OPINION: Radical zoning overhaul is a loser of an idea

Hours into the public policy class examining how the “powers that be” flimflammed Des Moines yokels into paying for a humongous sewerage project they already had rejected, the Coke machine in a hallway near the classroom went kaput!

Years of school without a break, all-night jobs, exhaustion. Then, no caffeine. Nada. Zip. It was as if a glass rod snapped — tink! — and enough was enough. No more government knows best. That was the end of a quest for a master’s in public policy and the beginning of my occasional slides from skepticism into cynicism, from “really?” to “yeah, right.”

Over the years, there has been a flim here and a flam there courtesy of various pooh-bahs here in the Frozen North. Sarah Palin. Barley farms. Fish plants. Dairies. Election scams where dark money is used to bar other dark money. The draining of the state’s savings accounts. The list goes on. But you have to expect that from people who see government simply as a tool for their vision.

A great example is contained in this Anchorage Daily News headline: “Assembly members propose sweeping overhaul of zoning rules to address Anchorage housing shortage.”

Turns out, two Anchorage Assembly members, Meg Zaletel, also the executive director of the Anchorage Coalition to End Homelessness, and Kevin Cross, a real estate broker, have decided to fix the city’s affordable housing shortage. They want the Assembly to rejigger the city’s residential land code, whacking it from 15 residential zoning categories to just two — one with city-provided plumbing and one without.

The idea, they say, is to boost new home, townhouse and apartment construction to offset a lack of new housing. The public gets a say in a July 25 hearing.

Cross, the ADN reported, says it’s time for “a drastic approach” to force a conversation about the city’s restrictive land-use laws.” We should be nervous. “Drastic” is not something government does well.

Their ordinance would trigger a one-and-a-half-year process to alter Title 21, the city’s current land-use code born after a decade of knock-down, drag-out fights to put it in place. Title 21 sets out rules for such things as landscaping in business parking lots, residential buildings’ appearance, sidewalk placement, permitted development in particular zoning districts, and much more, the ADN reported 10 years ago, after it was adopted. Whether you agree with it, the code keeps your neighbor from opening a junkyard next door.

If passed, Cross and Zaletel’s ordinance would have an effective date of Jan. 1, 2025.

As a guy who might have been a public policy wonk if a Coke machine had not crapped out at an inopportune time, let me say this: Run! There may be a real solution to housing problems in Anchorage. It is not this ordinance.

The aim of the proposal, AO No. 2023-66, is crystal clear. Among its whereases, whozits and whatzits, it declares residential “density is a proactive and forward-thinking approach” and demands density, density, density in neighborhoods as a panacea for the city’s housing ills. The proposal would jam more buildings onto less land for denser, walkable areas in a “more inclusive and equitable city.” That in a burg unable to keep its sidewalks clear in the winter.

Who benefits from that? Let’s see. Certainly not neighborhoods where apartment complexes and rental properties of all stripes could pop up next door, and more homes, smaller homes, are wedged onto smaller parcels of land to achieve “density.” My guess is none of that density stuff will occur on the Hillside or in neighborhoods where folks like a little space around their expensive property.

More likely, if adopted, it will be foisted on neighborhoods and communities where people of average means go about their daily lives unaware government and the folks who use it have found a new way to help somebody else at their expense.

Who would that be? Real estate brokers, bankers, builders, the city, which would rake in more property taxes, and Anchorage’s burgeoning, multimillion-dollar homelessness industry. Not you. Not me. We will get to pay in, oh, so many ways for their vision. Changed neighborhoods. Packed residential space. Instant slums. The good news is that everyone will be able to have a home in a city nobody wants to live in.

The public should show up at the July 25 hearing with torches and pitchforks — metaphorically speaking, of course — and let the Assembly know in no uncertain terms the ordinance is a loser. Oh, our betters will tell us the idea is sound, that squeezing more people, more apartments, more and smaller houses into smaller spaces is a great idea. They will tell us with straight faces our neighborhoods will thrive, our lives will improve.

Yeah, right.

Paul Jenkins is a former Associated Press reporter, managing editor of the Anchorage Times, an editor of the Voice of the Times and former editor of the Anchorage Daily Planet.

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