and assembly initiate a comprehensive evaluation of the current service area framework And Item 6 is the Commission urging the Administration and Assembly when preparing and approving the Capital Improvement Plan, CIP, to explicitly evaluate ongoing maintenance burden of expanding low-density road networks as opposed to encouraging higher-density infill. So, two parts to that. If you could tackle them, I'm interested to hear how, if at all, those recommendations were accommodated or not into the current CIP and CIP.

Through the chair to Commissioner Rahn, the Budget Advisory Commission resolution that you were speaking about, I believe, was adopted within the last month, or is that last year's that you are reading?

Uh, 2026-01, I believe it was, um, the 13th day of August 2025, right? So that is the recommendation from the Budget Advisory Commission on what they would like to see out of the budget process. As far as the service area review, we are doing that both with the Budget Advisory Commission and with the Assembly. Our Budget and Finance Committee meetings that happen monthly include— have included over the last many months a service area review. There are presentations on both the Budget Advisory Commission website and the Budget and Finance Committee website that include a sort of a robust defining of what service areas are and how it creates a challenge within our municipal structure.

If the question is, are we revising service areas in this budget, the answer is not to my knowledge. And but that is a conversation that is part of of this transition that Anchorage is in is, is the service area model the way we move forward? And if so, you know, are there other ways that we can adjust that give us more flexibility than we currently have, particularly for large community investment?

In terms of maintenance and— can you tell me that part again? Sure, to recap, Commission Resolution 6 urging the administration and assembly to evaluate the ongoing maintenance burden of expanding low-density road networks as opposed to encouraging higher-density infill-type developments. And in terms of deferred maintenance generally versus deferred maintenance with road infrastructure, et cetera. I think we have the same challenge with both, which is that we are not funded in the way that allows us to make discretionary choices for the most part, particularly for the last decade. Our budget, as we discussed a little while ago, we are funding at a $50 million level on an annual basis as opposed to a $250 million level on an annual basis.

And that means that the bulk of our choices come down to what absolutely needs to be fixed tomorrow and how How can we fund that? Let's forward that revenue. The total deferred maintenance of the municipality, including facilities and roads and stormwater, we're working through a process right now of collecting all of that information so that we can have a more robust planning process going forward on all of these items. What are the costs and how much of these different needs do we have so that we can start to plan appropriately with either the revenue that we currently have or with any revenue that we are able to design and plan for.

Thank you. I will stay engaged with the process as it moves forward, perhaps to work the question from— in another venue. Thanks.

Any other questions?

Commissioner Rahn.

Thank you, through the chair. Ms. Ona Brause, I'm not sure if this question is best suited for you to respond to, or perhaps someone else from the administration here tonight. Again, referring to the memo, page 19, there's a listing of projects. This one caught my attention. The Long Range Planning Department, with an eye towards long-range planning, put forward some thoughts around some projects that are out there in the news, money's been spent on in terms of preliminary design, perhaps even.

And one of those projects is the Seward Highway project, milepost 98.5 to 118. I'm interested in the relationship between projects like that and other priorities that AMATS has. Through the chair to Commissioner Aran, you are correct. I am not the right person to ask that question.

Anybody? There we go.

Hello. I am Erin Yongunilan. I am the executive director of AMATS. Um, I guess, can you be a little more specific on what you are asking for? Certainly.

Uh, to put a finer point on my question, the statement as proposed is that the project in question has an extremely high cost and could adversely impact funding streams for other AMATS projects in the future if it ends up in the AMATS MTP. I believe the draft MTP is out for review currently. It's a pressing issue, so can you please provide some AMATS perspective on this particular topic. Yeah, there's— so it's a little complicated, but there's a lot of funding that comes into the area from various different sources. So we have AMAT-specific funding, which is federal funding that comes to us as the MPO directly that we are responsible for, that must be spent within our area.

And then there's funding that comes to the Department of Transportation that is a statewide perspective that they have to look at. They can spend that money anywhere in the state that they they want. There's limits on what they can do, but by and large is pretty fair game. So for that particular project, it's all going to be funded through state funding or any discretionary— uh, state federal funding or any discretionary grants that they get. So the state can decide to spend it there or elsewhere.

Now, in terms of impact to available funding elsewhere, there's no guarantee of what's going to happen. So I can't say, yeah, for sure, if they spend all the money on the Save for Seward, they won't have money elsewhere. Here. But it is good to keep in mind, as we heard from the budget information, the muni has a limited budget, the state has a limited budget, and the federal government has a limited budget. So it would be safe to assume that there may be a possibility that if a lot of money is spent on one particular project, there is less money elsewhere.

Now, when we say AMATS projects, it will not impact AMATS-funded projects. Because that's with our funding that we use, and that is not going towards the Safer Seward Highway. It would be more fair to say AMATS funded or projects funded in the AMATS area by the Department of Transportation.

Thank you. That answers my question.

Um, I don't see any other commissioners in the queue. I do have one question. The long-range planning memo made reference to off-ramping old projects, and I was just curious if anyone could speak to that. Like, what— how do we feel about that? Is that a necessary thing?

Is that something that is thought about and possibly the result of this late notice memo coming out?

Through the chair, I believe the answer is, um, there of course are ways to off-ramp projects. The question is, how do we want to do that when it takes, you know, anywhere between 1 to 10 years to get funded? If you were supposed to be on that list, when, when do we put our hand in the middle of it and say, nah, it's too late for you, never mind? And, and so I think refining how that works is something that should be done in terms of how can we guarantee if moving forward we aren't continuing down a path just because we already started it. I think that is a government question across the board and figuring out how to high-grade those choices is something PCC can help us do.

So we should be doing that. All right, to the chair. Okay, thank you. I see no further questions.

So what is the will of the body?

Commissioner Pulis, would you like to state your motion? Yes, I move in Case 2026-0124 to recommend to the Anchorage Assembly approval of the 2027 proposed capital improvement budget and the 2027-2032 proposed capital improvement program.

Thank you for breaking that ice. Is there a second?

Seconded by Commissioner Rahn. Commissioner Pulice, would you like to speak to your motion? Yes, I intend to support the motion. Based on my review, this is kind of a standard annual typical CIB, CIP annual plan, no big changes. Of course, things get a little more expensive as time goes by.

I will also add that I support the staff suggested findings on page 13. One is the Planning and Zoning Commission reviewed and discussed the 2027 proposed capital improvement budget and the CIP at work session, and then our meeting tonight. The other is the municipality of Anchorage faces uncertainty about revenues and costs for the proposed capital improvement program, period. I believe that pushes things in the direction of the discussions we were having tonight without going too far into the details.

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

Commissioner Rahn.

Thank you, Chair. I intend to support the motion as well for the reasons as stated by the prior commissioner. My interest is in the carrying forward of some of the recommendations that were put forward and discussed tonight by Long Range Planning. I would like to see the majority, if not all, of those recommendations to carry with our action here this evening.

And I'm unsure of the best way for that to happen.

Can we— is there any staff input on Commissioner Rahn's inquiry? As the best way to make that happen, or can we take a 2-minute recess while I discuss that with Lori?

2-Minute recess.

In front of me.

Secure the seat and don't release the opportunity.

Okay, we are going to Call the meeting back to order. Commissioner Rahn. Thank you, Chair. Understanding that findings have been put forward, I concur with those findings. As a commissioner comment, I would put forward a direction to the department that they incorporate what goes to the Assembly, the 6 bullet points that are listed on page 7 of 26 of the memo that's before us.

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

Hearing none, I'll just say that I also intend to support the motion. I agree with the findings, and I think that this memo from planning is the reason why this, uh, process was added to the purview of P&Z so long ago. So with that, we'll call for the vote.

Mr. Gardner, how do you vote?

Mr. Gardner, how do you vote?

He votes yes. I don't know why he can't hear me.

Oh, for the record, Commissioner Gardner texted that he voted yes. He's having some technical difficulties.

Next, we will move on to the public hearings.

And I will read the process by which the public may speak to the Commission. After staff presentation is completed on public hearing items, the Chair will ask for public testimony on the issue. Persons who wish to testify will follow the time limits established in the Commission Rules of Procedure. Petitioners, including his or her representatives, will receive 10 minutes. Part of this time may be reserved for rebuttal.

Representatives of groups, community councils, PTAs, etc., 5 minutes. Individuals, 3 minutes. When your testimony is complete, you may be asked questions by the commission. You may only testify once on any issue unless questioned by the commission. Any party of interest wishing to appeal shall first file with the planning director within 7 days of the commission decision made on the record a written notice of intent to appeal in accordance with AMC 2103-050-A4A.

Commission recommendations to the Anchorage Assembly are not appealable. Following the approval of the written findings of fact and decision, any party of interest may within 20 days file an appeal by filling— filing a notice of appeal and paying the appeal fee and deposit in accordance with Section 2103050, the notice of appeal must be filed with the planning director on a form prescribed by the municipality. If the appellant is not the applicant, the appellant's notice of appeal shall include proof of service on the applicant.

May we please have the staff presentation in case 2026-01- -0084. Thank you. CB Homes LLC is requesting conditional use approval for a 150-person homeless shelter located at 1911 East 5th Avenue in the B-3 zoning district. This is a commercial building that was previously occupied by a church. Uh, the homeless shelter Linda's Place is currently operating on a temporary basis.

This conditional use would allow it to continue operating in the future. The Planning Department mailed 99 public hearing notices on September 24th. The Planning Department did receive public comments. They appear on page 73 of your packet, and late comments were in a supplemental packet.

The department finds that the approval criteria 1 through 9 are met and is recommending approval of the conditional use application subject to Conditions 1 and 2 on page 6 of your packet. Condition 1, these are both standard conditions. The first one is that the approval is subject to the, uh, the application, all the information contained herein. And then, um, uh, if, if the conditional use is approved, then they would follow through on working with the Planning Department to record a Notice of Zoning Action regarding the approval. The petition site can be seen in the exhibits on page 8 and 9 of your packet.

I'd be happy to answer other questions. The applicant is also in the audience to make a presentation. Thank you.

Any questions for staff?

Commissioner McKee. Hi, just for clarification, there— the existing facility has 100 beds, and this conditional use permit would increase their capacity to 150? Um, uh, that's correct. Um, there— it's my understanding, and this would be, you know, potentially better to be answered by the applicant, but, uh, um, it would be irresponsible to, um, not ask for approval to go up to 150 since they're before you now, because if they were asked to surge any higher, they couldn't do that and be in violation of the conditional use approval. So it— they're not required to increase it.

In fact, they I don't think they're seeking to increase it, but because they're— the zoning allows for 150 and they're in that range, they're seeking approval in case it were to be increased. Thank you.

Commissioner Eber. Um, I'm having a hard time understanding how they're allowed to temporarily operate. Like, what does—. I guess the process— or can someone explain the process of how they're suddenly allowed to operate and not come before us first?

Does that make sense? Yeah, that's a good question. I'm sorry, I don't know the answer to that. The shelters on a temporary basis, it's my understanding that when there's a public health emergency or cold weather event, if there's a reason to open up shelters in an emergency, then, you know, that it is legal and allowed to open up shelters in churches and community spaces and anywhere deemed to be safe. It's just that they don't want to rely on it to always be an emergency forever.

So the community needs more facilities like this to, uh, to deal with the issue that, that we have.

And I'll just speak— I put myself in the queue, but I think Francis answered the question. It's just, uh, basically what he said in summary is there— if there's an emergency order, uh, they're able to operate, but if there was not an emergency order, then They, they would just be illegal and could not operate. And so they need the conditional use approval in order to operate without an emergency order.

Thank you. Any further questions for staff before we invite up Commissioner Rahn?

Thank you. Through the chair, um, Steph, I'm interested in, um, what level of awareness or evaluation you've had of the items provided to us as supplementary packet number 1 tonight, um, some comments and recommendations provided by members of the public relative to this case. Um, has staff digested them, incorporated, had any discussion with the applicant about them? Where does that stand?

Mr. Rahn, thank you. Those late comments were received. We read them and considered them. We haven't made any changes to the department recommendation, but we discussed it briefly with the applicants and let them know. We forwarded these comments as soon as we received them to, to the applicant so they were aware they could be able to respond to some of those questions in this setting.

I had a question about the emergency order. Is there a time limit to that?

I'm sorry, I can't answer that. I wasn't working with the legality of the temporary shelter, just with the application for the conditional use, the zoning part of it. I can maybe answer that because I've had some, some work on other emergency orders. I am not— I guess I've considered them for other shelters, but in general, yes, there is, there's a time limit. Like, the assembly has to— the emergency order expires and the assembly has to put a new emergency order.

So, so yes, there is a time limit. Eventually it will run out unless the assembly renews the emergency order, essentially.

Commissioner McKee. Um, in our— through the chair— in our packet, um, the pre-application conference and community meeting was held in September of '25, but there wasn't a summary of that in the packet? Was there a general—.

Let me think about that one.

I remember discussing it with the applicants during the application process, but I can't remember the deal. Yeah, I was actually asked this question. Um, so, uh, the requirement for our community meetings are they— it's within, uh, 6 months of the application. You can, can get another 6-month extension for it to be within a year. So basically, the timing of the community meeting met our code from, uh, when we received the application.

Uh, so it— I do believe when I looked at the calendar, that's not the question. Oh. The question is, where is the community meeting summary? I see it in the packet on page 23, um, page 23 of the staff packet, and then it does meet code requirements for a community meeting, essentially, is the answer. Yeah.

Oh, I'm sorry, um, I think I understand the question now. During the pre-application conference, we requested information about it, and it's now included in the actual application. I— sorry, this is the first time I've heard that type of question.

Thank you. Thank you. I guess to clarify, I was wondering if there was a summary from that review meeting with the agencies, because it looked like the information in our packet was more aligned with the community council meeting that was in '26. And so I was curious if— but maybe it was all integrated.

Okay. Yeah. Okay. So I think you're asking about the pre-application conference that the applicant has that is kept private. Okay.

Thank you.

Commissioner Mills.

I wanted to ask, and I hope I didn't miss this in the packet, is there any master plan or, you know, municipality of Anchorage strategy with regard to the homeless shelters that we can— or I should say transient shelters— that we can reference and look at when we review this?

Um, uh, Miss Mills, uh, for me as a planner in the planning department, um, I was not looking at anchored home or homeless strategies or, or any of those, but to simply process an application against the approval criteria in the zoning code. Um, and, uh, homelessness is a very big issue, and I am no expert in that. We have people in the Health Department and others that work on those issues, but that's— this is just an application by a private group to, to have one of these types of businesses, if you call it that, at this location.

There are some long-range Anchorage 2040 and Anchorage 2020 comprehensive plans goals and policies that speak to this about different types of supportive housing and for people with disabilities and that.

Thank you. Commissioner Pullis. Excuse me. Yeah, I was just gonna throw this out there as some thoughts, comments from everybody. Is it within our purview to do temporary conditional use approvals, like for a year or something like that, based on feedback we can get regarding things like security measures and stuff like that?

No, that's a good question and a good thought. No, the idea is that an applicant comes before the body and then they get the surety of an approval and then they can make the investment in that. You can't sort of like move the goalposts and change the rules on people once they're approved. It should be only once. They get their approval, say, here, and then they have to abide by that.

And if they don't, then that becomes an enforcement issue.

Commissioner Krishna.

Yes, before we get into discussion, I think it would be helpful to understand— I understand there's also a shelter licensing process through the Anchorage Health Department, and I think it might be useful to have as a discussion at this point where this commission's purview ends and where enforcement by the Anchorage Health Department, per the terms of a shelter license, is, you know, takes over. Would it be fair to say that many or all of the specifics of an operating plan would fall under the purview of a shelter license, and what this commission is here to do today is to look at the land use? Is that— would you say that's a helpful way of thinking about this? That's an excellent summary. Yeah, thank you.

Thank you, Commissioner Krishna. Commissioner McKee.

I think with that clarification, I'm going to withdraw my question.

Perfect. Seeing nobody else in the queue, we'll invite the petitioner up for their presentation.

Hello, my name is Ron Thompson with Scope Permitting and Engineering, and I put the documents together that are in front of you for the application for the conditional use. A couple quick answers, and then I'll have the operator talk for a few minutes, and then we'll reserve the rest of the questions at the end. This is not asking for increase in number of rooms. It's already 150 during the winter. It will stay— it typically goes down to 100 during the summer because less people need indoors, but it's really asking for the same number that's already there.

It is under an emergency order and under a contract with the municipality and licensing. And you're correct in your question with regard to licensing, that is a 3-year annual— or 3-year cycle. The cycle to discuss on this one is in about a year, in December of 2027. So they will have to follow that process through the health department and their licensing. So that's the ongoing rails that are part of it.

Um, and then working with the community, we did have a community meeting. There was one, um, attendee here that was the same individual who wrote, um, from, um, um, Phil Zach Johnson, who's here. We met with them, have tried to work out operating agreements, worked out some things with APD, worked out with things over the past 8 months, gave them phone calls and gave the community phone numbers to call in the event of anything going on. So only recently have— in the past week maybe— have we started getting calls, whereas the last 8 or 9 months we had received anything, but there is ongoing training with staff and a lot of different changes have been taking place throughout the process. So with that, kind of just giving you a heads up, I believe the 10 items that Phil listed in his letter, 7 of them are already implemented and in place.

A couple others we can't really implement— those the animals And we'll get into those deeper if there's any questions. But I'm going to invite Sheldon Fisher to come up and as the operator to give you a little bit of heads up on the operations side. And then we'll reserve the rest of our time for rebuttal at the end.

Thank you. Good evening. I'm Sheldon Fisher with MASH Property Management, and we're the operator of Linda's Place. Case. At the request of the municipality, MASH began providing transitional housing about 6 years ago.

And we currently operate in Linda's Place, the Alex, as well as 3 properties for Anchorage Affordable Housing and Land Trust. Between all these locations, we provide shelter and housing for over 500 individuals that are experiencing homelessness or have recently begun to lease their first homes. In addition, through a sister company, we also recently completed the redevelopment of the Wild Birch Hotel, and we're in the midst of redeveloping the old post office mall on 4th Avenue. The challenges that come from homelessness, from a large homeless population, stress our entire community, both those experiencing homelessness as well as business and residents. We have somewhere between 2,500 and 3,000 homeless individuals, or rather I should say individuals experiencing homelessness, and.

The municipal— the municipality has contracted services for about— for sheltering services for about 450 individuals, and community partners provide additional sheltering. We estimate that somewhere between 500,000 individuals remain unsheltered in our community. At the same time, the closure of homeless camps and the renovation of Town Square and Petrovich Park have disrupted normal behavioral patterns which have benefited certain parts of our community and put stress on other parts of our community. We're proud, proud of our work. We care deeply for those experiencing homelessness and the challenges they face.

And we believe that most of those providing services agree that Linda's Place is one of the best-run shelters in Anchorage. We have segregated space for women, for men and women, which provides a different additional security for our women, the women we serve. We have an integrated behavioral health specialist to attempt to address the underlying issues. We have specific protocols around cleanliness to ensure that our shelter is one of the cleanest in the city. We attempt to minimize drug and alcohol abuse while recognizing that we manage a low barrier shelter and we offer high quality food.

At the same time, we are also business people and we recognize the impact that uncontrolled behavior can have on the community, and we strive to minimize the impact of that every day. As has been said, we met early when we opened the shelter with the community members, and as part of this process, we also had a public meeting with members of the community. We've attempted to listen to their concerns and address our behavior accordingly. And to address the question about process and review. There is an ongoing review process.

We submit regular reports to the Anchorage Health Department. We collaborate weekly with a consultant hired by the municipality to oversee our work. We attend monthly meetings with the community council, and we report regularly to the Assembly Homeless Working Group. And as has been mentioned, we are also a licensed as a shelter operator, which, which renews every 3 years. We believe these existing review and licensing protocols are the appropriate venues to address any concerns about our performance and the impact on the community, and we appreciate your time and hope you will support this change of use.

Any questions for the petitioners?

I have one question. There's mention of being previously being a church. Are we still a church? So by that, some of you may recognize that this location was most well known as Fantasy on Fifth. It was a— I don't know what you describe it— a dance strip club.

Strip club. Okay, that's what you describe it. And then it was purchased And for a period of time, I think there was an attempt to operate it as a church, and I think that may have continued for a short period of time. When we began to occupy it, it was vacant. No one was using the space.

Thank you. A question from Commissioner McKee, and your 4 minutes of rebuttal time is saved. Thank you.

Hi, thank you through the chair. In our packet and from the public meeting summary, it states that the owner representative would do more security patrols and work with APD. And then looking in here, it says that you would do perimeter security checks, that they would be done— it says that they should be done every 30 minutes. Would the petitioner be willing to change this from like a should to a shall so that it's guaranteed that these are happening? Because one of the statements in here is that that even since this was said that it would be implemented, that the adjacent property owners have not observed these patrols happening.

So, yeah, that's— I mean, they are happening every 30 minutes. We patrol. And if you're familiar with the neighborhood, our— the location of the property is at the corner of Sitka and Fifth Avenue, and we patrol down Sitka Street across to Unger and back. And we have— we do— we run those patrols every 30 minutes. We have recently in the last 30 days or a couple of weeks, we've received a number of complaints from the community about some behavior.

And so we have actually in the last just couple of weeks retrained our people. And one of the things that we weren't doing very well was picking up trash. And so we've asked our people to pick up trash as they do those patrols. There's also a little bit of a question about our authority, if you will, to deal with issues that may be on public property. We attempt, when we see people, whether they're our guests or just other people in the community, we, we attempt to invite them to move along.

If we confront hostile behavior, we call Anchorage Police Department and they come and work to deal with it. So we are working very diligently, and the patrols happen pretty regularly on a 30-minute basis. And then one of my other questions was that the packet that we had says that the people who are housed in the shelter must be sober. But on the intake, client intake form, it doesn't say that— kind of indicates Sober isn't necessarily tested. It's like, yeah, that would be a mistake.

We're not allowed per our contract with the city to require sobriety. We do search them and they're not allowed to bring drugs or alcohol into the shelter, but they can enter the shelter inebriated or high.

And, and then, so my other— another question that I have for you, um, Criteria 2 says that there would be no environmental impacts, that there would be, um, you know, that the adjacent residential areas and businesses are protected from potentially negative impacts associated with commercial activity. So I would ask, what are— what, um, items or tools do you have in place to prevent things like public fighting, public defecation, or other behaviors on site that might be potentially negative impacts to your adjacent businesses? So, um, to the chair, uh, we— our experience and what we've done in this shelter and other shelters we've run is that we operate a very a very positive environment that we find the community is desirous to participate in. And what that allows us to do is when anyone comes in, we have a good neighbor policy that we review. It's posted around the shelter and it defines— excuse me— behavior that is acceptable not just inside the shelter but in the neighborhood.

And when we find someone that is violating those policies, then they're asked to leave and they're not allowed to to be in the shelter. And the fact— that combination of having a well-run environment that people want to be part of and enforcement of those policies, we find generally people over time modify their behavior. We also— these patrols are an important part of that as well. And of course, as you can appreciate, I think many businesses suffer the impact of homelessness. And some of that is our guests and some of it's not.

And so it's not a perfect solution, but we strive through a combination of those things to minimize the impact on our neighbors.

Next up, Commissioner Rahn. Thank you. Through the chair, Mr. Fischer, there's a Planning Department advisory comment around the 4-foot chain link fence along the east property line recommending discussion with your neighbor? What's the status of discussions and potential plans around that fence? So the owner of that property is here, and there's— just to kind of give you a little bit of background, there's a— we, when we purchased— or not purchased, but we leased the property and began, we fenced in a fair number of the, of the perimeter of the facility with a 6-foot fence.

There was a 4-foot fence between the property that you're referring to. And in addition to that, there's a fair amount of vegetation and growth. We felt like that was enough of a barrier, and so we did not at that time replace the fence. I'm aware of one incident that might have been prevented with a larger fence. We've installed cameras and we monitor it, but I'm not aware that replacing that fence would materially change the nature of impacts that we may be struggling with.

Thank you. I see no further questions. We will— you have 4 minutes for rebuttal. We'll open the public hearing. Anyone from the public wishing to testify, please step forward.

One second, please. We got to do a quick test.

Mr. Gardner, can you hear us?

Yes, I can hear you. Can you hear me? Yes, we can. Thank you. Sorry about that.

Um, let us know if you're testifying on behalf of yourself or a group, and please state your name for the record. And you could pull that mic down, but it is turned on. Hi there, my name is Lisa Stevens. I'm here for Castle Megastores. I'm going to read a statement from our president and CEO.

Unfortunately, he couldn't attend, but he asked that I step in. Is that, is that fine? Yes. Okay.

Good evening, Commissioners. Castle Makes Store appreciates the opportunity to address the ongoing public safety concerns surrounding Linda's Place, located directly adjacent to our Anchorage business. We recognize the importance of providing shelter and assistance to individuals experiencing homelessness. However, supporting this mission should not come at the expense of the safety of the neighboring businesses, employees, customers, and residents. The current operators of Linda's Place have demonstrated they do not have the ability to properly operate this facility.

When they started, they stated nobody would be allowed if using drugs or carrying weapons. Unfortunately, that does not stop people who fall under this category to attempt to use the shelter. What this means is Linda's Place has become a magnet for these individuals who then menace our businesses, our employees, and customers. This has created a serious nuisance to our community. Linda's Place is not capable of managing this ongoing problem.

Since the opening in September of '25, our business has experienced significant deterioration in the surrounding environment, including multiple fires started in our dumpster and parking lot, creating serious risk of injury and property damage. Frequent— and this has happened as of this week— frequent issues with homeless shelter guests offering prostitution services to our customers and employees in the parking lot. Intimidating and disruptive encounters inside our store, leaving employees and customers frightened and concerned for their personal safety. Suspected drug transactions on or near our property, raising concerns about criminal activity. Repeated trash dumping and debris accumulation, creating additional cleanup responsibilities with health and safety concerns and negatively affecting our property.

Bodily fluids and human feces.

Property—. Our property appraisal value has been reduced since the opening of our shelter. These incidents have created an environment in which our employees are increasingly concerned about their safety and customers may be reluctant to visit our business. Our Anchorage location has experienced a 17% year-to-date decline in customer traffic. While we recognize that multiple factors influence retail traffic, we are deeply concerned that the recurring safety issues surrounding our property are contributing to this decline.

And just as a point of reference, our overall company is experiencing a modest 2% traffic increase. So this -17% is a big gap.

A particular concern is the lack of effective security measures surrounding the shelter.

Before Linda's Place opened, neighboring businesses were assured that security patrols would help maintain safety in the surrounding area. The municipality July 2025 shelter contract recommended Recommendation also identify patrols monitoring activity both inside and outside the facility. This has not been the case surrounding the area. I myself flew in from Phoenix. I arrived about 12:30, um, Sunday morning.

I drove over to our location and sat in the parking lot, took pictures, and I did not see any patrolling. I saw people walking around within the interior of the shelter. That, that area before you exit to the street. But I didn't see anybody out on the street except for the homeless people. This has caused significant safety and financial damage to our community.

The renewal of this facility should be canceled accordingly. We believe the better solution to help the homeless is to locate these facilities in a different part of the city, not so near business or residential areas.

Based on our experience, those commitments made by the shelter has not resulted in effective or consistent security presence protecting our property. We believe the repeated incidents demonstrate serious shortcoming in the measures intended to protect the neighboring business. Casa Megastore has invested in the Anchorage community through employment, business operations, and contributions to the local community. Like other taxpaying businesses and residents, we have a reasonable expectation of safety and and protection from recurring criminal activity.

Neighboring businesses and residents should not be expected to continually absorb these safety risks and disruptions. As this is a renewal is considered, we respectfully request the municipality reevaluate the suitability of the current location.

Um, your time is up. Okay, unless there's questions from—. Can I leave these here in case anybody wants to read? Uh, you could deliver it up here.

Thank you.

See no questions. Next.

Good evening. My name is Cheryl Cox Williams. I am the president of the NAACP here in Anchorage. Uh, full disclosure, I'm in law enforcement administration, and I have a bachelor's in psychology from UAA. Quickly, I would like to address some of the statements that have been made that may be changing the way that the commission thinks about this situation.

I have on good authority that our contractor for this building has been to the community council once or twice to get an agreement. And they are in communication with them, but they do not attend these meetings monthly. I also know that these patrols that have been stated to occur every 30 minutes may be happening on a piece of paper somewhere, but they're not happening in the way that you and I as private citizens believe that a patrol occur. So there needs to be some definition as to what and who is qualified to be doing these patrols, because there's training that goes along with crowd management and what patrolling and what you're looking for. Also, from what we know about having a group of people together, I have long been on the position that we should not be housing hundreds of people with problems because hurt people hurt people.

So this plan and this, as it was refined for us, the decision to decide on what the zoning should look like— this zone should not have 100 hurt people who have the potential to hurt people. They need attention on a more individualized or small group basis. This housing is detrimental to the living and acquiring skills for being healthy in our society. I would like to continue to remind this Commission that we need to look for solutions that have long-term benefits. Right now, putting our transient population into a space to keep them out of gentle people's view is not going to sustain this community.

It's going to continue to push a blight into a place where you're going to have the community arguing again, not in my community. We need to individualize the problem and not make it into one blight. This commission has an incredible opportunity right now to stop 150 as an option, and it'll move back into the health department's zone. Thank you for your time.

Thank you.

Good evening. My name is Lyndall Myers. I have the privilege of operating and managing—. What was— sorry, what was your first name? Lyndall Myers.

I have the privilege of operating and managing Truck Pro LLC. We're on the corner of 3rd and Sitka. I recently heard a statement that in today's society, a lost art is doing what mama taught us to do. Some of those things are respect for authority, basic courtesy and manners, and self-control. These things are evident in our daily encounters with the clients of Linda's Place and the environment that has been attracted to the area of business operations.

Since the opening of Linda's Place in September of 2025, the overall crime, harassment, and vagrancy has elevated exponentially. Things that our business has experienced since the opening of Linda's Place has our front entrance doors being smashed in, customers, employees, and vendors being threatened with weapons, break-ins to our business, break-ins to vehicles and equipment on the property, vandalism, encounters of sexual acts and pro— and prostitution. And my favorite part is the daily cleanup of those things that come to and from Linda's Place today. I filled more than a 5-gallon bucket of items from the weekend: used condoms, liquor bottles, one of which was shattered across the side of our building, used feminine products, drug paraphernalia of every form and fashion, food wrappers, food waste, and at— and last but not least, 4 piles of used toilet paper.

While everything and everyone may not be a client of Linda's, it is all newfound attention that has become the norm around our business and our property since it opened. We have gone through the process of filing a trespass plan with the municipality, posting no trespassing after business hours signs, and having over $15,000 of additional lighting installed. And random security patrols, none of which seem to make any difference in what we are experiencing. When local law enforcement has been called, the general sense of the existence and effect and presence of Linda's Place is voiced to us as they are a business offering a service just like you. This mentioning is not just— is not meant to be a slander on the great law enforcement officers that have shown up but speaks to an underlying mentality towards the situation.

We are expected to— sorry, we are expected to tolerate the crime, the filth, and the environment because they chose to open our business district. As a business manager who makes goals and plans and things of business image, it makes me wonder what the city's plans when it regards to image when a place like Linda's has opened 4 blocks as you come into our city. Please consider my statements today in considering renewing their approvals.

Thank you. Thank you, sir.

Hello, my name is Shirley Eichholz, and I have owned—.

Can you restate your name? Shirley Eichholz, E-I-C-H-H-O-L-Z.

Thank you. I share the common property line. I am the 4-foot fence. And, uh, 1958, my grandparents bought the property there on 5th Avenue next to what was the Old Irish Setter. I own 3 other piece of properties a block behind on 4th Avenue.

I've been assaulted 4 times this summer, twice at my own house that I live on in East 4th, right behind the shelter and twice on the commercial property that adjoins Linda's place. The only reason that gentleman knows about the one incident about the 4-foot fence is because I just told him when I met him, because I went around the room introducing myself to people who are also members of the community there. I just want to say we really need a 6-foot fence. Somebody jumped that fence when I was clipping the vegetation along our property line. He got stuck in the fence, but I wasn't going to touch him because he was intoxicated and violent.

Last night at 3:30, I was looking at my commercial building because I put from my house a block to see what's going on, and I look in the alley and stuff, and I was accosted then by a gentleman who was apparently doing meth or fentanyl or whatever he was doing in the alley. And I said, you're trespassing on the property. That we have there. And if I hadn't had my car door locked, he was yanking on the door. He said he's not trespassing, and he started banging on my window.

If he would have shattered that, I'm sure he would have beat me to death. And as far as what these other folks has testified for, there is no security around the perimeter. Uh, when I was assaulted last night, I went to go find someone there And luckily some fella came out who was on his phone smoking a cigarette. And I asked him if he was security and he said, yeah. And I said, you know, blah, blah, blah.

And he just looked at me like deer in the headlights. And I said, can you get your supervisor? And so that lady was really nice. She came out with another lady. I described the guy who assaulted my car and stuff.

And I said, you need to get him out of the shelter. And she said, I will. I don't know if that happened. There was another man who assaulted me at my home. I showed a picture of him to— I think it was a man, I'm not sure— that was also a supervisor, and he said they were going to remove him from the shelter.

But if you want to know anything about that area right there, I've been there since I was born in 1960. So I've been there in those two blocks of East Fourth Avenue and on Fifth Avenue for 60, 60. I'm 67 years old, so I can tell you whatever you want to know about what's going on there. So, but I, I'm really hoping you'll put a conditional use that they put a 6-foot fence there because they really are dangerous. Some of the people, some are really nice, some you can wave at, but other ones are really violent.

And we just ask that if you're going to do drugs Have them do them on your, your big parking lot, not on our property. Thank you. And so you're generally in support with the condition of adding a 6-foot fence. Is that what I'm hearing? Oh God, I'm praying.

3 Times I contacted MASH with Leslie Riddle, their vice president of something, and she admitted in the email that the 4-foot fence was not enough security. I don't know who's in charge of putting up the 6-foot fence so that it matches their other fences. I don't know why they didn't do it to match their other fence, but I don't want to pay for it. They're making money. I think they should pay for it, not me.

I mean, I'm already fencing my other properties because of the other people that have come on my properties from there. And I follow the people in my car to make sure they're shelter people, you know, because I don't want to accuse somebody else that's not there.

So thank you. I have a question from Commissioner McKee. Through the chair, so this area gets a lot of transient movement. It always kind of has. Since you've lived in the area for a very long time and you may have already answered my question, do you think the spike is directly related to the shelter, or— so I'm asking if you have, because you were in— you live there, you're in close proximity, your businesses are there— have you seen a, a significant spike directly associated to when the facility opened in September of '25?

Yes, because the other transients, they just moved from like North Mountain View to Bean's Cafe. So they would use, I think that's Commercial Drive there. The first thing that opened was the first pot store on Unga and Third. I got a little people around my dumpster in the alley. Nothing that caused concern.

They didn't assault me. They didn't do anything. Safe Harbor people there, I think it's called Sitka Place, wave at them all the time. They always wave back. Nice people.

These other people that are moving into this other shelter, some are nice. I can't say they're all bad. There's a lot of violent people there who do not respect women. I consider myself getting old, so I guess you could say they don't respect old people either. And just it's sad what it's turned into with that opening.

So, and I'll just express I'm, I Sorry to hear that you've been assaulted. That sounds very terrifying. I'm glad you're okay. Yeah, thank you.

Uh, thank you.

Anybody else wishing to testify?

Good evening. Uh, my name is Nedzipi Bramey. I'm a resident at Can you spell the name? It's N-E-D-Z-I-P-I-B-R-A-I-M-I.

Once again.

Gotcha. Okay. N-E-D-Z-I-P-I-B-R-A-I-M-I.

Thank you. Go ahead. Well, I'm a resident in the neighborhood there. I have a house there. It's just a single house.

It's not a business. I work for a living.

Anyway, been there for about 27 years now, so since like '99 or so.

And it has become a problem over the years. All the homelessness has increased, all the, you know, Certainly the trash right now, lately, if you go right now, you're going to find trash everywhere. I try to manage to clean it in front of my house a lot of times, just sweep it myself, pick it up myself, but I cannot do the whole neighborhood. So it has become a problem. There's been people that— there is two cannabis stores nearby, so drugs are not that hard for the homeless to get.

If they have the money, you know, they probably just going to just buy them, just walk up to them.

As far as patrols go, I haven't seen patrols there in probably longer than a month, and I'm out there at any time of the day pretty much.

So get up like early at 4 o'clock in the morning and Sometimes I see homeless people just sitting there on the street, you know, smoking pot or drinking or whatever they're doing, you know. And, you know, but, um, so the location is not exactly a good place for it, as you heard from the rest of the businesses, business owners and runners.

And so anyway, the— what I'm trying to say is that the sheltering is not contained to the property itself. It affects the whole neighborhood there. And there is trash, there is needles and, you know, glass everywhere. From time to time, there's people walking And some of them don't even have, like, at night they don't wear any kind of reflective clothing or nothing, you know. And then in, uh, during evening times, it's kind of hard to see them sometimes, you know.

They're gonna get run over there, and they walk in the middle of the street. Uh, it's so— but it's definitely been different since when I moved in and now.

And so that's all I gotta say.

Uh, thank you.

Anybody else wishing to testify, please step forward.

Hi, I'm Suzette Ibrahimi, and I witnessed a guy just 2 days ago peeing in my neighbor's house and checking out his yard, and I told him to get the hell away, but he do— he left. But it's stuff like that. I have 2 small children that I watch that are my, my grandchild and my friend's kid, and I can't take them outside without worrying if somebody's gonna come up or expose themselves like that. So I don't want them there because of my children, of the children.

So I don't know if we can— what we can do with them, but I don't need them around my grandson and my friend's kid. They're 5 and 2 years old. I don't need someone coming in peeing on the street and exposing themselves.

So that's what I got to say. Thank you. Anybody else wish to testify?

Hello, my name is Terry Holtman. I'm one of the business owners on 1900 East Third.

I basically just going to repeat everything everyone else said. There's a huge uptick in vagrancy, vandalism, people store booze on our property or around it. There was a firearm stored near our property so they can get into the shelter. And it's a significant uptick since Linda's Place has gone in. And I get, you know, there's a cost to homelessness and we all pay for it one way or the other.

If they're a for-profit business And I'm a for-profit business, and I have to absorb the cost of doing business. They should also absorb the cost of doing business. Their patrols are just a volunteer in a vest. They don't actually do anything. We've had to hire private security to actually make a meaningful presence.

And everyone could say that 100 times over, and it's all true. But there's also the other part where it's not a good spot for the occupants either. I mean, they're all people with vices and addictions. If you have any experience with homelessness, that's basically 100% consistent. So we probably shouldn't house them immediately adjacent to a highway, a hotel.

Sex toy shop, pot shops, and make it low barrier entry. That's just not a good idea, and I hope you take that into consideration.

Thank you.

Anybody else wishing to testify?

Hi, my name is Phil Johnson. I'm one of the owners of Air Source Alaska along with Terry, and I want to thank the commission. I want to thank Commissioner Eber. Your question I felt was good. It—.

September of 2025, the shelter appeared, and it felt like it was kind of forced on us with no notice. And to quantify the difference, this is a transient part of town with the, the bus stops on Third, but based on just what we see on the corner of Third and Sitka, it was an immediate 500% increase, an immediate 500% increase from September of 2025. And I, I understand the, the justification and need for cold weather shelters, but it seems to have been a crescendo over the summer, especially in the last few months. And in my mind, and this might be outside the scope of this hearing, but a model for a shelter, it's been mentioned before me, we're taking some of the most vulnerable of society and putting them in a box with the predators of society. And the model itself needs to be questioned, especially outside of the coldest months of the year, because they haven't needed cold weather shelter for the last several months.

And it is a for-profit business destroying the for-profit businesses and residences around them. And we've had employees assaulted. We've had conferences with Anchorage Police Department. We were advised to be good victims. And in my defense, the staff from the shelter mentioned that they haven't heard many complaints.

But we're very busy. We're a commercial contractor. We average 50-hour weeks, and we're very results-oriented. And so we're not going to make daily complaints, especially if there's a conflict of interest. You know, we want them to go away, and they want to maintain public image in this thin veil of virtue.

And so we have hired private security. They show up in 15 minutes and solve the problem, but it's expensive. It's really expensive. And we didn't have room in the budget for that. This isn't, you know, 2015 Anchorage, Alaska.

This is a different economy. And so I'll forfeit the rest of my time. Thank you.

Thank you.

Anybody else?

Hello, my name is Kathleen Eichholz, and I am part owner of the property to the east of the shelter. And it's really terrible. The people, the residents, or the guests as you call them, will throw rocks at you, chase you with a stick if you ask them to move out of the road. They go on our property and lean against the building. You ask them to leave and they scream at you, beat on your car.

We're told to be good neighbors and be compassionate, which I think we are, but they are not good neighbors. And it seems like no one will ask them, the residents, to be good neighbors, to stay in their own property, to not litter. To not pee and poop anywhere they feel like it. There—. We have to clean up after their dogs.

We clean up their trash.

It's terrible. And I really wish you would do something about it. Thank you.

Thank you. Anybody else wishing to testify, please step forward. Before we bring the petitioner back up.

Seeing no one, bring— ask the petitioner. You have 4 minutes.

Uh, so a number of comments have been made about the patrols, and Chris Chris is here. He's our shelter manager. I thought he'd let him talk to that.

Hi, my name is Chris McClellan. I'm the general manager of Linda's Place. We do have implemented security walks. They may not have been visible in the past. As of recent, I have instructed my staff to wear safety vests outside of their jackets when they're walking, um, so that they— our neighbors know that it is our staff that are walking the neighborhood and doing their things.

They have been instructed to carry a garbage picker and garbage bag with them at least once a shift, uh, to try to help ease the, the trash in the neighborhood. And we are looking into certain trainings to get these guys familiar with what to look for, how to look for it, what to observe, and things of that nature. So we are taking, uh, maybe a reactive measure to some of the things that are going on in the neighborhood, but they are being addressed currently, and we hope to alleviate much of the situation that's happening in the neighborhood.

In addition, um The letter that Phil submitted, he made 10 recommendations, and as has been alluded before, most of these we are currently working to comply with. So I'll just go through them quickly. The capacity limit of 100, we would request that we be allowed to go to 150. That's our contract with the city. We do that only during the winter.

When the conditions are severe outside and the city's looking to provide housing. Um, the Good Neighbor Plan— the written Good Neighbor Plan— we have a Good Neighbor Plan that we've executed with the community council. Um, it includes the security patrols 24 hours a day, um, and the area that has been described. Um, 24-hour contact line, we've got that in place, and we've attempted to share that with the neighbors and happy to share that again with everyone that's here. A protocol for banning our clients that exit— we intentionally do not exit clients overnight.

We exit them in the morning and we give them a bus pass. These are people who we've asked to leave. We give them a bus pass to try to move them out of the area. That's our intent. The only exception to that is if there's something that is dangerous or violent, and then we call the Anchorage Police to department, and they do that.

The daily litter and sanitation patrol, we've talked a little bit about that. The no pet policy, we have— it's our— the city requires that we allow pets, but I will say we, we have a capacity of 5 pets, and we've kind of always had 5 pets, whether it's 100 or 150 people, so that doesn't change significantly.

As we surge. Number 7, in terms of queuing, we don't believe we queue people outside, but, but I've asked that we confirm that and, and that we not queue people— we queue people only inside and on our property, not on public space. Obviously, we'll comply with the shelter license requirements, and we've talked a little bit about the the 1-year, or the renewal of our license over time as a shelter. The last thing that I haven't touched on yet is the 4-foot fence, and we're willing to build an 8-foot fence if that is your desire. I'm available for questions.

Question from Commissioner McKee. Through the chair, I've been on other commissions and with South Central Foundation with their treatment facility that they were putting in. Granted, it's a treatment facility, but they were housing people there who were in recovery. They came before the, the commission to ask for a variance to be able to install a 10-foot fence that had no holes and was not an item that people could see through so that things could not be passed over. Could not be passed through and was a better visual deterrence for adjacent members of the community?

Is, is a 10-foot fence something? Because they did extensive research, including the military recommends a 10-foot fence for these types of facilities. We have not considered a 10-foot fence or the cost of that, so I'd have to kind of look into that. We have, where it's appropriate, put visible slats to reduce the, the visibility into the property. Again, this fence we're talking about, there's a fair amount of growth.

I, I don't know that that would make much of a difference, but we could consider that if that's what the commission would like.

Thank you. I see no further questions. You have 6 seconds remaining.

Take that as the petitioner forfeiting their last 6 seconds. We'll close the public hearing. What is the will of the body?

Commissioner McKee, would you like to state your motion? I move in case 2026-0084 to approve the conditional use permit for a homeless and transient shelter subject to the conditions on page 6 of the staff report.

Thank you. Is there a second?

That's seconded by Commissioner Rahn. Commissioner McKee, would you like to speak to your motion? Yes, I do not intend to support the motion. Um, I, based on the findings in the packet, do not believe that Criteria 1 is met. I do not feel that granting this variance enhances the economic vitality or the adjacent business profitability.

So I don't feel that it enhances shopping activities. I also don't feel that criteria 2 is met. I don't think that the environmental impacts are being minimized. I don't believe that the abutting residential areas are protected from potentially negative impacts associated with the commercial activity of this location. I also don't agree that criteria 5 has been met.

I don't think that the character of the surrounding neighborhood is not anticipated to change in a way that limits the use of other properties. I do feel that the surrounding properties and businesses are being impacted, that their activities have changed as a result of this shelter being located in this place. I additionally don't agree that criteria 7 has been met. They do not think that the proposed use will have no greater impact to noise, air, water, other forms of environmental pollution. So I do feel that there is increased noise and potentially impacts to water quality from people defecating in non-treated facilities.

I have great empathy for the condition of homeless people in our city. I do feel like it's something that we need to do. I think one of the people who provided testimony made a good point that 150 people who are struggling with a variety of situations being consolidated might just be exceeding the capacity of what can be done well. I think that there's a very successful model located in the property adjacent to the church on 15th. The facility is clean.

It's a very successful model of how we can help our transient population transition back into society in a successful way. But I, I do feel that the criteria are not met to grant the variance. I feel that 150 people greatly exceed the capacity of, of the density that we should be consolidating in one singular location. I also— the petitioner seems resistant to incurring the costs that would be necessary for them to provide a secure boundary to their facilities, such as the 10-foot fence. You hear that the adjacent businesses are having to increase and pay for security themselves.

And/or additional lighting at a great impact to their operating costs. We heard one petitioner or public testimony state that they are paying for private security, which comes on site within 15 minutes, but that this is costing them a great amount of money. That's why I don't intend to vote in favor of this motion.

Thank you. Uh, Commissioner Eber. Um, why support the opportunity that the use could provide in helping the homelessness issue that we face. I don't think that I could sum up any better than what Commissioner McGee said. So that being said, I'm just going to add a couple things.

Um, I have issues with Criterion 8 with the DOT. The crosswalks are 800 and 1,400 feet to the west and to the east, and while they're zoned commercial, their particular use has caused significant foot traffic at one of the busiest corridors in Anchorage. And from a practical standpoint, it's obvious from the people testifying tonight that it's just— that permanent shelter is not conducive to the site. Furthermore, there are significant issues with businesses absorbing and experiencing unsolved issues. While I believe those might be, I guess, enforced by different, different agency.

If this use was not allowed, then they wouldn't exist at all.

There's a reason why this is a conditional use permit versus a permitted use, and I don't think this use should be allowed on this site.

Uh, thank you. Commissioner Christian, could staff describe the what would happen if this conditional use application was denied?

Uh, no.

Um, uh, through the chair, uh, Commissioner Krishna, uh, because there is still an emergency order in place, they could still operate under the emergency order. However, at some point that will expire and they could not continue to operate unless the assembly created a new emergency order.

And I was going to say, I'd have to check code. I can't— you can apply— well, actually, one— let me ask one question of my staff before I wanted to add one other thing.

And then I just confirmed what the code says with Francis is that if, if this is denied, they could submit a new application. There is not a waiting time before they, they could resubmit if they wanted to still pursue getting the conditional use. We do have some types of applications where they— that we— there's a certain waiting time before you can reapply.

Uh, I understand the concerns of previous commissioners and of those testifying. I will note that it is late October. This facility houses a significant portion of our shelter beds for this winter. If the commission doesn't feel that they can, um, get to approval tonight, or that we haven't heard sufficient information, I would request that we make a motion to postpone so that the petitioner and staff and neighbors can find their way, hopefully, to conditions that would allow us to keep this not just important, but frankly, I find it hard to imagine what would happen if we, at this moment, after a 1-hour discussion, denied this condition. So I'm not prepared to do that tonight.

And if that is the direction the Commission is going in, I would request that we postpone to give us the opportunity to allow everyone to present more information, including ways that the operator and the City propose that we can fill this gap, because I don't believe that it could be filled otherwise. Thank you. Thank you. Commissioner Baza. I have a question for staff.

So you say that If we reject this conditional use permit, then the shelter will continue to operate as long as there's an emergency order. Two questions: when does the emergency order expire, if you know that? And the second question would be, um, if the assembly was to choose to renew the emergency order, would the neighbors have a chance to go talk to the assembly and present their views?

You could call up the property man— owner and ask them those questions. I don't, I don't know the answer to any of those questions. Through the chair to Commissioner Ibaza, the emergency order is actually from the health director. She has the, the power to call an emergency under which shelters in the municipality are allowed to operate. Without having to meet Title 21 requirements.

I believe that the current emergency order is in effect until she declares that the emergency is over. I don't think there's a set date. So the— and the assembly does not hear conditional uses, and they are not involved, as far as I understand it, they are not involved in declaring that emergency. So this commission is the— basically the venue for the neighbors and the, the public to have a voice in what is happening on that property.

Thank you.

Anybody else wishing to speak to the motion?

Commissioner Rahn.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Um, I appreciate the, um, input provided by an earlier commissioner around, um, not being prepared to vote no on this tonight given the recourse and the the weight of the situation. It's a complex case that is affecting many, many people beyond an hour's worth of discussion being able to resolve.

While I can appreciate other commissioners' comments with respect to the use criteria, I disagree on a number of them. That said, use criteria 5, 6, and 7, I am struggling to come to a conclusion that they are in fact met. At most, I would say partially met. Um, while I'm not a no, I'm not a full yes, um, on the case as it's been presented tonight. Um, all that said, I would like to take up Commissioner Krishna's recommendation and move to postpone indefinitely.

I think a postponement would need to have some elements attached to it as far as what the commission would like to see before reapproached by the applicant, but I'm of the, the mind that a postponement could be in the best interest of, of, of all.

A motion to postpone. Is there a second?

Indefinitely.

I would be happy to add a date certain if we can come to some agreement with the department and the applicant as to timing reasonable, but I also don't want to lock things in from moving too slowly or be too aggressive. I want this to come back before the Commission. Uh, that's seconded by Commissioner Polis. Commissioner Rahn, would you like to say anything further to the motion? Point of information, if possible.

I'm sorry, um, just if you do postpone indefinitely, I think— I believe that puts the applicant in a position where they would need to apply again. For a conditional use, and I'm looking to staff to see if they want to correct that. But if you postpone to a date certain, that may give us a chance to have a work session and have an end date in sight for this discussion.

Thank you for that. I would like to amend the motion to Postpone to a date certain.

Do you accept the amendment?

Commissioner Raulston, would you like to speak to the motion? Not unless I need to identify the date. No, we're good. I think we're good. Well, anybody else wishing to speak to the motion?

I'm sorry to interrupt again, Chair. A date would be very helpful, actually, a date certain. Does the department have a date that they would suggest?

One moment, I'm sorry.

Chair Spinelli, and through the Chair to Commissioner Rahn, I think that if you would like to have enough time to have a work— a work session scheduled in between now and the next meeting on this topic, I would recommend, um, at least a month, um, which puts us into well into the end of November, and potentially would recommend December 14th, which is the second meeting in December.

Commissioner Rahn, would you like to restate your motion? Third time's a charm. Move to postpone to December 14th. Commissioner Pullis, second.

Anybody else wishing to speak to the motion?

Hearing none. Commissioner Pulis. Yeah, I'll just add that, um, you know, I agree with a lot of statements made by their commissioners tonight. I am not into closing transient shelters for people that are in need, but this site itself seems like kind of a menace to the surrounding businesses, and I think we need to figure that out before we can proceed with this. So I intend to support the motion to postpone.

Commissioner McKee.

I'm not sure if this is a question, but can we stipulate conditions with that postponement versus voting tonight? Because it—. There—.

I also agree that we don't want to just abandon people who are in need, but at the same time, the way that they're currently operating their facility is creating significant hardship and risk and costs to the adjacent businesses. I mean, people are being assaulted in their homes. That also has to take precedence, I believe, on the Commission, that we act for public safety. I don't know. I don't know whether that's like we can stipulate conditions like they must install fencing.

They absolutely shall do patrols on a 30-minute time interval because it says should. They're not—. There isn't a shall in their contract. I don't think there's anything that we could say tonight that would force them to do anything tomorrow, but your comments have been heard. If you have any more to make, they will hear them, and assuming they do come back, they will hopefully answer So if we don't vote in favor of postponement, then what happens?

We vote on the original? Then we would be back to the original motion.

Anybody else wishing to speak to the motion to postpone?

Francis? Yeah, does anyone have any questions for staff? Um, so there was originally a motion to approve this. We heard from 3 or 4 commissioners. Um, there are 9 commissioners here.

I don't know how many will attend, uh, you know, a future, um, hearing. Public hearing's been closed. It's been postponed to, uh, I guess make the decision at a future meeting, uh, the December 14th. It's going to snow tonight, right? But It takes 5 positive votes to pass a motion.

We have 9 here. We've heard from 3 or 4. One option is to go through and hear from everyone to see if you have the votes to pass it or not. But if you postpone it the way you've done, I don't know what occurs between now and December 14th. Perhaps we have some sort of, you know, meeting with you all and there's more discussion with the operator, but I've been through this sort of thing for many years, two decades now, and you know, you can't control people's behavior per se.

It's just so— there are issues with— I'm uncomfortable with targeting the operator of a shelter with the responsibility necessarily of of all of the clients, because they are dealing with these issues, and it is not necessarily their fault. Thank you, Francis. But you don't need to be comfortable with it. The Commission will judge their own comfort level. Commissioner Eber.

I think no matter what we decide, it still operates under an emergency order as a condition— or as a shelter. It's not going to shut down tomorrow. It's not going to shut down in a week. It's not going to shut down in a month. So there's time whether we agree tonight or we don't agree on December 14th.

It's still going to operate as a shelter until the emergency order is lifted, which I don't think is going to be lifted anytime soon.

Commissioner Baza. Commissioner Gardner, I don't know if the link is still good, but can you all hear me? Okay, go ahead, Commissioner Gardner. Thank you. Um, I wanted to maybe ask a question to staff about, um, maybe partly in response to, um, Francis's comments.

I think for my own self, the particular, um, approval criteria that I'm struggling with is number 7 with respect to significant adverse impacts. And whether they'll be mitigated or offset to the maximum extent feasible given the testimony we heard tonight. And I think, I think the way that I think about it and would be most helpful to me would be if there would be an opportunity at some point in the future to maybe hear further from the public to see if some changes have been made to help mitigate those and whether that's through increased patrols or more effective patrols or additional fencing or whatever, whatever method may be useful to that. And so from that perspective, I don't know if there's an opportunity to postpone with the potential for additional public hearing and maybe some point even further into the future, assuming that the emergency order will remain in place and allow us to continue operating. And so we'll have an opportunity for a more informed decision for a more permanent conditional use approval.

Real quick, sorry, Commissioner Bossett, can we confirm that we do have the ability to reopen the public hearing? Sure, that is correct. Thank you. Commissioner Bossett. I guess what I was going to say was relating to that, so maybe that negates my point.

I was just going to say that if we postpone, then maybe we don't have the opportunity to hear from the public again. But if we reject the conditional use, then that gives the applicant time to correct some of the stuff that's happening, um, the public to observe it, and a new public hearing be started. But it sounds like we can have a public hearing either way.

Commissioner Krishna, I'll attempt to provide my perspective to staff's question about what information would be helpful between now and December 14th. This is the first, I think, conditional use for homeless or transient shelter that we have seen in many years, maybe since my time on the Commission, which is now, I think, 7 or 8 years. So I think what would be very helpful is both maybe a little bit of legal guidance and some— and a menu of conditional uses that is enforceable through the mechanism we have here at this commission for conditional use enforcement. I would like to know where the lines are between what the Health Department, through the shelter licensing process, can enforce regarding security and other operating facts versus what this Commission is able to reasonably do within the bounds of the conditional use process. I think a menu of options or some legal or administrative guidance would help the Commission stay within our purview while addressing the issue at hand.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Motion to postpone.

To the December 14th meeting.

Anybody else wishing to speak before I call for the vote? Seeing none, we'll call for the vote.

Mr. Gardner, how do you vote?

Yep. Thank you.

That motion passes.

Now on to Case 2026-0093.

May we please have the staff presentation?

Um, sir, are you the petitioner? Yes, I am. Okay, uh, we'll take staff presentation first. Could we actually, um, just request a brief recess? Uh, but sure.

Thank you. Well, is 5 minutes good enough? Yes. Or is that too much?

Okay, 5 minutes. 2 And a half. That was tough. That was. I'm here.

I can look here.

She did. She did.

Is that—. It's normally no. Is that a procedural error? Do we need to go back and consider—. Can you ask her why she abstained?

Because yeah, normally it's yes or no. Yeah, because I think that's very concerning. Okay. Yeah, I didn't see it, so I just counted down.

We can't, uh, we need to reconsider the vote. Yeah, we need to reconsider. I don't know how to do that if we're— if we just started the next case.

After we get through this one, we can go back in motion as long as it's within Okay, so that's what would be the— because all the—. I don't know, I didn't want to show you that. All maps have to be—. You can't not vote, basically. Oh, so it's like a procedural error.

Francis, you want this for your compiler and you're about to make a change? Yeah, and so—. But you could change it. But you could—. But we can't just change it, it has to be supported to do it.

Yeah. Go back and do this in the middle of the week. Why can't it stay open? I'm just thinking. According to you, you cannot just absolutely— and I didn't even look at that.

I was just telling you about it. Yeah, it's good that we thought about it. Like, we realized right away. Oh, okay. Yeah.

What would be the easiest way? Like, could they consider to keep it and take over the evening?

Yes. Okay. Okay, so, so, Lori, is your recommendation to continue in this case and then advise only to make the motion to consider? They have to be somewhat formal. Can't we just do it now?

Because we really haven't started. Like, I was about to start, and then, and then we got shut down. Yeah. But she can't do it, it has to be somebody else. Okay, right.

I know, right? I know. Someone who voted in favor, so she can't make the motion. So someone who agreed to it has to reconsider and then we re-vote. Yeah, that is correct.

I'm sorry, I didn't know if I can't just make it.

Yeah, and you can't just bypass the committee thing.

I know, but yeah, the only reason you could abstain is if you had some court conflict or whatever. But yeah, you really don't. And if you do have a direct conflict, you're not in here. So, so should they reorder the agenda to go back? We'll just go back to it.

Saying that it was requested, but somebody has to do this request. Okay.

We just need a motion and a second to reconsider.

Isn't there a recent, uh, isn't there a motion to rescind it? Yeah, so when can you rescind it?

Do you second Radhika's motion? I have a question. Okay, so—. I have a question. Yes, stand.

I have a question.

It would be I think—.

Reconsideration. You're like, one more thing, do reconsider. This, this one is still the phrasing you should use. That's, that's how I'm reading it.

Okay, so reconsider. So the chair's asking first? You ask for a motion to reconsider.

Okay, so we're having— so the chair makes the motion then? No, he asks. He can't—. The chair cannot make any motions. Yeah.

Oh, okay, we'll get a second. Okay, how we back in? Okay. Or about almost that. Yeah, thank you.

I'm like so used to like being careful not to call you all by your first name too.

So we need to, uh, just to reconsider.

No, it's still the postponement. Should we—. Yeah, we can reopen public comment on December 14th.

It would be if it's December.

Who was tired?

What are we doing now?

I have no idea what we're doing.

It is amendable. That's what I thought. Okay, so it's just opening back up, right, and reconsider, and then they amend it and then they vote again.

Okay. Hey, Lori. Yes. Usually when one person, um, mistakenly, um, abstains, does she want to— No, I know, but we We don't normally have to call for immediate reconsideration because the vote's been filed on us the first time, right? Where did the reconsideration come from?

We can do it within 24 hours. Motion reconsideration has to be filed within 24 hours. No, I know all about reconsiderations, but it doesn't seem like that's the mechanism to get the person to vote. I don't know. I don't know what I'm talking about.

I'm looking into it, sir, but— She wanted to vote no, and she abstained instead. So that's why I'm doing this. That's what she was saying, is that, you know, remember, the prevailing—. And member on the prevailing side is going to call for immediate reconsideration, um, roll of vote, um, you know, why was this one member abstained. And it's a minimum, so just going to amend this motion.

I don't know what you're going to say. Okay, well, you're going to be really reliant on your guidance. Thanks. Okay.

What?

You're all checked out. I wish I were checked out.

Okay, guys.

All right, we are going to get started. Apologize for the delay. Before we open Case 2026-0093, I'm going to ask for a motion to reconsider in Case 2026-0084.

That's moved by Commissioner Krishna, Krishna, seconded by Commissioner Pulis. Commissioner Krishnan, would you care to speak to the motion to reconsider?

Uh, I would urge a yes vote.

Thank you, Commissioner Rahn. Uh, thank you. Now that the motion to postpone is on the floor, I would move to amend that motion to add reopening of the public hearing on December 14th. Point of order. I'm sorry, you— Chair, you have to vote to reconsider before you can move to amend anything.

Thank you. Okay, first we will handle the motion to reconsider.

Anybody else wishing to speak to the motion to reconsider?

Hearing none, call for the vote.

Mr. Gardner, how do you vote? Yes. Thank you.

Okay, that motion passes.

Now we are back.

Commissioner Raulston. Thank you, Mr. Chair and commissioners. I move to amend the motion to also reopen the public hearing.

So I have a question. So are we voting to postpone and reopen the public hearing, meaning if we vote no here, we are voting on the original measure.

It is my— Commissioner Rahn, would you like to speak to your understanding of your motion?

Uh, yes, it's my understanding that we're back where we were the first time we voted, um, on the motion to postpone, with the exception of my latest amendment, which is to also reopened the public hearing. My intention is that there is one motion that we're voting on that postpones and reopens the public hearing.

Any discussion on the motion to postpone and reopen the public hearing?

Hearing, seeing none, we'll call for the vote.

Mr. Gardner, how do you vote? Yes. Thank you.

That motion passes. Now may we please have the staff presentation in case 2026-0093. Thank you, Mr. Chair. This is a request for a design variance from Anchorage Municipal Code 2107080H3 to allow fence to exceed the maximum permitted height of 4 feet within the front setback by an additional 4 feet for a total of 8 feet.

The first page of the application requests shows a 6-foot tall fence in the— which is an error. All additional information provided in the application states the request is for an 8-foot-tall fence. The requested increase accounts for the grade difference between Hightower Road and the existing structure. Due to this elevation change, a 4-foot fence would not adequately, adequately mitigate headlight intrusion, roadway noise, or provide meaningful privacy from pedestrians and vehicles traveling along Hightower Road. These impacts are expected to intensify with the future Holtan Hills development.

As Hightower Road currently serves as the sole access route to that project. The applicant provided a clear vision diagram— that is your supplementary packet number 1 that was handed to you, um, by Alaska Remote Imaging.

This is in accordance with the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials, or AASHTO, standards, and in coordination with the Municipality of Anchorage MOA Traffic Department. The fence will be situated near the front property line. On September 24th, 2026, a total of 246 public hearing notices were mailed in accordance with the procedures of AMC 21-03-020H. Notice, as of this writing, 2 public comments have been received. They can be found on page 36 and 37 of your staff packets.

The Girdwood Board of Supervisors did not provide comments regarding this case. There's one correction to the staff report. Standard H still has the Urban Design Commission in the text, and this should be the Planning and Zoning Commission. Let's just say I was thinking Commissioner McKee when I wrote it. In order for the Planning and Zoning Commission to approve the variance, the application must state with particularity the relief sought and must specify the facts or circumstances that are alleged to show that the application substantially meets the following 8 standards.

Standards A, B, C, D, and E are met along with G. F is not applicable and H is also not applicable.

Reviewing agencies' comments are included in Attachment 3, starting on page 38 of your packet. There was comment from MOA Traffic regarding the site triangle, but with the supplementary packet number 1, the handout provided tonight, uh, which was received this morning from the applicant, MOA Traffic provided Planning with email confirmation that this layout meets the required clear vision area and has no condition of approval. So therefore, the department finds that all 8 standards are met for this variance. Therefore, the department recommends approval of the variance subject to conditions 1 and 2— 1 and 3, sorry— found on page 5 of your stack packet. Condition 2 has been satisfied.

I can answer any questions that the commissioners may have, and the petitioner is in attendance.

Commissioner McKee. Hi, through the chair, um, staff, the area is a mixed-use If this were a commercial property, would they be allowed to have a taller fence? And if yes, what height would be allowed? Through the chair, Commissioner McKee, no. Commercial still would require a variance for any additional height over 4 feet.

You're welcome.

Can I put myself in the queue? Uh, go ahead, Commissioner Gardner. Thank you. I wanted to just confirm the applicable standard that we're looking at here. Should we be looking at the fence height standard in, in Chapter 2109 for Girdwood as opposed to 2107?

And it looks like there might be a different standard applicable in 2109.

Through the chair, Commissioner Gardner, give me, give me a minute to pull that up real quick. Sure.

And I'm looking at, I don't know what section it is, it's page 9-75 and some subsection I of something.

Through the chair, Commissioner Gardner. Fences in residential districts— I realize this is a commercial residential district, so there is a little bit of difference there, but the number 3 only quantifies GC7, which this is, this is not. Uh, fences up to 8 feet in height are permitted inside and rear setback areas where needed for child safety, privacy, security, or animal control. However, in no case shall fences extend into setbacks for more than 30% of the total linear perimeter of their lot. Fences are prohibited in the front setback Hence the variance need.

Girdwood Code doesn't specifically speak to the height other than that 8 feet in the side and the rear. That way, in that case, it defaults to what Anchorage Code would dictate for front and— for front set— for height within a front setback. Does that answer your question?

Um, maybe partly, but as a follow-up, I guess, would this be considered a residential district or a commercial district with GC-6 being classified as commercial in Girdwood? And then if it is, it looks like I-3, subpart 3 there has 42 inches for the front, uh, front setback. Through the chair, Commissioner Gardner. So GC-6 is a residential— is a commercial residential district. If there— if this was like, uh, Commissioner McKee said, if this was a commercial application or a commercial structure, then that would apply.

But because this is a residential single-family structure, it defaults to the use as a residential district. Okay, that's helpful. And then, and then maybe just As a follow-up to clarify what you said earlier when looking at the residential restrictions, so, so under Girdwood Code, fences are prohibited in the front setback. And so are we getting a variance from that prohibition, or is— you said something about defaulting to the 4 feet under Anchorage Code.

That is a great question. Give me a minute.

Through the chair, Commissioner Gardner, after consulting with my supervisor, Ms. Appleby, GC-6 does fall within the commercial zoning district. So this would in fact be a variance from 42 inches in height to 96 inches, or 3 foot 6 inches to 8 feet.

And it's not within the GC— which is not within the GC-7, which it's prohibited.

Okay, all right, that answers my question. Thank you. Thank you.

So are we providing a variance to the correct code? Are we—. Feel pretty confident about moving forward here?

Chair Spinelli, yes. The only thing that you might— we might need to change is not 4 feet, but 3.5 feet to 8 feet, with an increase of 4.5 feet.

Thank you. Is there any other questions for staff?

Seeing none, uh, invite the petitioner. Please.

Doug, you still have time. You, you just need to come and say your name. Can you at least just state your name and that you're waiving your testimony? Yes, I am the petitioner. My name is Douglas Menish and I live at 412 Hightower Road in Girdwood.

And, uh, you have 9 minutes and 54 seconds left. Would you— do you forfeit your time? I would like to forfeit my time to the chair. Thank you. You may do so.

Commissioner McKee. Hi. Don't—. Petitioner, please don't leave yet. I have questions for you.

One of the reasons that you stated that you are applying for the variance is that the fence needs to be taller because of the grade of the property. The grade isn't given in the packet. In the pictures, it looks very flat. So what, what is the grade of the property? It's, it's approximately 2 feet, and it's very difficult to get that in pictures, and I was trying not to spend a lot more money on surveys, but it's about 2 feet.

And you can see, as, as the property runs down to the right towards Holtan Hills, that's where it really starts elevating down to where that turn is. Thank you. And then my other question that I have for you, and it's just a point of clarification, is that your aesthetic, you say you're going to utilize 9-foot T1-11, but I'm assuming you're placing it at a— you're rotating it so that you only have 8 feet and not 9 feet, or are you embedding it a foot? Correct. Uh, some of the siding on our home is 8— 1x8 spruce horizontal.

So we're using T-111 and rotating it so it matches that horizontal design style of the house. Thank you.

Commissioner Rohn.

Thank you. Through the chair, Mr. Menish, I'm trying to clarify Fence location in our staff packet on page 23. Looks like there's an as-built with some pen drawing on it. If you're looking— that's west of your driveway. It looks like that pen drawing, which I presume is intended to be the fence, is angling back from your front property line.

And as laid on the table tonight in a G2 supplementary packet It looks like the, um, the fence goes all the way to the property line at the west. Um, that's a— it's a design. We've talked with the surveyor, and I wanted him to give us whatever plan we went with on that, the most restrictive. So he ran it basically parallel to the front of the property line. If that makes sense.

Yeah, so it— as laid on the table, I'm looking at an asphalt that shows the fence going all the way to, um, what would be maybe your northwest property corner. Okay, um, when was your property developed? When, when was the house built? Uh, we, we were almost complete at the end of 2024 when we moved in. Okay, one more question.

Um, the design face of the residence, um, trying to ascertain from some of the photos, like on page 30, it doesn't look like there are any windows facing Hightower. Can you let the commission know kind of what's happening in the front of your—. Can I— residents come up and see who you're pointing at?

Sure. Permission to approach.

If you could, I'll ask you when you're back at the podium. I'm interested in, do you have windows facing Hightower? What's going on in the front of your building?

So after having looked at that, that image, can you describe to the Commission, do you have windows facing Hightower? What's on the front of your—. Yeah, that, that we're— what you're looking at there is the spruce siding on the side of the garage. Right above that would be the east side of the house, which is glass and sliding door. Above that, which is the north side of the house, has 16-foot glass windows.

And then continuing around to the right, we have kitchen windows that are fairly— we have a lot of glass, so Mr. Hatcher. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Rahn, like the petitioner was saying, he had the surveyor do the extreme to prove that the clear vision area would, would be visible even if the fence were put right at the property line.

Whether or not they put it at the property line or not. That was the key ingredient there, was to make sure that they still maintained a clear vision even if it was at the extreme— at an extreme location.

All right, thank you. I see— oh, Commissioner Pulice, you are putting the fence on Private property, right? On your own property, not in the right-of-way? That's what it shows. It is correct, it is on our own property.

It's not located in the right-of-way. Thank you.

Yeah, um, thank you. I see no further questions. We'll open the public hearing. Anybody from the public wishing to testify, please step forward.

Hearing and seeing none, the petitioner has already forfeited their time. We'll close the public hearing. What's the will of the body?

Commissioner McKee, would you like to state your motion? Sure. I move in case 2026-0093 to approve a variance from AMC 21.06 6.080H.3 to allow an 8-foot fence to exceed the 4-foot maximum height in the front setback, subject to the conditions shown on page 5 of the staff report. Thank you. That is seconded by Commissioner Ebert.

Commissioner McKee, would you like to speak to your motion? Sure. Um, I intend to support this motion. Um, the conditions as stated in our packet— Condition A, Condition B, Condition C and Condition D and E are met. Condition F does not apply, which is persons with disabilities are provided with access.

Condition G is met and Condition H is non-applicable and is therefore considered met. I, I'll add to that that the petitioner provided a schematic or an engineer-based drawing that shows that site distances will be met and that even if they place their fence on the absolute edge of the right-of-way boundary, that site distance is met for both the bike path and the vehicle traveled way.

Ms. Appleby. Um, yes, I would like to give a, uh, I suppose a point of information to the Commission. Uh, as we discussed Condition 2 is met in the staff packet, so I'd recommend a motion that the commission make a motion to amend this motion where you approve of the variance subject to Conditions 1 and 3, and also state it where 1 references the Girdwood regulations. I don't think we need to be super specific. I think if you just say approve the variance subject to Condition 1 with the addition of a reference to Girdwood regulations as necessary, and Condition 3 as written in the staff packet.

I think that would take care of what the— what we had discussed and what the commission had discussed earlier.

So I suppose to be clear, I'm requesting— or I recommend that perhaps the chair call for a motion to amend and then someone could put forward that amendment.

Uh, that looks like that would work for our purposes if the commission would like to make that amendment. Okay, we have a motion to amend to add condition 1 in addition to reference to regulations as necessary, and condition 3 as written in staff packet. Moved by Commissioner Pulitz, seconded by Commissioner Eber. Any further discussion on that amendment? Hearing none, we'll call for the vote.

Mr. Gardner, how do you vote?

Yes. Thank you.

That motion passes. Back to the main motion as amended. Commissioner Rahn.

Thank you, Chair. I appreciate comments by previous commissioners. I, for the record, would like to put forward my thoughts on criteria B. I think that at best it's partially met, and the standard is proposed alternative achieves the goals and policies of the comprehensive plan to the same or better degree than the subject standard. What drew my attention is the paragraph just above lettering C, where staff suggests that the fence supports the small-town feel of Girdwood and contributes positively to the neighborhood's overall character. Um, I'm not a resident of Girdwood.

That said, presumably one resident did provide comment in opposition to the proposed fence height and location, given again their presumed use of the trail that's nearby. When I think of Girdwood, I think of open spaces and trails, not 8-foot-tall fences. Um, while in total I think I will support the motion, I did want to go on the record, um, with those comments. Thanks.

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

Hearing and seeing none, we'll call for the vote.

Mr. Gardner, how do you vote? Yes. Thank you.

That motion passes.

Now we will move on. Staff presentation on case 2026-0130. Thank you, Mr. Chair. This is a rezoning request initiated by the property owner to amend the zoning map for two parcels of land totaling 4.3 acres.

The applicant seeks to rezone the property from RO, Residential Office District, with special limitation to B3, General Business District. Those special limitations can be found in Appendix 3, pages 36 through 57 of your packet. The land use designation in the 2040 land use map for these parcels is Main Street Corridor, as updated by the Municipality with Anchorage Ordinance 2026-078, as amended. B-3 is an implementing zoning district and the rezone is following the abbreviated rezoning process. The department mailed 147 notice and received no comments in opposition from the public or review agents.

Additionally, both the University Area and New Med Tutor Area Community Councils submitted resolutions of support found in Appendix 5, page 72 through 75. The department finds the rezoning request meets all 3 approval criteria from an abbreviated rezoning and therefore recommends the Planning and Zoning Commission forward an approval recommendation for the B-3 rezoning to the assembly. I'm available for any question, and the applicant representative is also present to give a presentation. Thank you.

Am I reading this correctly that the special limitation zoning allows for any height of building that does not interfere with Federal Aviation Administration regulations?

Well, they suppose like, right now, okay, currently the The parcels are kept to 24 and 36, and with the rezoning, the development envelope increases to a maximum of 75 feet by right, but they do need to comply with the FAA regulations.

And I'll add one more point of information. As I know, we're looking at two AOs that both actually have height limits. I forgot which one you mentioned, Chair, but I discussed with Claudia before the meeting, like, how it reads the maximum height of any structure within 650 feet of the eastern boundary of the petition area shall not exceed 2 stories. So in addition to that Federal Aviation Administration regulation and the special limitation, it does actually limit your height to 2 stories within 650 feet, um, of whatever this petition area is in the, the AO. So, so in summary, our answer is no, it's, it's not unrestricted.

It's actually— I think when I was talking with Claudia this afternoon just to prepare, I think it was 2 stories in one of the special limitations AOs and 3 stories in the other. And then a story in code is 12 feet, so it's, it's essentially like 24 feet or 36 feet. Thank you.

See no further questions for staff. Would the petitioner like to come forward?

Thank you. My name is Carly Lamoth with Dowell, and I'd like to retain any leftover time for rebuttal. And we have South Central Foundation here with us today.

Um, so this is for case 2026-0130. Um, staff did a great job presenting the abbreviated rezoning request from ROSL to B-3.

Daniel's excited to get out of here.

This is a brief presentation, Daniel. If you just want to, uh, go to slide 2, I think we can get through it without it being in the full screen. There we go. Um, so this is a request, as we said, from ROSL to B-3 for 2 parcels. That total just under 4.5 acres.

This is part of Southcentral Foundation's health campus at the northeast corner off of Tutor Center Drive. Both of these parcels are already developed and function as part of the Alaska Native Health Campus, of which is 80% zoned B-3. This request is consistent with the 2040 land use plan and removes those outdated, outdated special limitations, like the chair pointed out, where they have unrestricted heights and some uses that may not be in line with current code. The sites are currently developed with the Learning and Wellness Center constructed in 2016 and the Bird Ridge Building and Daycare constructed in 2026— or, I'm sorry, 2006. And to reiterate, this application does not propose a change in use or the buildings.

So the question to write why rezone, uh, it results in campus consistency to rezone to B-3 Um, as stated before, the majority of the Native Health Campus is already zoned B-3, and that provides flexibility for South Central Foundation to reorganize and repurpose existing buildings as healthcare needs evolve. And they're in the midst of master planning for their services. This also results in zoning cleanup to remove the special limitations that are no longer supported by the municipality and not supported by Title 21. And the proposed rezoning to B-3 actually supports uses that were specifically called out in those AO-20162 and the 2008-128, um, such including commercial uses, um, and they're more in line with the height restrictions and buffers from the nearby residential.

Um, the map we have here on the left is the current zoning district, the RO SL is shown in the darker pink, and the proposed rezoning is B-3, more consistent with the remainder of the Native Health Campus.

To overview, this is an abbreviated rezoning that, um, is consistent with the Comprehensive Plan and implements the Main Street designation. Um, B-3 is identified as an implementing zoning district of the Main Street corridor designation. Which supports commercial and mixed-use development, employment, public facilities, and health-related uses. These changes support South Central Foundation's ability to adapt facilities and services as evolving community health needs change. This does not result in an objective risk to health or safety.

No new development is proposed in the campus, will continue to operate as is, and this proposed rezoning does not conflict with other state, city, or federal codes or regulations. And actually is in line with the municipality's direction on special limitations.

And with that, I'm happy to answer any questions, and I, I thank staff for their great presentation. And we have South Central Foundation if you have any questions. Thank you. Thank you. You have 6 minutes and 19 seconds.

Any questions for the petitioner? See none. Uh, with that We will open the public hearing. Anybody wishing to testify, please step forward.

Going once, going twice.

Were you going to step forward? Okay, um, with that, I'll invite you back up for your 6 minutes and 19 seconds. Just thanking you guys for your time tonight. Thank you. Thank you.

And we will close the public hearing. What is the will of the body?

Commissioner McKee, would you like to state your motion? Sure. I move in case 2026-0130 to recommend to the Anchorage Assembly approval of the rezone of two parcels of land from ROSL residential office District with special limitations to B-3 General Business District.

That's seconded by Commissioner Pullis. Commissioner McKee, would you like to speak to your motion? Sure. Um, the rezone is consistent with the comprehensive plan, so criteria A is met. The proposed rezone to B-3 District will not result in an objective risk to health or safety, and other nearby Alaska Native health campus properties have B-3 zoning, so criteria B is met.

Criteria C is met. The rezoning does not conflict with other municipal, state, or federal codes, um, and it's in alignment with department's recommendation that it meets all three approval criteria. Thank you. Anybody else wishing to speak to the motion? Commissioner Pullis.

Yeah, I intend to support the motion. It's been a long night. And I'll add that we heard no agency or public opposition tonight and received community council letters of support.

Seeing nobody else in the queue, we'll call for the vote.

Mr. Gardner, how do you vote?

Yes. Thank you.

That motion passes. We'll move on to Title 21 discussion. We have a memo from the planning department. Take it away. Thank you, Mr.

Chair. Daniel McKenna-Foster, long-range planning. Um, we have a memo. I'll just have like 5 slides and then we'll be done. Um, just looking at a number of the changes to Title 21 and some not exactly Title 21, like the tax incentive.

But there have been a lot of changes, and this commission oversaw a lot of those. So this is sort of looking at the other side and seeing how they've— what the results have been like. I think in general, even we've made a ton of big changes, and the change is pretty slow. It's sort of incremental change, which is good, you know. And it looks like a lot of big changes, but it ends up not being the end of the world.

This is just a chart. I think this is correct as of last week or so of all the AO, the ordinances changing Title 21 since going back to 2012. And so this year we have already done 20. In 2025, there are 23. And I bet this year I think they'll get to 24 or 25.

So you all have been doing a lot of work. Thank you for your questions, your service, your, you know, your interesting discussions. I think It's very helpful. I'm pretty sure probably all of these came through here, I think. Well, sometimes the assembly brings their own, but a lot of this has come through this board.

So thank you for that. ADUs, accessory dwelling units, are always an item of interest, and we were tracking those. The last big ADU reform was in 2022, and in that year we had about 20 ADU permits, and then the next year 22, more in '24. In 2025, we saw 41 ADU permits. Um, and this year, I think a week or two ago, we were at 24.

So it's interesting, if you look back to the 2040 plan, they said we want, I think, 1,000 ADUs by 2040, between when 2040 was adopted in 2017, um, and up to 2040. So that works out to be somewhere around 40 or so. So per the plan, we were supposed to be getting 40-some ADUs a year, and last year we finally began to reach that. Target. So that's kind of interesting.

And, you know, a lot— some of this also was tracking previously. We're tracking by affidavits, and we get their own ADU building permit checkbox.

Looking back on it, it's interesting. Anchorage went through about 6 rounds of ADU code changes. It was an idea in the 2001 plan. It was brought forward, and there's an error in your packet. I said it was AO 2023-47 and then 2024-97, but it's 2003.

And I think it's a typo here too. It's both, both AOs 2003-47 and 2003-97. First one came forward, it was too complicated. They tabled it. They brought another one forward.

It was contentious. Then they brought it back with the new code. Then new Title 21 made additional changes. Then there was another change in 2018, then 2022. So I think that's an interesting tale of it took Anchorage about 20 years to do ADU reforms.

And we finally got to— a sort of modest growth in ADUs after that. Um, okay, so building permit, um, and we've recently started providing pre-approved ADU building permits, uh, so excuse me, pre-approved building plans for ADUs, um, but use appears limited so far. Um, rezones, we've seen a lot of rezones, many of the abbreviated rezones like you just saw tonight. So in 2026, we saw 17. That's more this year than in the last 15, 16 years.

So So that is pretty significant. Many of them are abbreviated. But we still have rezones where applicants are changing the Comprehensive Plan as well. But we have many people trying to implement the Comprehensive Plan, which is great. And then you also know we're also updating the Comprehensive Plan, which helps.

One thing that often comes up in rezones, and I apologize it's so small, is mailed notification. So in the new rezoned process, in the abbreviated rezoned process, you still have to notify the people in the immediate area. But the new process also allowed a bigger area-wide or muni-led rezone process. And there's been some discussion about that and whether the mailed notice should come back or not. This, if you can see it, is we went back to looking at a bunch of rezones and other cases as well.

There's some conditional use and some other items. And just looking at how many notices we sent and how many notices we got back. And in most cases, it's less than 1% response. Now, I'll qualify that. You know, we might send a notice out and people come here, so that's a success, right?

But even if you send out 400 notices and you get 10 people coming in, that's actually still a pretty small number. So just thinking about the number of people who know versus the number of people who care enough to provide a comment one way or another. And, you know, when we hear comments back, it's not always negative or positive. It's—. There's a mix of both.

But in general, we are looking at—. There's—. Maybe there are better ways for us to get this information out there. We do talk about our newsletter, but that's more maybe of a niche interest. We get a lot of interest in that, but it's people already interested.

So we're always looking at ways we could do this. Maybe with a new permit software, there's a way for people in a certain community council could get notified automatically or something. We're still kind of working that out. So again, the new rezone procedures have resulted in increase in rezones, mostly abbreviated. Two of the most successful muni-led, which did not use mailed notice, were the McDowell Sanctuary rezone in the Bullwhip Parks Rezone.

Bullwhip Parks Rezone rezoned about 9,000 acres of public property from range zones to PR zoning. So that was on our task list for almost 10 years. And that was the situation where it would have been really difficult to send mailed notice to all the affected properties. It would have, you know, we just didn't, wouldn't have had the budget to do that. So the thinking behind that when the original rezone change came out was that if the muni is doing a large-scale rezone like that, they will take extra steps to notify people or publicize it.

So we talked to Parks and Rec, we had an open house, um, you know, we talked to any— and the notice went out to community councils, um, but again, generally— and that was also supported by the plan. So that's another thing, a media-led rezone really does need to be supported by the plan. Um, so again, mail notice yields a small percentage. We've got this, our newsletter we've had going out, and It's great, we get about 50% of people opening it and maybe 1/5 of people clicking on it. But, you know, we're slowly getting more people subscribing.

I think we're up to 420-something subscribers, which is great. But at least we know when we send something out that, yes, 200 people open that and read it and actually clicked on the link. So, it's the balance of trying to figure out how do we get information out there, the medium people want. And actually make sure it gets used. So with that, I'd love— I'd be glad to take any questions or, um, anything else.

Thank you.

Any questions?

Commissioner Eber. I'll just say I'm one of the people that gets the newsletter, and I really appreciate it. So thank you for your hard work. Thank you. Commissioner Pullis.

It's more of a comment than a question. I will say that, you know, I do a lot of stuff for road projects and stuff like that, the number one comment I always hear is, we just heard about this. Or, you know, and I understand mailing thousands of mailers is kind of a ridiculous use of money and stuff. But I mean, I'm also tired of hearing that. I hear it everywhere I go.

It's crazy.

If I could— yeah, we've been looking actually at the CSS, the context-sensitive solutions process. And on that, it seemed like if you— posting in that case might be really helpful. Because most people are traveling that way, and then they could get to it. But I think you're also going to get inevitably people who are at a meeting who have heard about it some way saying they haven't heard about it. It's just part of the way it goes.

Thank you. Commissioner Eber. I'll just add to that that I think it's probably particularly hard for people to look at mailers during an election season when their mailbox is stuffed full of stuff that they just throw away. So, yeah. Commissioner Rahn.

Thank you. Fantastic summary. A great deal of work done by the planning department, both long range and current. So thank you for the work that you continue to do. It's great to have this to show people about, you know, what do you do on PCC?

Well, we get to work with planning department. Here's some cases and here are some of the results of it. So that's fantastic. Question around initiatives like MHOP, which is something that has its roots in TISDO, which is a case PCC heard, but now is its own AO that is being heard by the Assembly. I'm curious if you have any feedback to the Commission as to what our role could potentially be given our remit on a case like that, if any.

So, through the Chair, we— when people ask what do you think if something has changed significantly, we do like to recommend like, hey, this looks like a pretty big— for example, there's been an S version on MHOP already. MHOP, as you mentioned, was similar to TSDO. And our recommendation was, if this looked pretty different conceptually from what went before— MHOP's not the same as TSDO. But we did recommend maybe this should go back to Planning and Zoning. That, of course, is the Assembly's purview.

It's their choice. But I think on any big item like that, We— for us, it seems to— it's very useful to have those discussions here, and I think we do tend to recommend that. I don't know if you'd like to add anything, Director. Through the Chair to Commissioner Rahn, I think that one thing that would help the Planning Department in regard to your question would be for the Commission to maybe during this period of time that we have on our agenda bring up questions about particular things that may have been passed and, and maybe charge us with collecting data or coming back to you with answers about how the change has impacted different neighborhoods and, and things like that. So having some questions from you that we might be able to answer, especially in a public forum like this where the public can also hear the answers to those questions maybe would be helpful.

Hopefully that answers your question.

It does. I know it's been a long night, but since the time is ripe, I do have one or two of those questions about this particular AO and the S version that was put forward. For a bit of context, I'm not sure if any other commissioners are following along at home about what's happened to MHOP, but at a recent assembly meeting during the break, my understanding is that an S version of the AO was laid on the table, um, an S version that had a lot of detail that in my estimation and understanding of, of the AO was not previously a part of that AO. During public hearing, it was apparent that some people had seen it, others had not. So questions around public process, but I'm curious if the Planning Department had any role in that S version, particularly around elements that again, in my estimation, maybe making things more complicated than that, than less complicated in terms of Title 21 and its role.

Thanks. Through the Chair to Commissioner Aran, to answer your— the question in amongst that statement, we did not have a role in developing that S version.

If I can also add, for anybody who's curious, Assembly Legislative Services has put the version on their page. So we're referring to AO 2026-85, and there's a proposed S version. There's maybe 12 or so amendments, maybe 13 amendments. So if you just search Assembly Focus on Housing, you'll find that here if you'd like to review it. And it is here as it has been discussed so far.

Thank you. I, I guess Since we are on the subject, has the department had time to review the S version and formulated any opinions?

Chair Spinelli, we have had a chance to take an initial look at the S version. We have had to form our opinions very quickly based on what the information that we have. And we are providing those opinions to the administration to help them digest and to inform them on some of the implications of the S version. And that information will be used by the administration during the discussion about MHOP in the coming days.

Will that be confidential between the department and the administration, or will it— will that be something that could be shared with the commission? Just out of curiosity. You don't have to answer if you don't want to.

The short answer is I'm not quite sure yet. We may develop a memo that could go out publicly, but at the moment we are just in internal discussions about what our next steps might be. I only ask because it would be helpful to have a digested summary. If I can add to that, not only helpful to me as a commissioner, but I would project to the community as well. I've found the department's memos on the AO itself as being extremely informative from a land use planning perspective, given your expertise and the work that you do.

It seems like a no-brainer to have you all weigh in on that. Thanks. Through the Chair, that is much appreciated. Thank you, Commissioner Rahn. I would like to remind the Commission that we are expecting a work session to occur on the S version and on the amendments.

I can't remember the date that that is happening, but it will happen before the vote on November 4th. And I do believe that some of the information that we are gathering and the recommendations that we are making will be in discussion at that work session.

Thank you.

Any further commissioner comments? Commissioner Krishna. For anyone who is interested in the CIP discussion, there is a municipal.