Anchorage Assembly delays proposal to overhaul zoning for months, allowing time for Planning and Zoning review

Anchorage Assembly members involved in a controversial effort to overhaul the city’s zoning rules plan to delay their proposal for several months to allow time for review by the Planning and Zoning Commission.

The supporters of the proposal are responding to additional community feedback about the ordinance, said Meg Zaletel, an original sponsor of the proposal, in an interview on Thursday. Zaletel said she still intends to push for changes starting early next summer to spur more housing construction in Anchorage.

Critics have expressed concerns that the measure proposed swift, dramatic changes without enough community involvement. The idea of simplifying the zoning code also has supporters who have urged the Assembly to take rapid action to help lower housing prices.

The review by the Planning and Zoning Commission, a city board appointed by the mayor and confirmed by the Assembly, will open up new opportunities for public comment. The proposal would not return to the Assembly for a public hearing until June 11, according to the agenda for the Assembly meeting on Tuesday, where the referral is expected to be made.

The proposal would sharply reduce the city’s residential zoning categories, from 15 to five, based on land-use categories spelled out in the 2040 land-use plan adopted six years ago. It would apply only to the Anchorage Bowl, not Girdwood and Eagle River. It’s called the HOME initiative, or Housing Opportunities in the Municipality for Everyone.

Experts have said a severe residential construction shortage in Anchorage is contributing to soaring rents and home prices that are pushing some people out of the market. The housing crisis, as many people describe it, is contributing to a long trend of outmigration from Anchorage, and a labor shortage that’s hobbling the economy, they say.

[Alaska rents just saw their highest increase in over a decade]

One of the sponsors’ many goals is increasing opportunities for residents in a single-family home neighborhood to turn their house into a duplex, perhaps creating a rental, Zaletel said. The measure could also spur more development on under-utilized lands in urban areas that are already largely developed, she said.

Zaletel, along with cosponsors Daniel Volland and Anna Brawley, want the Planning and Zoning Commission and the municipal Planning Department to identify areas in the 2040 land-use plan and the city’s comprehensive plan that would need to be updated to align with the proposal, Zaletel said in a work session on the topic on Friday.

Alaska Public Media originally reported on the delay.

The measure proposes a staged implementation period for five zoning classifications: Those with single-family and two-family homes scattered across most of Anchorage; those with large lots around the Hillside area; and three types of neighborhoods generally featuring mixed uses and increasing levels of housing density, primarily along busier streets and highways.

Zaletel said she’d like to see the changes addressing single-and-two-family zones implemented early next summer, immediately after the Planning and Zoning review is complete, assuming the measure passes the Assembly.

The original version of the proposal, introduced early this summer by Zaletel and Assembly member Kevin Cross, had proposed shrinking the city’s residential zones to essentially one category, divided only by areas with city-provided plumbing and areas like those near the Hillside that use wells and septic systems. It drew fierce blowback from opponents. It included Eagle River and Girdwood at the time, outlying communities in Anchorage that have their own unique zoning districts.

Cross, who represents Eagle River, dropped his sponsorship of the measure when the more modest version eliminated Eagle River and Girdwood.

[Anchorage’s average home price rose to a record $456K, but higher interest rates are starting to cool the market]

The Assembly over the past year has made several changes to spur more residential construction in Anchorage, including expanding areas where accessory dwelling units, so-called mother-in-law apartments, can be built.

On Friday, three Assembly members — Cross, Volland and Randy Sulte — plan to release a measure for introduction at Tuesday’s Assembly meeting with the goal of creating faster and more inexpensive construction of three-plexes and four-plexes in zones where they can already be built, said Allie Hartman, the Assembly’s communications coordinator.