Anchorage on tight timeline to come up with ordinance delaying historic building demolitions

With protection of the 4th Avenue Theatre in mind, Anchorage officials are hurriedly trying to come up with a local law to stall or even prevent the demolition of historic buildings.

The city's Historic Preservation Commission, an advisory group that usually takes things slowly, is working at a relatively breakneck pace to write the ordinance. Its provisions could force historic building owners to keep buildings from decay and limit the economic incentive for turning demolition sites into parking lots.

The ordinance fits into a broader, two-year effort to create a city plan for historic preservation, which kicked off earlier this year. In February, the administration of Mayor Ethan Berkowitz signed a $90,000 contract with a team of consultants to work on a strategy to preserve Anchorage's historic "buildings, structures, sites, objects, stories, districts and landscapes."

Elements of the plan include identifying historic neighborhoods and setting up a local register of historic properties. The first of four public meetings is set to take place Nov. 9 at the Pioneer School House in Anchorage, itself a historic building.

A separate so-called "demolition delay" ordinance, giving the public a chance to respond if a private property owner wants to tear down a decades-old, historic building, has also been part of the plan. In August, the Historic Preservation Commission called on the Anchorage Assembly to adopt a moratorium on demolition permits for historic buildings that would extend up to two years.

Then something unexpected happened.

On Oct. 17, a representative of the owners of the 4th Avenue Theatre walked into the city permit office and applied for a permit to tear down the shuttered but beloved Art Deco theater.

City planner Kristine Bunnell was working that day. She walked out to talk to the representative with some historical information on hand. The city's permitting system had an electronic flag on the 4th Avenue Theatre property, relating to a possible restriction on its demolition.

Otherwise, there was nothing stopping the city from issuing the permit, Bunnell said.

City officials contacted the owners of the theater the next day. They learned there was no imminent plans to tear down the theater, according to city attorney Bill Falsey. Falsey said the demolition permit request was tied to a mistaken belief that the family was facing enforcement action related to a different unoccupied property they own, the derelict Northern Lights Inn in Midtown.

Still, that night, the Anchorage Assembly adopted an emergency order that declared a 60-day moratorium on the demolition of historic buildings.

The idea was to give the city and the Historic Preservation Commission time to write the full "demolition delay" measure. A memo to the Assembly shows city staff, commissioners and the consultants expected to have at least a year to write the ordinance, with lengthy public involvement.

A scramble has followed. In the past week and a half, commissioners have been frantically researching laws in other cities.

For what commission chair Debra Corbett referred to as an "enormously complicated piece of legislation," fraught with legal questions, two months is an uncomfortably tight time window, officials said.

"As we know, Anchorage is very pro-development and private property rights are really important, so there has to be a lot of thought going into this," Corbett said during a Thursday meeting of the Historic Preservation Commission. "The idea of putting one of these together in a week is rather breathtaking."

Bunnell, who provides staff assistance to the commission, revealed an early draft of the ordinance at the Thursday meeting. The document, marked "for discussion only," defined a historic building as any structure that is at least 50 years old and found to be historically significant. Criteria include the building's presence on federal or state historic place registries.

There are 33 Anchorage properties on the National Register of Historic Places. About half are privately owned. More than 100 other properties are eligible for the register, Bunnell said.

Bunnell's draft ordinance pieced together elements of ordinances adopted in San Antonio, Texas, and in Connecticut, both settled for centuries longer than Anchorage. Key points include the idea of preventing "demolition by neglect," where an owner has allowed a historic building to become so dilapidated that it's no longer possible to restore it.

The ordinance draft requires owners to prevent historic buildings from decaying or else face fines of up to $1,000 a day, and prevents an owner from putting a surface parking lot on a site where a historic building has been demolished.

"We've got a sea of parking lots out there right now, and we don't need any more parking lots," Bunnell said during Thursday's meeting.

A building owner could attempt to prove financial hardship as grounds for the demolition, according to the draft ordinance.

Officials say the ordinance is necessary to prevent historic buildings from being torn down without a chance for the community to have a say. During the meeting, Bunnell held up a commercial demolition permit application. She noted that it contains very little information.

"You can basically do anything, and you can come in and get a demolition permit to tear any building down," Bunnell said.

A "checklist" for a person issuing a permit is another goal of the demolition delay ordinance, she said. The ordinance would also likely require the Historic Preservation Commission to hold a public hearing on a pending demolition permit for a historic building. The commission would make a recommendation within 30 days on whether the building should be torn down, according to the draft ordinance.

Members of the commission and the Alaska Association of Historic Preservation offered thoughts and suggestions Thursday. There was consensus that the commission should focus just on demolition, and leave other pieces, relating to land-use permits and alterations, for later.

The proposed "demolition delay" ordinance will need to head to the city Planning and Zoning Commission before landing before the Assembly. The moratorium on historic building demolitions expires in mid-December.

Toward the end of Thursday's commission meeting, the conversation turned back to the 4th Avenue Theatre. It was an open question whether there were limits on the theater's demolition in its deed.

Records unearthed by the city attorney's office show that in 1985, the city of Anchorage paid $300,000 for a conservation easement on the building that would prevent its destruction. It was part of a financing arrangement to help fix up the building, said Falsey, the city attorney.

But there was a condition buried in the agreement, Falsey said: The easement would not be binding on future owners who acquired the property through sale or foreclosure.

Alaska Pacific Bank foreclosed on the property in 1990, records show. The city attorney's office is interpreting that action as extinguishing the easement, Falsey said.

Members of the Historic Preservation Commission and the Alaska Association for Historic Preservation weren't sure about the status of the easement Thursday. One commissioner noted that the Fang family, the owners of the theater, had pledged on numerous occasions to preserve the facade of the building as well as parts of the interior, which has been deemed historic.

Bunnell said the commission has had a good relationship with the owners of the 4th Avenue Theatre over the years. She said maintaining that relationship is one of the most important issues moving forward.

"We all need to work together to bring our downtown back," Bunnell said.