OPINION: Zoning reform won’t be the disaster opponents claim

Proponents of the status quo of high home prices, limited growth and exclusion are calling for us to once again honor the “public process” and slow down policy changes like the HOME Initiative that seeks to legalize duplexes citywide. According to some, the true problem with housing in Anchorage is that it has not been discussed enough — not that the stock of housing is expensive, aging and scarce. They point to the Anchorage 2020 plan as a successful process that began in the 1990′s because it “engaged the community” and argue that the problem can only be solved with just a few more meetings and planning sessions.

In the 1990s, I was in elementary school. I am now a full professor with three kids and a mortgage. I was certainly not invited to the community meetings in the 1990s, they certainly do not reflect my values or preferences, and I do not think 1990s progressive values should dictate what I am allowed to do with my property today or the ability of the currently elected city government to change policy. This kind of stasis makes it impossible to solve new problems if we are constrained by the input of residents of Anchorage who participated in the zoning plan 30 years ago — many of whom no longer even live in Alaska.

Even today, Community Council and Assembly meetings are not attended by most residents. It is a rare resident who can name the leadership of their Council, and many are unaware they even exist or that they are supposed to have a say in who leads them. More process allows a small chorus of the loudest unelected voices to claim to speak for the entire city.

Slowing down density is not called for out of benevolent farsightedness or democratic ideals. For not-in-my-backyard (NIMBY) types, expensive housing is the goal. Filibustering through process stops housing from being built to protect the property values of incumbent landowners. This benefits those who already own homes at the expense of the young and the poor. Claims about quality of life are often a fig leaf. As a transplant to Anchorage, I would like to know how my living in this city has negatively impacted the quality of life of prior authors. If I am not the affront they sought to protect Anchorage from, who needed to be kept out?

Claims that new housing cannot help run contrary to the plethora of empirical evidence that restrictive land use raises the price of housing, while new housing lowers rents and housing prices. “Democratic leadership” and local control specifically lead to less housing, higher prices and people being priced out of home ownership and into homelessness or out of Alaska.

Naysayers like to speculate that building more housing would not lower the price of housing. They offer Rube Goldberg-type solutions or ridiculous proposals that require extensive public input as a way of filibustering new housing and protecting the premium on their own homes. At the same time, the impacts of potential policies are overstated.

There will not be a massive increase in the number of duplexes in Anchorage if they are legalized citywide. There are no bulldozers waiting to demolish Anchorage neighborhoods to replace them with high-density residential towers. Reductions in restrictive zoning and land use regulations are likely to lead to small increases in development. Allowing people to make choices with how they use their property will most often mean they do what increases their property values. We would see slightly more housing, and slightly lower prices than we otherwise would – and eventually someone would propose a new change that will allow more housing to be built, and NIMBYs will again claim the sky is falling and process is being ignored.

Kevin Berry is an Anchorage homeowner and economist.

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