Planning and Zoning Commission - April 13, 2026 - 2026-04-13 18:30:00

All right, we will call the April 13th meeting of the Planning and Zoning Commission to order. May we please have the roll call? Andres Benelli. Here. Jared Gardner.

Here. Radhika Krishna. Here. Scott Polis. Here.

Megan Mills. Here. Edith McKee. Here. Let's see, Jeff Rahn, Brandy Eber, and Alma Abazar excused.

You have a quorum. Thank you. Okay, may we please have a motion to approve the minutes from Wednesday, March 25th?

Moved by Commissioner Krishna, seconded by Commissioner Mills. Are there any corrections or objections to the approval of the minutes?

Hearing and seeing none, minutes are approved.

Next we will have, uh, next is special order of business and any disclosures. Are there any disclosures Commissioner Pulis. Yeah, um, regarding the Seward Highway and Tudor Road interchange info item, um, I saw that Joe Taylor was listed, um, and with Lounsbury is on the application, and my employer is Lounsbury. Um, I've had no knowledge of this project whatsoever, been involved with it at all, um, up to this point other than what I've read in the package. Um, I don't think I have a conflict and can remain neutral, but I leave that to the Commission to decide.

Is there a motion to direct Commissioner Polis to participate?

Move by Commissioner McKee, seconded by Commissioner Gardner. Commissioner McKee, would you like to speak to your motion?

I intend to support this motion. Um, there is no conflict of interest and there's no prior knowledge and no financial gain, so Anybody else wishing to speak to the motion? Commissioner Krishna, I think I would add for the record that your employer is not the petitioner, um, so I would add that and also intend to support this motion.

Anybody else wishing to speak to the motion? Hearing none, we'll call for the vote.

That motion passes.

Um, any other commissioners have— wishing to disclose?

Commissioner McKee. Um, yes, hi. I also need to disclose that Galen Jones, the current project manager for the Seward Highway and Tudor Road interchange project, a PM with the DOT, is also a PM for a project that I am the consultant project manager for. But I am not familiar with the Tudor Road interchange project until I read the packet this weekend, and I also have no financial gain directly from this project.

Okay, is there a motion directing Commissioner McKee to participate? Moved by Commissioner Gardner, seconded by Commissioner Polis. Commissioner Gardner, would you like to speak to your motion? Just briefly, I don't see a conflict specific to this particular case, and there's no financial, um, considerations at stake, so I intend to support the motion.

Anybody else wishing to speak to the motion? Hearing and seeing none, we'll call for the vote.

That motion passes. Now I will hand the gavel to Vice Chair Krishna, and I will disclose that among housing and residential land development, I also build some garage condos and some storage facilities, and This is pertinent because there are two cases, 2026-0035 and 2026-0034, that propose some changes in the codes regarding self-storage garage condos, schaustes, I believe staff referred to them. At one point in the packet. Um, I don't believe I have a conflict. I don't believe— I don't currently have any garage projects planned.

I— my last garage condominium project is completed and nearly sold out. That's my disclosure.

Would someone like to make a motion to direct Chair Spinelli to participate in those cases?

Moved by Commissioner Polis. Commissioner Polis, would you like to speak to that motion? Yeah, I intend to support the motion. I think basically the fact that there are no Garagetown projects going on by Commissioner Spinelli, that he has no financial gain at this point. It will impact future projects if he intends to go that way, but no financial gain or interest at this point.

That's seconded by Commissioner Mills. Or is there any further discussion?

Uh, hearing none, we will call for a vote.

That motion passes, and I will hand the gavel back.

All right, uh, I think We covered all the disclosures.

Um, may we hear from staff on the CSSTP review concept information report?

Good evening. Thank you, Chair and Commissioners. This is a State of Alaska DOT project to reconstruct the Seward Highway and the Tudor Road interchange to replace the existing bridge and address non-motorized facilities, safety, congestion, and connectivity. The project team currently recommends the tight diamond interchange as the best alternative for this project. Members of the project team are available to answer questions regarding the concept report.

This report serves as an information item to familiarize the Commission with the project before the team submits the 35% design study report, which this Commission will review during a future public hearing.

Are there any questions for staff?

Uh, may we have a motion to accept the CSSTP concept report? From Seward Highway.

Or I guess there is a question, is DOT here and do they wish to speak to the Commission?

Yeah, hi, Galen Jones from Alaska DOT for the record. I am here and available for questions, but we don't necessarily have anything we'd like to add. Are there any questions for DOT? Commissioner Pulis, I have questions for you.

I'll ask questions, but you can say you don't know. That's perfectly fine. Um, do you know, will there be ped facilities on both sides of the road?

Uh, yeah, absolutely. There will be widened ped facilities on both sides of the new bridge, and there are existing ped facilities on both sides of Tudor Road through the project limits, and we expand to improve those, or we intend to improve those. Can I ask one more real quick? Go ahead. Um, and then right-of-way impacts— are you guys buying any full lots, or are you just kind of trying to equally take from people?

Do you, do you know, is there a huge area you're taking, that kind of information? At the moment, our concept design shows only minor right-of-way acquisitions and no relocations. Thank you.

Um, question from Commissioner Krishna. Yeah, I'm curious if you can speak a little bit to, um, access to Brayton Drive, um, and some of the frontage road access, which I've always found to be one of the hardest things about this intersection. And I didn't see much discussion of it in this packet, but I did see a question from one of the planning workshops.

Yeah, so Brayton Drive, I believe that's on the east side of The Seward Highway. I'm sorry, the— yeah, the Seward Highway. So the project as a whole will be looking at access management. So, you know, where sometimes we, we look at consolidating approaches or relocating them onto smaller streets, things like that. An important part about this project is the required egress for emergency services.

So coming out of the neighborhood there on the east, just south of Tudor Road, there is an access that leaves the neighborhood. So if we were looking at any access control modifications, we would, of course, check with emergency services first. Maybe a potential could be a gate that goes across there. But currently, we would have to make sure that there was still reasonable access for the residents of that neighborhood. So, you know, we're not that far yet in our analysis, but I could just say overall the project is looking at how to— we're looking at access management because we can reduce conflict points between vehicles and other vehicles and non-motorized users and so on.

So we always look at opportunities to improve safety with these projects, but we do plan to keep that frontage road and on both sides and provide access up to Tudor Road. Thank you. You're welcome. Question from Commissioner McKee. Hello, I have several questions for you, but it might be too soon at 35% design, which should be fine if that's the response.

But, um, so my first question was that, um, it mentions that there's adjacent, um, bike and pedestrian facilities that don't have continued connectivity, and I think like the path ends at— oh, I had this written down— at the 36th intersection, and then it picks up again on the west side of the frontage road coming out. So does this interchange plan to provide pathway connectivity from 36th to Tudor?

Yeah, thank you for the question. So this specific project, while we are going to reconstruct the northbound and southbound on and off ramps north of Tudor Road, the constructing new shared-use pathways or more of a network pedestrian access between Tudor and 36th will be under the scope of the 36th Interchange Project. Thank you. And then, um, My next question was— sorry, the pedestrian and bicycle infrastructure in the interchange is, um, it has, um, no buffer or limited space. So does— what's the proposed buffer that you're— with this project?

So currently on the bridge, because, you know, we know bridges are expensive, so we typically don't put a large buffer on bridges to reduce costs. However, on this project, we're looking at having a barrier, so a protected shared-use pathway between vehicle lanes. And then there will be a— so it would be vehicle lane, shoulder, some sort of protection, likely a concrete barrier, and then most likely a 10-foot shared-use pathway, a paved shared-use pathway, and then pedestrian railing on the other side of that. Great, thank you. Yeah, and then off of the bridge, we would look at maintaining some sort of separation between the shoulder and the shared-use pathway, mostly to accommodate snow storage, but in addition for safety and get that separation because it is a 45-mile-per-hour roadway.

So likely we would have 5 to 10-foot separation, I would say. Um, and then another question I had is, and McKenna Street and Shakiloff Street both operate at a failing level of service during peak periods. Those are also areas where you see high crash cluster densities. This project proposes to alleviate that congestion. Does it also expect that if there's better flow through this interchange that you would see better level of service on those side streets?

And is that expected to address some of the crash, in particular the pedestrian fatalities that are occurring?

Yeah, so the project limits extend from— on Tudor Road from Old Seward to McInnis Street. So we're doing a safety and crash analysis of existing crashes and safety within that entire corridor, and part of that is looking at potential solutions at Shilohkoff and McInnis Street because we know because of the previous— there have been fatalities over at McInnis and then just throughout the corridor. So whether this project does include construction or improvements specific to McInnis, for example, has yet to be seen. But as part of the safety analysis, we will be looking closely at the issues and then how we would solve the issues and making recommendations. And then we'll have to decide, whether or not those specific problems would be solved by this project, the interchange project itself, or if DOT would spin off another project, get additional design funding, and then go through a project development process and build it under separate funding.

But the point is, we want to identify the problem and then hopefully solve it as part of this project. But perhaps it might get solved under a separate project. Thank you. Another question I had, and it might be similar to this, is that you're looking at it in the traffic and safety analysis, but maybe not within the scope of this project was, um, it mentions in the report that there's a high incidence of mid-block crossings near the bus stops. Would that potentially be within the scope of this project, or is that more aligned with the traffic and safety analysis?

Yeah, so over in that same area, McGinnis, Shelikov, um, there are a lot of mid-block crossings. There is a bus stop on both sides of the road there, um, without any sort of mid-block crossing. So that presents, you know, a large challenge for non-motorized users to get from the bus stop to cross the street to the neighborhood. There's also a fire station there at McGinnis. So the solutions that we're looking at for McGinnis and Shelikoff is restricting access in certain directions.

So like currently right now, as you depart northbound out of Shelikoff, you can go left. That could pose— that has an increased increased crash risk associated with that, going across that many lanes, that many vehicles. So we're looking at some channelization, perhaps a right out and a left in, and a right in only into Shelikov. And then at that location, that would potentially lend itself to a safe operation for a mid-block crossing. For example, at McGinnis, we're looking at signalization, looking at the different signal warrants.

It doesn't actually meet the signal warrants for the crash history and for traffic However, because there's the fire station there and due to those past safety issues, we think we can— there's some flexibility in those warrants to justify a signal. So that is one thing we're looking closely at there, which would accommodate pedestrian crossings. But either way, we're looking really closely and would like to propose some sort of mid-block crossing at Shelikov and/or McInnis because of the bus stops and need and crash history. So I noticed that, you know, there's 4 pedestrian fatalities, and I think it said in here that there was another one outside of the data— the data set. So does the— is the project team feeling like that the proposed alternative and some of the other mitigation that they're looking at in the corridor would be specific to helping reduce the likelihood of a pedestrian strike?

So, you know, as I mentioned before, we think that those solutions are worth investigating to reduce pedestrian strikes in there near Shelikov and McInnis. They solve the particular crashes that we have seen, the crash types that we've seen in the circumstances that we've seen for non-motorized users there. In addition, over back at the interchange, we are looking at potentially— so we're looking at improved pedestrian facilities there.

Longitudinally, so along Tudor, but then also crossing Tudor, cleaning up those crossings, reducing crossing distances, potentially having two-stage crossings across Tudor where a pedestrian can cross and then stop at a refuge in the middle and then be able to cross again with another pedestrian phase. So looking closely at all of these things in our early 35% stage. And then did the pedestrian fatalities occur primarily in like peak traffic volumes? Was it like congestion associated? It didn't— doesn't say what the primary cause of the pedestrian strikes were in this report.

I don't have that specific information. I'm happy to follow up with you on that, but I will say a lot of, um, the crash patterns that we're seeing around in this general area of Midtown aren't exclusive to heavily congested times. In particular, those times can actually result in slower-moving traffic. A lot of the crashes we're seeing happen at night in low-lighting situations. When there's less traffic, these roads can seem a lot easier to speed because you're not seeing any sort of figuratively frictional elements such as other vehicles.

So it can seem a lot easier or more tempting for vehicles to drive faster. And that's when we can see those more severe crashes at the higher speed times when the, when the road is emptier. And then this might be a little bit too soon in the project development, but, um, with the proposed alternative, is there an expected crash percentage reduction that's been determined yet?

So we're still working on our traffic and safety report, and I, um, that sort of information will be included in that. So we don't have that prediction yet because we we've selected the interchange form, or we have a— sorry, we have a recommended interchange form, which is the tight diamond. But we haven't narrowed down the exact number of lanes that are needed and the exact geometry of the whole thing. So we wouldn't be able to, at this point, be able to determine crash reduction percentage because we don't have that information yet. And then my last question.

I noticed that there were several different alternatives that were evaluated. And one of the things that seemed to eliminate some some of the other configurations was the ability for freight to have a through movement in the event that they're oversized. But the report says that they also intend to elevate the bridge structure. So are— does the DOT still expect to see a large volume of heavy truck traffic needing to go over the structure versus being able to travel underneath it once the bridge is elevated? So we would expect to see less vehicles needing to go up and over the interchange, so get off at an off-ramp, go cross Tudor, and then back onto the on-ramp to get back on the highway.

Because as part of this project, we are raising the bridge to meet current design standards for overheight clearance on the highway. However, there still are quite a bit of permitted loads every year that need to go up and over interchanges throughout the Anchorage Bowl and the state. Uh, so we're working closely with, um, the DOT, uh, Weights and Measures to get that data. Um, they don't specifically have data at each interchange how many overheight vehicles are permitted, um, but we are making sure whatever design we have can accommodate, um, those ramp-to-ramp movements. And that's especially important because of the frontage roads as well.

Thank you.

Commissioner Mills.

I noticed that you have stakeholders identified in this workbook, and you've identified that there's a log you're using to track concerns. Have you received any specific concerns or requests from any of the stakeholders? I, I don't think I saw that identified in here just yet. Yeah, thank you for the question. Uh, I would say the number one concern we have from stakeholders is non-motorized safety.

And, you know, there are narrow facilities on the bridge, and within the project corridor, there are— it's a 45-mile-per-hour roadway. So that's, yeah, I would say is the number one concern. And more specifically, at McInnis, we've had a lot of folks bring up the safety concerns and previous crash history for non-motorized users at McInnis, especially related to the bus stops. Thank you. Thank you.

I see no further questions. Is there a motion from the Commission to accept the context-sensitive solution transportation project? Moved by Commissioner McKee, seconded by Commissioner Polis. Commissioner McKee, would you like to speak to your motion? Sure.

I intend to vote in favor of the motion. I think at this point in time for 35% level design The department and the project team has considered a significant number of the contributors to crashes. They are considering freight movement and utilizing the data that's available and existing. They're addressing pedestrian, they're addressing freight, they're addressing downstream traffic considerations. I think that at this point in time, they've evaluated the project with the data that's available.

I like that they're addressing and improving pedestrian buffers, in particular having them be protected on a bridge structure. I think that is a significant benefit to public safety, even though it presents additional costs to the, to the project and the overall structure design. So I think that they've weighed and balanced several issues that the community has brought up, and I, I think that at this point the report's very comprehensive and well done.

Commissioner Krishna. I agree, and I just want to thank the project team and staff. I thought that of the many context-sensitive solutions reports we've had over the years, I thought this one was very easy to follow and really clearly engaged with concerns from stakeholders and the existing conditions found in this road's I'm happy to support this motion.

Anybody else wishing to speak to the motion? Hearing and seeing none, we'll call for the vote.

That motion passes.

Now I will read the procedure by which the public may speak to the Commission at its meetings.

After staff presentation is completed on public hearing items, the Chair will ask the public— 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., will receive 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 question By the Commission. Commission recommendations to the Anchorage Assembly are not appealable.

Um, first case, 2026-0023. May we please have the staff presentation?

Thank you, Chair. Page 7 of your packet has a map showing the petition site. The property owner is requesting to rezone 4 parcels containing approximately 10 acres from Chugiak Eagle River B3 with special limitations to Chugiak Eagle River RC Rural Commercial. The Chugiak/Eagle River Comprehensive Plan update identifies the property as commercial, and the implementing zoning district for this area is the Rural Commercial District that the property owner is requesting. The, the B-3 SL that's existing is from 1985.

It limits some commercial uses, restricts building height, and is based on the old zoning code, so it could be pretty confusing for the property owner and businesses. This is an improvement, sort of a housekeeping matter, to rezone it to the commercial district that's called for in the Chewiack/Eagle River Comprehensive Plan update and eliminating the existing special limitations from the mid-'80s. Um, so, uh, the Planning Department finds that the 3— let's see— the 3 approval criteria for this type of rezone are met and is recommending approval. A draft assembly ordinance is on.

Page 6 of your packet, and you can see the old special limitations on page 15 of your packet. I'd be happy to answer questions. Thank you.

Are there any questions for staff?

Uh, Commissioner McKee. Hi, I have a question. Um, so in the current zoning, the building height restriction is 35 feet. If they remove that, um, this, the special designation, what would be the new allowed building height? Uh, thank you for the, the question.

The, uh, Chapter 10 Table of Dimensional Standards says that the building height in the RC District is— remains 35 feet.

Thank you.

Any other questions for staff?

Hearing, seeing none, we will invite the petitioner up. Is the petitioner present?

Uh, you'll need to press a button.

Thank you. Good evening and thank you, Commissioners. My name is Joyce O'Connor and I am the owner of the property. And I thank you for considering my request to change the zoning from, uh, special limitations B-3 to the Chugiak/Eagle River rural, uh, zoning. It is approved.

It is part of the comprehensive plan, and I thank you for your support.

Thank you. Are there any questions for the petitioner?

Hearing, seeing none, you have 9 minutes and 34 seconds saved for rebuttal if you choose. All right, anyone from the public wishing to testify, please step forward.

Uh, going once, going twice. Would you like to use your 9 minutes and 34 seconds, or are you good? I'm good, thank you. All righty, um, I'm going to go ahead and close the public hearing. What is the will of the body?

Commissioner Pullis, uh, would you like to state your motion?

Yes, I intend to support the motion. Uh, my first— you gotta state it. Um, I move in Case 2026-0023 to recommend to the Anchorage Assembly approval of the rezone of 4 parcels of land from CEB3SL District to CERC District. Thank you. That is seconded by Commissioner Gardner.

Commissioner Politz, would you like to speak to your motion? Yes, thank you. Um, I intend to support the motion. I agree with department recommendations. Um, the proposed rezone meets all 3 approval criteria as detailed in the findings.

Notification requirements were followed, and we've heard no public opposition. I mean, agency reviewers have no objections to the rezoning. Thank you. Anybody else wishing to speak to the motion?

Uh, hearing, seeing none, we'll call for the vote.

That motion passes.

Next, we will move to case 2026-0041. May we please have the staff presentation? Thank you, Chair. If you could please look at your packet, pages 7 and 8, you can see a map and the associated aerial image for this specific case. This is a rezone request initiated by the owner to amend the zoning map for two tracts from R-5, low-density residential district, to R-2M, mixed residential district.

The Planning and Zoning Commission will provide recommendation to the assembly on this zoning rezone request. The assembly is the decision-making body for, for rezonings. There was an associated subdivision request that was applied for last year. Which would further subdivide this— these two parcels into 20 lots. The department received 9 public comments against the rezoning.

The department received no reviewing agency comments in opposition. The Abbott Loop Community Council received notice and did not comment. The department finds the rezone request meets all three approval criteria for an abbreviated rezone and therefore recommends the Planning and Zoning Commission provide an approval of recommendation for for the rezone to R2M to the Assembly. I'm available for questions, and the representative is here tonight as well. Thank you.

Are there any questions for staff?

Commissioner Krishna.

Thank you. I just want to confirm two things that I saw when I was looking at the 2040 land use land use plan map. The first was that these parcels appear to be within a map area called areas designated for medium growth. And the second is that these two parcels also appear to be within what was shown in the 2040 land use plan map to be the transit supportive corridor designations. Could you just confirm that I have those both correct?

Through the chair, Commissioner Krishna is correct. These— this parcel— these parcels have been designated as compact mixed density medium as well as transit-supported development through the Anchorage 2040 land use plan. Thank you. Thank you.

All right.

Seeing no more questions for staff, I will invite the petitioner to come forward.

Hello. My name is Kate Sauve, S-A-U-V-E. I am the petitioner's representative. Representative, thank you for your time. This is an abbreviated rezone that implements the comprehensive plan.

The 2040 Land Use Plan has designated the site as compact mixed residential medium since it was published. I have reviewed the public comments submitted prior to this meeting. I would like to address them briefly. Commenters state that increased density in this area will make the neighborhood overcrowded and increase congestion on narrow streets.

Or maybe more into the mic might help. Commenters state the increased density in this area will make the neighborhood overcrowded and increase congestion on narrow streets. Obviously, increased density is the point. We need more homes, affordable ones if possible, and I do not believe this neighborhood will be overcrowded. I have driven down these streets many times, and while they are more narrow than streets in newer subdivisions, they are in good condition and are in 25 feet— 20 feet wide at the most narrow point on Zurich Street.

Private development has reviewed this site many times and has not requested any improvements to Zurich or O'Brien Streets, as they are up to departmental standards. Frankly, these streets are in similar, if not better, condition than my own neighborhood. Commenters also state a concern for their water supply. There is no evidence that additional wells in this area would affect anyone's water supply, and it is not a concern raised by any of the reviewing departments. There is an associated unrecorded plat for this site.

No final plat has been submitted, and neither planning Neither the planning case is dependent on the other. However, if that approved preliminary plat were to be completed, it would subdivide the lots into 20 lots, each roughly 7,500 square feet in size. And if the site were to keep its current R-5 zoning, each of those lots would be able to develop up to 3 homes per lot. Unless the board has any questions, I'll remand my time for rebuttal.

Are there questions for the petitioner?

Um, I see no questions. You have 8 minutes 3 seconds for rebuttal. Thank you.

All right, I'll— we'll open the public hearing. Anyone from the public wishing to testify, please step forward.

Need to state your name. Let us know if you're representing a group or speaking as an individual. Okay, thank you. My name is Roberta Bear. I'm speaking on behalf of the Zion Court Homeowners Association.

Thanks. Um, our HOA, for homeowners association, supports orderly compatible development and requests the municipality to deny the rezone unless the applicant clearly justifies why R2M is needed and how nearby homeowners will be protected from added impacts. If the case moves forward, we request specific mitigation measures tied to traffic, parking, drainage, noise, construction safety, and neighborhood compatibility. Why this matters to us: this case would rezone about 5.23 acres from R-5 to R-2M. R-5 is intended for lower density single and two-family residential areas, while R-2M allows a broader mix of housing types and higher density.

The same site was also the subject of a 2025 platting case, which you discussed earlier, to subdivide the property into 22 lots. So the key question is whether the rezone now enables a more intensive development pattern than neighbors previously expected. Also, will the exemptions previously granted with the original or the prior platting case still be in place? So our top concerns are neighborhood compactibility. What is the possible increase in building intensity, mass, and height— oh, compatibility.

What is the possible increase in building intensity, mass, and height? Will privacy impacts, lighting, and overall fit next to existing homes be taken into account? Compatibility under Anchorage Land Use Rules includes traffic, parking, buffering, drainage, lighting, dust, and noise. Regarding traffic, parking, and circulation, more units can mean more resident vehicles, guest deliveries, service vehicles, and construction traffic. Our main concerns are spillover into nearby streets, winter driving hazards, blocking sight lines, and overflow parking affecting nearby homeowners.

Regarding neighborhood safety, we are concerned about pedestrian safety, driveway and intersection visibility, winter access conditions, emergency vehicle access, and the possibility that overflow parking or construction activity could reduce the safe use of nearby residential streets. This is especially important in an established neighborhood used by children, walkers, pets, and residents navigating snow and ice conditions. Construction disruption and noise is a concern. Noise, truck traffic, dust, worker parking, vibration, mud on streets, and long construction periods can directly affect nearby homeowners. Long-term concerns include dumpster noise, snow removal, mechanical equipment, and higher evening activity.

Regarding drainage, vegetation, air quality, and neighborhood environment, our HOA would like to know how runoff, grading, snow storage, dust, idling vehicles, and tree removal will be handled, as well as if visual screening will be provided to help preserve the existing residential environment. Will the development have covenants to help maintain a consistent neighborhood appearance? Infrastructure strain. Will parking, utilities, drainage, snow storage, refuse access, and emergency access be adequate for the development enabled by the rezone? So these are some suggestions that we would request if the municipality considers approval.

Clear explanation of what can be built now versus under R2M. Traffic impact and circulation review. Pedestrian and emergency access protections, no overflow construction or resident parking on nearby HOA streets, safe driveway placement, sightline review, and winter access planning, strong setbacks, fencing, and landscape buffering near existing homes, protection against runoff onto neighborhood— neighboring property, limited construction hours, truck routing, dust suppression, and on-site worker parking. Shielded lighting and privacy-conscious site design, confirmation of utility drainage, snow storage, refuse, and emergency access capacity, and lower-intensity building transition along edges near existing homes. So in summary, our HOA supports orderly and compatible development.

However, before this rezoning moves forward, the municipality should clearly explain why the change is necessary and ensure enforceable protections related to traffic safety, parking, construction impacts, drainage infrastructure, privacy, and neighborhood character.

Thank you. Question— I have a question from Commissioner Krishna. Darn, I thought I was out of here. Two questions. Could you describe where the HOA that you represent is in relation to the site?

Yes, um, Zion Court neighborhood. We are east of the development site off of O'Brien, so across O'Brien to the east. So between O'Brien and Lake Otis, between 74th and—.

Thank you. And I just would like to clarify some of the points you brought up that would mitigate the impacts that you see that this development might bring. Could you enumerate just a few of what you believe would be your top priorities if the this commission were to consider any additional conditions of approval? Um, a lot of it would be access to the new development, um, and how that affects our neighborhood. Um, O'Brien Street is— even though it is wide enough, um, if you were to have several driveways added along that, in the wintertime that street becomes very narrow.

That is a major concern. This winter we saw two police cars coming one at each other down the street, and they couldn't pass each other with the snow load. And then the next day the road got plowed back. So, I mean, so, you know, if you add driveways along there, that's going to add that. So traffic, noise.

Just, I know if a development goes in, we can't expect trees again in that space, but some sort of landscape design to keep it pleasant. Um, just, and how intense is the new zoning? Like, you know, increased density, what does that mean? Prior to this, we thought there would be 22 units, I believe, in there. So is this going to cause How many more units are going to be in, um, and what kind of access in terms— you know, we were told like driveways coming out.

Is there going to be maybe now one roadway in and a roadway in the middle? What does that— what does the new design look like?

Thank you. No further questions, and I am sure that either the petitioner's representative or staff can answer your question about density further along in this meeting. Thank you for your time. Thank you. I see no further questions.

Anybody else wishing to testify, please step forward.

State your name for the record and let us know if you are testifying on behalf of yourself or a group. Your name and what? Your name and then let us know if you are representing yourself or a group. My name is Andy Carroll, and I'm just representing myself. I live on Zurich.

I've been there for 30-plus years, um, and I mean, she made pretty much all the arguments that we have.

Speak into the mic, please. Sorry, now I'm the one being quiet. It's echoing. Um, anyway, my concern is The roads are narrow. You're going to add 20 more houses, or if you're going to go with fourplexes, duplexes, you're adding a lot of traffic.

There are children in the neighborhood. Um, I mean, I haven't heard any comprehensive plan of anything except for they're going to rezone it and sell the lots and people are going to build what they want. That's all I've heard. I've not heard anything about sewers coming in, water coming in, uh, pushing 74 through. I, I mean, we're just all of a sudden we get this notice that there's going to be a change and now they're going to pack even more people into this lot.

So that's part of our concerns, my wife and I. That's all I got. Thank you. She laid it out pretty good, so I appreciate that.

Anybody else wishing to test— I, I see no questions for you. Are you finished? Thank you. Anybody else wishing to testify, please step forward.

My name is Linda Arden. I'm speaking for myself and.

My husband. Um, the R2M lots down Lower Road, Petersburg, Nancy are 10,000 to 14,000 square feet versus the vacant lots that are seeking this R2M zoning between O'Brien and Zurich. These Lots between O'Brien and Zurich are only 7,435 square feet. Between 2022 and 2024, changes were made to R2M zoning requirements allowing for more density. Allowing more density is not always advisable.

The complete Alpine Village subdivision, which is Zurich to Basel, 72nd to Lohr, was originally zoned as R-5 for single-family residences only, which these small lot sizes throughout the subdivision reflect. Realistically, these lot sizes do not comfortably allow for multifamily units. They are undersized compared to the R-2M lots on Lower Road, Petersburg, and Nancy. In addition to the subdivision's lots being small, all streets within Alpine Village subdivision are extremely narrow. Currently, the streets are barely able to accommodate snow removal under R-5 zoning.

If Zurich Street lots were rezoned to be R-2.5 multifamily units It would create further constriction to the roadway due to the current easement along Zurich Street no longer available for snow placement. The portion of vacant land facing Zurich Street needs to continue being zoned R-5 for additional reasons. If zoning changed, the estimated number of vehicles within the subdivision would increase from a potential 40 new vehicles, 20 family, single-family lots by 2 cars per lot, upwards to 160. In addition, visitors to these various family units would have to park on a very narrow Zurich Street, thereby increasing vehicle congestion. In case of an emergency, it would cause trouble for Emergency responders trying to navigate their vehicles on a crowded Zurich street.

In the summertime, Zurich barely allows two vehicles to pass each other. In the wintertime, with a heavy snow season, currently one car has to wait for another vehicle to pass. Your time is up. Yes, I realize that. That's why I quit talking.

Thank you.

I see no questions. Thank you very much. You're welcome. Anybody else wishing to testify, please step forward.

Hello. Whoa, that is echoey. Ben Hand. I live on Byrne Street. Can you state your name again?

I'm Ben Hand. I'm just speaking for myself and my wife. We live on, uh, is that Ben Hand? Yeah, Ben Hand. Thank you.

Go ahead. Uh, I live on Burn Street, just the street below Zurich. Um, I've been in the neighborhood for about 13 years and just use those roads just for like dog walking and going out for walks every night. And just kind of want to put my emphasis on how a lot of people are out here just to kind of say they're concerned with kind of the plans for these lots. I live on 74th, and so if it was pushed through, even of how they're trying to redistrict or rezone it, it might just put a different impact on how the value of the— my lot is, how the cars are driving through.

There's already a lot going, so I haven't thought this out as well as everyone else here. I just want to put my two cents in and say not really looking forward to being a lot more people in the area. It being a little bit more quiet is really a lot better for the neighborhood, so And that's all I have, unless I can allocate my time to somebody else that needs it.

No, you cannot transfer your time. All right, then, uh, thank you. If you're finished, I see no questions. Nope, I don't have much else to say. I appreciate your time.

All right, thank you. Anybody else wishing to testify, please step forward.

Hi, I'm Gloria Carroll, testifying for myself. Um, I just want to reiterate what everybody's saying. We— this is a really— we live on the Zurich side. It's an old neighborhood, narrow streets, no sidewalks, no lights, no fire hydrants, and adding maybe 80 or more vehicles to that road would be a disaster. Especially in the wintertime.

That's it.

Thank you for your testimony. Anybody else wishing to testify, please step forward.

My name is Donald Wall. I'm speaking for myself and my household. I live on Zurich. Arguably, I'd be the least impacted directly by this, but I have observed that, uh, traffic does have issues trying to go two ways in the summer, has to go one way, uh, in the winter. If there's another snowfall like this last winter, it creates a blind corner, which on the road to Lohr, uh, I've seen multiple near-miss accidents.

Last winter when it was icy, I saw several vehicles slide directly into the intersection. And if you increase the traffic by the, let's say, 60 cars, it's— I don't see how it's going to benefit anybody. The infrastructure just isn't there to support it. Um, thank you. Thank you.

Uh, question from Commissioner McKee. Yes. Hi, I just had a little bit of a difficulty hearing you. You said that you have seen vehicles slide into an intersection. Which intersection was that?

Uh, Zurich and Lohr. Oh, thank you. In the winter, it— even with attempts at sanding, I didn't go anywhere that, that week. So thank you. Um, there's one thing I also forgot to mention with which, um, I do walk the area extensively in all seasons.

Both Zurich and O'Brien have blind hills, so no matter what you do for access, there's going to be an issue where eventually somebody's going to get hit. I mean, it— there needs to be more safety measures before you put in 60 lots. Um, thank you. Thank you.

Anybody else wishing to testify, please step forward.

Hello, my name is Anne Larabee. I'm testifying for myself. I live on Zurich Street and have for 28 years. We are on a well, as are many of the houses in our neighborhood, and I'm wondering if there's been a hydrologic study addressing if the aquifer can support the much higher demand on the water table if this new development or the new level of zoning would affect our water pressure, the quality of the water, the availability of the water. I'm also wondering if there's been a traffic or infrastructure study addressing some of the concerns that other people have raised about increased traffic.

Thank you. Thank you.

Anybody else wishing to testify, please step forward.

Hi, my name is Patricia Anderson. I live on the corner of Byrne and East 74th. I do have an extensive comment that I did put online, so you can see what all I said there, but I understood that 3 criteria had to be met to make this to have the planning department staff asked to have this recommended and passed. And A was that it had to be consistent with the comprehensive plan. B, it would not result in an objective risk to health and safety.

And C, it does not conflict with other municipal, state, or federal codes, regulations, or ordinances. I want to go back to number B, or letter B. It would not result in an objective risk to health and safety. The proposed rezoning does not change prescribed usage patterns, residential, for these parcels while bringing them into compliance with Anchorage 2040 Land Use Plan. Thus, there are no objective risks to municipal health or safety.

The municipality would conduct the additional reviews of any development plans. So that's what it says under that Section B. So I.

Believe that we are at risk. And if the residents are considered part of the municipality, this adds excess cars, traffic to few streets. What would be an objective risk if not this excess? I would like to have that defined. So I guess I would ask staff, what is the objective risk?

What would make them say there is objective risk to municipal health and safety. I consider all of us in Alpine Village and on the other side on O'Brien to be part of the municipality. That's it.

Thank you. Thank you. Um, your questions are noted, so we, we will follow up with staff at the appropriate time. Pardon? I said, uh, your questions were noted, so we, we will be following— myself or other commissioners will ask these questions of staff if they're not addressed.

Another question: do you all go and read all the comments that are— then I know there were like 9 of them, I think, that were submitted. I got confused by why the, why the written comments say you have to have them in the Friday before at 1 PM, and I misunderstood if that meant the online ones. The, the reason why is so that they can be put in the packet to be delivered to the commissioners so they can read them before tonight's meeting. And that's including the online ones, any written one, if they're received in time. And then other comments come as additions if that came in late.

Okay, that we get on the night of the meeting. All right, thank you. Thank you. Anybody else wishing to testify, please step forward.

Hearing and seeing none, we'll call the petitioner up for rebuttal.

Hello again, it's Kate Sauve, S-A-U-V-E. I will just talk. Seems to be quiet today. Yeah, we can't control the volume, so you're just gonna have to talk into that mic. Apologies.

Uh, Kate Sauve, S-A-U-V-E. I'll try to address, uh, the questions. Um, well, first, Zion Court, the HOA, uh, that is located northeast of the site. So if you go to page 7, you'll see Zion Court. There's a street there.

That's where the Zion HOA is. It is zoned R-O, which is under the R-4 zoning, uh, so it's under the FAR 1.0. So you could have 36 to 48 dwelling units in there if they wanted. Right now they have 18 units. Lower down is another R-2M zoned district.

There are 4 lots there that touch this site. They are across O'Brien Street. 2 Of those lots have 4-plexes on them. One lot has a vacant lot, and one has a single-family home. Just because 4 dwelling units are allowed doesn't mean that someone will build 4 dwelling units.

For driveway access and for how many units, I think most of the other questions were like, what's going to happen to the site? Right now, because there is an approved preliminary plat, but a final plat hasn't been submitted. There are two options if this rezone is approved. Either it will be developed as 20 lots, or it will be developed as the two lots that currently exist. If it was developed as the 20 lots, those are 7,500 square feet.

They could put four dwelling units on those lots if the individual buyers who bought them wanted to, but like I said, in the current R-5 zoning district, someone could put 3 homes on each of those lots and the neighboring lots for the rest of the R-5 district.

Uh, driveway access— if the final plat was completed, there would— which is, has an approved preliminary plat— there would be 20 driveways, just like every other lot that has a driveway. If the site was developed as it is with 2 lots, there would obviously be one driveway or one in and out depending on how it was developed, if it was multi-family or not. The current reason that Zurich is narrow is because the other side of the right-of-way was never dedicated, and with the approved preliminary plat, the other side of the right-of-way is dedicated. So at some point that could be widened. Right now it cannot be widened because it is only 30 feet wide of dedicated right-of-way.

Um, did the commission have any questions for me? Um, I guess I have some questions. Can you name off the conditions of plat? So just so everybody knows, there's— I'm hearing that there's a plat approved on this property to subdivide this property Public seems to know about it and everybody else knows about it, but we don't see it in our packet. It would be— answer a lot of questions to see that, but since we don't see that, we'll just ask the questions.

Um, I have not reviewed the conditions lately. I believe that, um, well studies would— were required They obviously had to dedicate right of way to Zurich and O'Brien as well as East 74th.

So if well studies were required, is that to say that they're not proposing to extend public water or sewer? There is no public water that is close by. There is public sewers. They would be extending public sewers supposedly, but the lots would be on wells like all the surrounding lots. And by close by, we're talking close enough, closer than Lake Otis?

Okay.

So if they wanted to have that expense, they could extend water, but it wasn't deemed necessary by any of the reviewing departments. And I'll just say We're looking at a rezone, so—. Yes, this is unrelated to the plan. This is not necessarily pertinent information other than the public has asked the question. Yes, and this is an abbreviated rezone that implements the comprehensive plan.

I just want to work through some of this stuff. Absolutely. So at least I can understand what we're doing. And then the road widths. So Anya, you said you don't remember your conditions to plat, but typically when you plat property, It sounds like we're creating 7,500 square foot lots in what I believe— and staff can jump in here— would be a Class A district, which would require roads with pedestrian facilities typically.

I'm not, you know, I— that's my understanding. So I'm just curious if any roads were required to be built, because that's the main thing we heard from the public was the roads are too skinny. They don't sound like they meet municipal standards for this area, and I'm just curious what kind of road improvements were required of this plan. No road improvements were required. Uh, P— Private Development decided that no improvements were required and that it met their standards.

Um, both roads are supposed to be 24 strip paid. That's the standard. Zurich, at its smallest point I measured, was 20. Feet. But private development did say that that was— those roads did not need any improvements.

And is that because— or are we in a Class B area or a Class A? Through the chair, I'd like to interject and say that I, I did take a brief look at the summary of actions that was associated with the platting case. I believe there was a variance that was granted to the development, and I think what Kate is saying is correct in the sense there was Nothing stipulating— private development did not stipulate further development of road. But with respect to roads, right-of-way management, I think Daniel McKenna Foster can give us a better understanding. Well, I guess if there is a variance granted, then that explains— I'm not— the mystery solved.

I get it now. I just— that was just something that I was grappling with understanding. Thank you. Daniel can have us a longer explanation. I could weigh in, and yeah, I think the— there's the matter of the rezone.

But just for anybody's reference, this—. The—. It was Planning Board Resolution 22011. We can bring up some of those if it would be helpful. But there are specifics in that resolution about, um, there would have to be a right-of-way dedication, it looks like, on both O'Brien Street and Zurich, and a right-of-way for East 74th Street.

Um, what Ari is referring to, I believe, is, um, the Planning Board approves the variance from AMC 2108-050C improvement requirements by improvement area for Class A district, subject to the following condition: recording a suitable plat within 60 months of approval and any approved time extensions. So there, there, it looks like there are 8 conditions of approval. Um, I'd recommend looking at those. Again, that is Planning Board Resolution.

2025-011. Thank you. I guess that kind of explains to me what— how the situation we're in, um, and I guess, uh, so the subdivision— real quick, I'll just finish my things that I had. The subdivision proposes to have create possibly 20 lots that would use private wells and municipal sewer. Correct.

And there was a recent change to, or at least there's proposed change to the, when a well study is required. Was a well study required as part of the planning process? It's usually a requirement required comment on the summary of action. I don't remember if it was actually included. Yeah, if I could weigh in as Dean O'Connor Foster again.

So just in the resolution, Section G, the Planning Board approves of the plat for 60 months subject to the following conditions. Condition 4 is submit plans, data, tests, and engineering reports to the on-site water and wastewater section that substantiates, A, the possible well locations will meet all A, code required separations, and B, that there is adequate and safe potable water for each proposed lot and neighboring lots per 155590. Thank you. I will go to Commissioner McKee has questions.

So I think some of my questions I think have been answered. So looking at the map on page 7, Zurich Street looks like the parcels that are in question, the right-of-way kind of goes into Zurich Street. That would have to be vacated and turned over to the city so that they— a road could be built. I, I went online, I measured the road. The road is 20 feet wide.

There is no ditches, there's no drainage accommodation. You're— a plan to clear a lot this size is going to add a considerable amount of runoff to the road. What's the plan to mitigate that? Um, so the preliminary plat that was approved, we had to dedicate the rest of— so you see Xerica, it kind of is cut in half by this lot. So this is an old deeded lot, so that road was never dedicated per this site.

So part of the preliminary plat is that we dedicate 30 feet to the existing dedicated 30 feet, which basically then becomes a regular-sized municipal road. Sorry, then are you responsible for upgrading the road? No, that was not a condition of the plat. Okay, so technically the lots could be developed and leave the road in, in a current— it's 18 to 20 feet wide, there's no drainage, it's just a basic pavement overlay. It doesn't have curb and gutter, it doesn't have a sidewalk, it doesn't have any of the things that you would expect.

—Any sidewalks. Okay, and then my other question is just for— and this maybe is to staff— so an R-2M can have 1 to 30 dwellings per acre, which is essentially 1 dwelling per 1,452 square feet. With the R-5, it's 1 dwelling per lot. What is the minimum lot size?

To the chair, for an R-2M For a detached single-family unit, the minimum lot size is 6,000 square feet. For a multi-family, that is the maximum density of a fourplex, it's also 6,000 square feet per lot.

So are there restrictions that they couldn't put 30 dwellings on an acre in this rezone? If the subdivision goes through and they have 20 lots that are 7,500 square feet, they could feasibly put 1 to 4 residential units on each lot, and that would not be an issue with planning. But if such a development were to go through, and associatedly if the plat were to go through, they would have to meet conditions that have been set by separate departments. And if again the development had to go through, there would be other reviews that would be conducted that would answer those questions. Through the specific departments that are— have the jurisdiction over these questions.

Would the developer be required to do a traffic impact analysis and assess the traffic and safety and whether additional other improvements are needed? Through the chair, for the purposes of this rezone, the traffic department, who typically does precautionary or discretionary studies to see if there are any massive changes in traffic patterns have provided no comments in opposition to this rezone. So to that end, I believe that a preliminary study has been conducted towards the effects of this specific rezone, and nothing has come up that would cause concern. And if I could weigh in, this is Daniel McKenna-Foster again, Long Range Planning. We've heard a lot tonight about concerns about the street, and I know we've all seen that in Anchorage, right?

The street, there's an issue with the street you know, getting around, it doesn't feel safe. So in the last year or so, we've had a contractor working on a right-of-way management study to look at where we actually have street problems and what it means to have a street problem. And a lot of times the issue is not in the land use, it's not next to what's happening on the private property, it's what's happening in the street, right? Like, that's where the problem exists. The issue is that Anchorage traditionally has just— hasn't had a great approach for dealing with that directly, because if you want to deal with that, you know, here's the example: If you have a problem in an area that's red, the best way to address it is there in the red, not in the green, right?

So the green is the private property and the red is the street. So part of the right-of-way management strategy is looking at, well, how does— how do we as a city manage rights-of-way, issues in rights-of-way with people leaving their own private property in the rights-of-way that's impeding others moving, right? Issues with snow clearing and that sort of thing. And the solution is that we just have to do a better job of managing our right-of-way. But we have to do it within the right-of-way.

That study is coming out later this year. And it's based on a lot of data. We've sort of done analysis all over the city showing that, yeah, people do leave their private property in the street and it impedes others. But in many cases, it doesn't result in being necessarily as big of a problem as it feels like necessarily. But even where it isn't or it is, we have tools to address that.

And the right-of-way management study is about addressing those directly. Right-of-way management is 100% effective. It's a little bit uncomfortable. It can be a little bit different because it means it's— it may be a little bit more difficult to use the public street to store private property, but it is 100% effective. So that's kind of where things are in terms of letting what happens on private property happen and then managing public space, which is the street, towards kind of the shared values that everybody has.

So that's the right-of-way management strategy. It's coming out probably later this year. I mean, we're in just the final stages, and it's based on a lot of data we've gathered around the city looking at where people say, oh, there's a really bad problem here. And if you go out and you count what's actually happening on the street, there really aren't that many people storing cars on the street. And sometimes it's really— it's an issue of we just need to get the street plowed, right?

It doesn't really matter what's happening on the private side of the land use. So the right-of-way management strategy is coming. And often it's really found that the issue isn't really a matter of parking supply, especially not parking supply on private property, but of parking management or space management on public property in the street. So that's sort of— where things are going because we've had these problems for years, right? Even when we had other ways to manage it on private property.

We just have to manage the rights of way. But fortunately, that plan is coming together and in it there's some pretty clear tools for addressing that and addressing them effectively where they occur.

So I guess I then have a—. Can we wait one sec? Okay. We've got a question from Commissioner Krishna. She's in the queue.

Oh, okay. I wasn't done. I might just ask staff to take what you just said maybe one step further and tell the folks in the crowd if after this, what we've heard is that there will be new right-of-way dedicated as part of this. No? No, that would be the preliminary plat that's already approved.

That is already going to be dedicated if that plat goes through. This is a rezone, and it is— but there is right-of-way that is Dedicated for an improved preliminary plat. Yes, yes. Um, which is beyond what, um, the residents on the street have experienced. Could you maybe just take this a little bit further, um, and maybe let, um, the attendees here, um, know how they might advocate for street improvements in the right-of-way, which sounds like maybe it's getting close to some of the concerns here.

Yeah, thank you. Uh, Dean, I'm kind of fostering a long-range planning, and I'm— this is, uh, you know, our case, but in long range we do— we've done a lot of work on the transportation stuff and the right-of-way stuff. So one thing we really want to provide, and the meeting was to provide the tools for when people as a neighborhood say, look, we really do have a problem here, is so that we can go out and assess and say, okay, there's a problem, and then provide the tools that the neighborhood wants to address that problem, right? So say, um, say the subdivision goes in, um, the, the road gets widened because now there's the right-of-way available, it gets improved to a new standard, and there's still an issue, right? And the street design for some reason doesn't meet everybody's needs.

Then the tools will be there to say, well, there's a number of things you can do. You could maybe do alternate side street parking, you could do, um, you know, permit parking special for residents only, that sort of thing. There are tools to address that, but that would come after.

Sort of the problem has been identified. And we're still working through the process of that because we really want to— if people come together and they say this is an observed issue and it's a measurable and definable issue, providing the solution so it solves the issue and solves the issue directly, right? And really precisely. So does that kind of speak to that or did I go back down the rabbit hole? I think we're good.

Go back to Commissioner McKee though. Sorry for cutting you off last time, but so—. And maybe this is outside the purview of this discussion, but I appreciate your map that you put up on the board that shows that there's a road problem, there's a housing problem. Um, maybe we need to look at putting in the road infrastructure before we build houses, because otherwise we're kind of creating a problem for the residences in which they can't get through their road, they don't have adequate drainage. So you're kind of putting in You know, sometimes it can take a really long time before road improvement happens, and you create a situation where you have a residential area that's now living with a problem where maybe a fire truck can't get in, an ambulance can't get in, because there are cars parked on the street and there's snow, and we aren't mitigating that with a road that's 18 to 20 feet wide.

Um, that was kind of why I asked, is there a plan by the MOA to improve and develop this road if this platting is also approved?

Um, so to repeat the question, is there a plan from the MOA to improve this road?

I think for that, um, let's see if I can pull something else over. I would recommend everybody just be aware and familiar with the MOA PM&E Project Center reporting dashboard. This is sort of an overview of all the projects planned, right? So there's a lot of need in Anchorage. I think people have heard before, we have a pretty big— we have a billion dollars of backlog of streets we need to get fixed up.

But this, um, great tool. PM&E's done a great job on this. I, I was zooming— let me see if I— so this is the area. It does look like there is a project plan for LOR, um, surface rehabilitation and pedestrian safety improvements. Um, so these come together, I think, through community councils, through there's a bigger process.

This isn't in the planning department. This is a PM&E process and a capital project process. But in terms of which projects are planned for the municipality to build, I would start here and, and, you know, talk to PM&E and, and talk to everyone else about how we do that. And but there is a lot of need across Anchorage and there's only so much, so many resources to go around. But I would start here.

I think if you Google MOIPM&E Project Center dashboard or project dashboard, you'll get to this page or contact us and we'll be glad to send you the link.

Commissioner Gardner. Thanks. Just a quick question for staff. I apologize, I think you may have covered this before. I just want to make sure I have it clear in my head since I think I've heard a couple of different things.

Under the, the proposed zone, um, if with the, with the plat, if that goes through 20 lots, um, I just want to make sure I have the comparison right. So you can have 4 units in each of those lots under the under the current zoning, what's the maximum that you could see with the replat if it's finalized?

Through the chair, if it remains an R-5, let me just take a second.

You would be able to have a duplex essentially through— given the current sizes in the subdivision, you'd be able to have So you'll be able to have a single-family or a one relocatable dwelling unit in each of these parcels with an ADU, so essentially duplex at max. If you wanted to push it to a duplex plus an ADU, which is functionally a triplex, you would need 13,000 square feet per lot. Thank you. Thank you. Was that 13 or 30?

13, 1-3.

And then, um, that's a question for the petitioner. When the Planning Board approved the preliminary plat and the variance, was— did they know that a rezone to R2M? No, this is a new development. What's in work? Okay.

Any other questions for staff or the petitioner?

I see none.

Um, I would ask that if anyone is thinking about voting no, that they voice their concerns or questions now.

Um, I, uh Commissioner McKee. Um, to that end, you know, in preparation of this meeting tonight, I went in Google Earth and measured the adjacent lots and the adjacent number of buildings on those parcels. So off of Zion and O'Brien, there's a 14,572-square-foot lot with a fourplex on it, or two condos. There's a 9,000-square-foot lot that has a fourplex on it. There's a 24,240 square foot lot that had 10 units on it, um, with another 5,200 square foot lot with 2 units.

And directly behind those, those units that were all together in parallel, there was multiple cars parked in a vacant lot. So if that vacant lot weren't available, I'm not sure where those cars would park. Um, and then across the streets, I also went and looked at adjacent properties in the vicinity to You know, preserve the character of an area. So across the street at Lake Otis and 72nd, there are several lots there. They're all 8,000 square feet each with only 2 units on them.

I have significant concerns that the streets are only 18 to 20 feet wide, that there is no area— there's nothing to address the drainage. I live in an area with significantly wider streets with sidewalks, and snow is a huge concern. We have vehicles parking in the street. Fire trucks have not been able to get through on occasion and have had to have cars removed to create that space. Two-way traffic, not even an issue.

It's not happening. But I think when you can't get emergency vehicles through, that becomes a bigger and more significant issue if there's a multi-dwelling that's on fire. So I, I I understand that Anchorage has a housing problem. I understand that, um, rezoning so that multiple-family dwellings can be constructed is a huge asset to the community. It helps keep costs of housing more affordable.

But I think that the character of this area is in alignment with the R-5 platting that it currently has that doesn't allow condos and apartments, that the character of this area is predominantly single-family. The lot sizes are, you know, and I went and looked. I said, you know, what's in this area? What's the character? Excuse me.

Well, she asked us to—. I'm the chair of the meeting and I'm ready to close the public hearing. Thank you for your question to the commission, but we can— there'll be time for that when there's a motion on the table. Thank you. Thank you.

Through the chair, if I could just interject for like 2 minutes. Given the municipal apparatus to process a rezone, of the 3 conditions that are to be met, all 3 are met substantially in every single capacity. It is compatible with the current land use plan, this proposed rezone, it turns it into a mixed medium-density residential sort of situation. There are also no precautionary red flags that have been popped up, that have popped up to other, uh, other concerned departments. And again, they are not also— none of— not neither of these rezones, nothing in this, in this entire application is in contention with any other state or municipal law.

That's it. Thank you. Thank you. And we will close the public hearing. The petitioner's time for rebuttal was given.

Questions were asked and answered. And now we will close the public hearing and ask, what is the will of the body?

Uh, Commissioner Krishna, would you like to state your motion? Yes, I move in case 2026-0041 to recommend to the Anchorage Assembly approval of the rezone of the— of 2 tracts of land from R-5 low-density residential district to R-2M mixed residential district.

Uh, that's seconded by Commissioner Gardner. Commissioner Krishna, would you like to speak to the motion? Can, uh, members of the crowd please do not ask me to ask you to leave?

Yes, I.

I do intend to support this motion, and I will make a few findings of fact. Um, there are 3 conditions of approval. Um, it's consistent with the comprehensive plan, it would not result in objective risk to health or safety, and it does not conflict with other municipal, state, or federal codes, regulations, or ordinances. I will make a few findings that fall within that. Um, in addition to implementing the Anchorage 2040 Land Use Plan land use classification of compact mixed residential medium.

I will also note that this— these parcels are noted two other times in the land use plan map and various plans, maps found within the plan. One is as an area of medium growth, and the second is in a Transit supportive corridor designation. I take these not lightly. Um, these, uh, I'll add as a comment, maybe not a finding, that in my mind, that is hearing from the Comprehensive Plan 3 separate times that this is an appropriate area and parcel for higher density. And that is not an opinion of me or the Commission.

That's something that we as volunteers and as citizens using the Comprehensive Plan to guide our decisions here tonight are beholden to.

I understand the comments about traffic.

I think that given what we've heard tonight about the well studies, about private development's comments, about traffic engineering's comments, I don't believe that it's this Commission's role or my personal role to overrule the opinions of any of those departments or to second-guess them. And so those would be my comments and findings and the reasons which I would use to say that I support this motion. And I welcome further comments from the Commission.

Anybody else wishing to speak to the motion? Commissioner Gardner. Thank you. Um, I intend to support the motion as well. I think, um, the comments Commissioner Krishna made largely capture my thoughts.

I'll just add a couple of additional, um, I guess, findings. One is a finding with respect to the second, um, approval criteria resulting in objective risk to health and safety. I mean, I, I, I, I hear the comments from the folks that have spoken, and I, I fully understand their concerns. And appreciate them. I do feel like I am in, in the role that we are in here tonight, in particular since we're implementing the comprehensive plan and providing a rezone, not specific development.

I feel like it gets a little bit of the cart before the horse for what we're doing this evening. There are additional approvals with respect to any development that will need to take place, and as we heard earlier this evening as well, a, um, an increase to the size of the right-of-way. And I would urge everyone to work through the options that were identified by Mr. McKenna Foster earlier to push for improvements on that street if or as needed, depending on how any development takes place, which again, we don't know exactly what that will look like. I also just wanted to note that there is, um, the property is adjacent to an existing R2M in the southeast corner adjacent to an R-0 zone and diagonal to a B-3 zone in the northeast as well. So this is kind of a transitional property between the R-5 on the west side and, as you get closer to Lake Otis, on the east side.

Um, I think that's— those are my comments. Thank you. Commissioner McKee.

Um, I don't feel that Condition B, that that criterion has been adequately addressed or met. That adding this volume of potential dwellings before the street capacity is increased to accommodate, I think it does present a potential risk to, to safety.

Commissioner Mills.

I think with my position, I would like to echo the first two comments from Commissioner Krishna. I think our scope is purely aligned with reviewing the zoning, and we can't comment on proposed development nor what size the proposed development would be aside from what falls within the zoning requirements. And when it comes to parking and, you know, well, those things are going to have to be exhausted when we have a potential development, and that's, you know, not going to be within our role to review. So I would motion that to approve.

Any—. Commissioner Polis?

Um, I intend to support the motion. I, I feel the pain in the room, but, um, as, as the rest of the commissioners stated, this is basically, you know, a big land use map was made, switched this to a medium density 4 years ago. And this is a rezone to match that planning map. It's not a rezone to compare traffic rates or any of that stuff. We don't have that information.

We don't know how the development will go. Our job is to, you know, make sure it meets the criteria. And we understand the parking, the drainage, all that is of the building permitting purview. So the individual lots will get evaluated by that. As far as what the public can do, I think contacting your assembly members, stuff like that, and trying to get a road project on the books is probably a good move at this point.

Okay, I will speak to the motion. I, I have trouble with this. This property clearly belongs as R-2M in my mind. There's nothing you can say about traffic or trees or anything that doesn't make me think that this property should be rezoned to R2M. However, my hesitation is that there was a plat previously approved for R5 property with variances granted to allow the road and storm drain improvements that might typically maybe have been required.

A variance was granted to not do those improvements. So, so that's my trouble here. The Planning and Zoning Commission does not approve variances. What we do is we recommend approval or denial to the assembly. And so the next step for this, assuming it passes tonight, is that it'll go to the Anchorage Assembly.

There'll be another public hearing, and the Anchorage Assembly has all all the tools in their tool belt to deal with the concerns, your concerns, my concerns, other commissioners' concerns, assuming it passes tonight. And so I plan to support the motion even though I do have concerns. I've put my concerns on the record. I think they're tied directly into Commissioner McKee's concerns about safety. And I just putting my faith in the assembly that they— whatever they choose to do, they will be able to handle the concerns.

And so I intend to support.

Call for the vote.

The motion passes.

Okay, moving on to case 2026-0034.

May we please have the staff presentation? Thank you, Mr. Chair. Daniel McKenna Foster, Long Range Planning. Also Luke Bertram here.

Um, we took one of these cases. I'll be doing most of the talking, but hopefully Luke will weigh in if there's anything I miss. So, um, case— PCC cases 2026-34 and 2026-35 both have to do with the B3 zoning district. This is an interesting one because it came to us from the assembly initially, or it was one proposal came from the assembly, and then we added on another proposal to sort of round it out a little bit. So we've We will explore that.

Go back in time to last summer, and Assemblymember Rivera introduced AO 2026-63, I believe. It was an ordinance to modify the table of.

Uses to make self-storage a conditional as opposed to permitted use in order to, you know, make better use of space, encourage housing development, that sort of thing. There was a lot of discussion about this last year. I think the Assembly discussed it at maybe 2 meetings. Ultimately, they decided to refer it back to the Planning Department, Planning and Zoning Commission, and here we are. So just quick overview of the B-3 district.

B-3 zoning, it's kind of all over the bowl. It's pretty flexible. It's either loved or hated, but it does a lot for Anchorage. And it's been around for a long time. Overall, they're about— within the bowl, there are 2,908 parcels, I believe.

And that's about 2,301 acres. So as you can see, B3 is usually pretty well situated, usually, you know, in areas with good transportation, central parts of the city, some of the older parts of the city. But you can find it pretty much all over the place. And it does have a pretty wide mix of uses and sort of histories, I guess you could say. Here's the of course, Spinard Road.

So many of our corridors were traditionally B-3 or became B-3. A lot of the Northern Lights corridor is as well. Just in terms of uses in B-3, this is, you know, just pulling from the CAMA data. So just— this is looking at the number of parcels with this use. Condo fee simple, that can actually be self-storage or residential condos, or maybe even commercial condo.

I think that can be a number of things. But you can see there's a pretty wide variety of uses in B-3. A lot of miscellaneous parking in B-3, a lot of vacant land, office, a lot of retail, warehouse, restaurant, auto service garage, basically all sorts of stuff. But you have mixed use, you have residential, you have commercial, you have semi-industrial. So it's a pretty big mix.

A big discussion last year at the assembly in talking about B-3 was how much housing gets built in B-3. It does, does see a fair amount of housing, you know, not as much as, say, R-1 or R-2A or any of those. That's where most of the housing gets built. But B3 does see a lot of housing, especially since 2014 when, when the code changed. So you can see that a lot of senior housing has gotten built in B3 and B3-SL since 2014, and a lot of garden apartments have been built since that time.

And this is just showing sort of an overview.

And so, you know, as we're going through this, it's one thing to say let's limit uses in B3 to encourage housing, or because, because of the flexibility more efficient land use. So, and we got some questions about this. And so we just wanted to sort of explore what happens in B3, and also what happens in these uses, right? So self-storage has been a big discussion, or the use of self-storage has been a big discussion in Anchorage for the past couple years. But I think in many times, many places, what self-storage is or what it looks like from the outside might be really different what is in the inside.

So just looking at what could be considered self-storage, or maybe it's considered warehousing, or maybe it's considered cottage industry, but These next few slides are really just thinking about— there are a lot of things in Anchorage that look like this and function in really different ways. So this is just some sort of semi-industrial area off of 82nd. It's I-1 zoning. But if you look, there's a really interesting mix of businesses in this area. There's sort of fitness, there's specialized— there's like a fencing group there, people doing specialized detailing, specialized builds.

So it doesn't fit maybe into our traditional idea of what is warehousing or traditional industrial, right? But this is also the kind of stuff that sometimes happens in self-storage as well. This is just sort of looking at the tower outside of that area, and you can see really interesting mix of cool businesses there. And it's interesting to think about, I think, when businesses are starting to start out, maybe they start in their house, and then they want a smaller space, but they don't want all sort of a fully built retail space or fully built industrial space. So these are kind of an interesting transitional area there.

Here's probably what many of us think of as in terms of self-storage. But again, in some of these, we might see some of the same types of activity. So of course, zoning is always sort of trying to think about what the activity is and regulating based on that. And so those are what our uses are. But when it comes to self-storage and cottage industry and warehousing, sometimes the lines get a little blurry.

Um, sorry, this is also I-1 zoning. This is B-3 zoning. So here we are, an example of a self-storage in B-3. But again, we don't really know what happens inside of these. Is it— maybe it is somebody starting a business, maybe somebody just storing stuff.

It's not too particular. Once we permit it as self-storage or something else, we, we don't really go back and do another zoning review unless something changes. And then of course, there was a lot of discussion about people building housing that starts to sort of look like self-storage or looks like a garage house or a shop house, which is what I think one of the sponsors called the schaus. So that's where the term came from. This is a development up on Boundary a few years ago.

And it was just really interesting from the planning perspective to see that we've seen storage be a really attractive use in many ways, sort of a bit of a maligned use in many ways, but then we also see housing responding, right? And so one of the concerns that came out of these discussions was, are people living in those storage, you know, the self-storage units, or are they— is there a way that we can make sure that they're safe, right? We don't want people using a structure that's not really built for habitation for habitation. So some of those are some of the decisions. And then this one I really like, which is, I think, you know, I believe it's a triplex, the 3 mailboxes.

This could be the the shop house triplex or something. So, you know, somebody built this and this B-3 zoning. So this is just an interesting mix of housing and this other type of use. And it kind of shows the evolving form of anchorage. So not to get too into it, but just so it's on the slide, just to see the definition of self-storage, cottage crafts, warehouse or wholesale establishment, and personal services, repair and rental.

Sometimes all 4 of these things could end up in something that looks like self-storage or warehousing. So really, The point of putting this in here is just to say it's kind of complicated. And so a lot of these discussions— and maybe that's why this was introduced last summer and we're still sort of talking about it almost a year later. But with that, I'll provide a little bit more context for the case. Again, remember back in 2023, everybody was talking about car washes and saying, oh, we're getting too many car washes.

And a lot of those were in B-3. And then in 2024, you had the self-storage, the man cave, she sheds, the business space, garage condos. And then, you know, this AO of course sort of arose out of that environment. And here we are now trying to figure out, um, what exactly to do with it. Um, and, and one other thing I think is just worth mentioning, and, uh, you know, some— I, I'm sure many of you will know this a lot better than I will, but just in terms of when somebody looking to build something looks at a property, um, just because it's hard to do one thing doesn't mean they're automatically going to go to the next thing.

So I think there was a lot of discussion about that, like if maybe we get less self-storage, we'll get more housing built in B3. But I think all we would add is that it might be a bit more complicated than that. There's sort of two totally different classes of investments. The type of real estate developer who builds multifamily probably won't do self-storage necessarily, or maybe they will, but it just seems like a kind of different set of asset class, different sets of risk. You know, multifamily, maybe the demand is more steady.

You can get some tax benefits, maybe get appreciation on the property. But really high upfront capital costs, really high operating costs. You gotta figure if you're gonna operate it, manage it, different financing. Self-storage, a little bit lower capital cost, easier to manage. You know, with self-storage, you could probably just do a month-to-month lease immediately.

You don't have to do a 12-month lease. There isn't all that, the lob as much between tenants and landlords. But maybe there's more competition, might be less popular. So the point of this is just to emphasize that different asset classes probably have different sets of investors. I'm sure there are, exceptions to that rule.

But just to think about, just because we're not building something or we're not getting one thing, it doesn't mean we're automatically going to get the other thing. So timeline again, spring 2025, Assembly introduced and discussed AO-2025-63. In the summer, the Assembly referred it to us in the Planning Department and to you and the Commission. And then in autumn, we had a few more discussions with the sponsors, expanded policy guidance, and that's how we ended up with 2 proposals out of this. One is sort of the stick proposal.

That's the one that limits the uses. So it limits self-storage to a conditional use, storage yard, and I believe a large parking garage to conditional use. So it doesn't prohibit them, it just makes them conditional. And then the carrot is expanding the uses in B-3 and simplifying the definition of mixed uses. So this is trying to maybe shift things away from self-storage and these larger uses that don't have a lot of employment associated with them traditionally in those key areas where B-3 is, and then also trying to expand the possibilities of the flexibility that are the options in B-3.

Comments, general, no support or no objection. There's a letter from SEHA. We did have one comment stating that making larger parking lots or structures a conditional use could affect development or make it a little bit more difficult to develop. Our response to that is this: a lot of these are policy calls that came from the assembly, and it's really the assembly saying for these key areas of land, um, our policy direction is to favor some uses over others, not necessarily prohibit them, but encourage things to go towards sometimes uses and not others. Um, and now the specifics of each case.

Review and Amendment 2026-34 is review and amendments to AO-2025-63. It updates the purpose statement of B-3. You see, it really simplifies that, um, and it limits self-storage, storage yards, large parking lots. Um, and then PCC Case 2026-35 expands uses in B-3 and simplifies the definition of mixed use. It allows all forms of housing, aiming for shop houses with that.

It cleans up the definition of mixed use, which was a little bit sort of unwieldy. It was unclear, like, is it— it was only defined as a mixed-use dwelling. So then it was like, well, is there a mixture of uses within the dwelling? So we cleaned that up. And, you know, as we were reading it tonight, we were thinking it could maybe even be cleaned up a little bit more.

But this was really just to simplify it so there weren't any snafus there.

And then eliminate lot size of B3 and allow for multiple structures on a lot. And I'll say one more thing and then see if Luke has anything that I missed. In the packet, I think when I prepared the template, I was using maybe the wrong table dimensional standards. So you'll see that the actual setbacks are different. So look at the code for the setbacks in B3.

They're actually 10 in the front, and then on the side it's 5 plus 1 foot. For each 5 feet in height exceeding 35 feet. In the one we showed, it shows it's just 5. That wasn't a change we contemplated, I don't think. At least we didn't mark it, so we don't want to be sneaking that in or anything.

So these are the ones that exist, and that's not underlined text. With that, I don't know, Luke, anything I missed or anything you wanted to add? Sorry about that. My mic isn't working. I do not have anything to add at this time, but I am available for questions as well.

Thank you. Question from Commissioner Krishna. Questions? Um, so I think my first question— I feel like the chair is going to cut me off— um, is, you know, both this and the following ordinance in my mind are trying to do something much bigger than how they're titled, which is really fundamentally realigning what the B-3 district is meant to do. I'm happy to, like, confine our discussion and my questions really to the text of this ordinance, but I do feel like the intent is much larger, um, and there's a much bigger discussion to be had here about why the higher density residential districts maybe aren't functioning in the way that they're intended and why we are, um, you know, looking at really expanding or, or pushing our B-3 district in a way that it maybe wasn't written many years ago, but into a place that is going to be maybe the most appealing district for residential development, or at least new residential construction.

So first question, like, is there time pressure to just pass this now and to look at this very in a limited fashion? Second question, We've spent 10 years or more talking about the pressure on our industrial lands, and I'm curious about that. You know, as we push uses out of B3 and into industrial zones, it feels like that's a different set of pressure that we've talked a lot about. And then my third question is parking lot and parking structure are defined separately in code, but for some reason combined in the use table. And I'm wondering about uncombining those because I think that they do and intend to do very different things.

Through the chair, is there time pressure to pass this now? Well, AO-2025-63 was sponsored by Member Rivera, so there was some interest in Member Rivera getting— or us getting it to him before he left the body. I guess time is kind of taking on that since he's termed out, I believe.

And the second AO was also sort of spearheaded by, or encouraged by, Member Brawley. So I think the original sponsor, Rivera, and then Brawley and Volland sort of signed on to it. I guess I don't know if I could answer what their intent would be, or if they would be interested in looking at those bigger questions. I think you're right. I mean, we've had R3A and R4A for 10 years, and nothing's been built in them.

And there was a lot of hope about what would happen there, but nobody has really chosen to go into that. We've only had 1 or 2 rezones, and some of them were pretty much guided by the department. So that's one thing about B3 is a lot of it exists already, and so that hurdle of having to rezone into it is that much easier versus an R3A or R4A where you have to go through not only the rezone process, but then you're, you're dealing with an untested zone. To me, I think that is an area that's fertile for discussion. I don't think I could speak to the intent of the sponsors, but that seems like it could be part of the recommendation, like maybe look into this a little bit bigger, like what is the priority here?

In terms of pressure on industrial lands, yeah, that is something still, and that's something where we have— we had the industrial land study, I think it was 2012 or maybe a bit after that, which really focused on don't lose your industrial lands because you need this for all sorts of production. That could probably be updated. I mean, the economy has changed probably significantly since then. And honestly, we don't, we don't have a great updated set of data on that. We still refer to that.

And if rezones come through, we generally say we probably shouldn't be losing industrial land at the expense of other land. I mean, there's an interesting trade-off between industrial and residential, for example, but in many cases we'd probably say don't, we don't want to lose the I-1 or I-2. Um, but our guidance on that is old. And then There's other— this other interesting question of, you know, what does— what did industrial traditionally mean? Is— are some of these warehouses where people are starting businesses are actually doing, you know, like truck fabrication?

That is kind of industrial too, and that can also happen in B-3. So I don't have a great answer. It seems like maybe that's another thing that could be considered recommended. And then finally, parking lot, parking structure. Um, from the technical perspective, I think undoing those here would be a little bit complicated.

We could take it under advisement and maybe under the Omnibus 2, which is focused on some of those slightly more complex but not really substantial change. We could potentially include it in there. Yes.

And the reason I said parking lot and parking structure is because in my mind and the way I have seen parking structures used is fundamentally as a density tool, right? It's both a structure that is much more dense than a parking lot and meant to support other density. And so The idea of treating them the same is a little bit funny to me when we have actually defined them separately in code and we could break them out. But that is my— that's my comment there. Commissioner McKee.

Hi, thank you. And maybe this is just to help me understand, like, how these zoning things work. But like, I was looking at the table for the housing that's been built. Since 2014, and it, it does have the 810 that were built in B-3 and B-3SL and approximately 2,835 units built in other zone classifications, and in particular R-3, R-2M, and R-4. Do we not feel that there's enough available development land to meet the anticipated demands?

So like, you know, I understand that like we're, we're building senior housing, there's a need for senior housing, it could be built in this B-3 if we adopt this, but could it— do we not feel that there's enough available space in R-4 or it's not located appropriately to meet that demand?

Through the chair, I think that there's just a lot of B-3 and a lot of B-3 in really accessible areas. I mean, I remember when we were doing the R-4A update, the comment from Cook Inlet Housing was, don't focus on R-4A, just make it— let us build a little bit taller in B-3 because that is where we find most of the land that's available. And, you know, R-4 and R-2M, they do have other sort of special rules as you get to higher. For example, in R2M, when you go above 5, 4 units, you start getting— you need a larger lot size, and there are different rules that apply. So I think part of it is the complexity.

But also, I think there's just so— there's a lot of B3 available. And also, in what the plan imagined for getting to R4, R3, there's not as much. There's more to R2M, potential upzones to that. But in general, it does seem— and this is sort of just for institutional builders— it seems a little bit easier to build in B-3. For smaller scale, it seems a little bit easier to build in, like, the R-3s, R-4s, R-2Ms.

But I might— I'm sure there are others on the Commission who probably know more about this specifically than I do. And then my other question, and it maybe ties to the other Commissioner's question about parking. If you currently owned an undeveloped B-3, would you be grandfathered, or would you then have to go through the special process of a conditional use permit to be allowed to build, let's say, a large parking structure? Through the chair, the nonconformities only apply to if you have the use in existence. So if you currently have a lot or you had a structure, then you wouldn't have to go through the permit process to change it.

But if you had a vacant lot, you would. And I You know, I can see what Commissioner Christensen is saying, and some of this is, you know, bigger policy direction too. And I think it's one of those things where the code is imagining that storage for storing vehicles is— space for storing vehicles is space that can't be used for other uses. But maybe the reality is that sometimes, you know, in a structure that enables a different type. So that, in terms of nonconformities, it only applies if the use already exists.

Thank you. Commissioner Mills.

Um, listening to you speak about, um, you know, the soft industrial uses in, um, B-3 zoning, um, it's— I'm kind of connecting some dots and it's making me a little bit concerned. There's a pretty significant shortage of industrial space in Anchorage for commercial users, and I'm going to recognize.

Start with industrial land and developed industrial property are separate, and there's a separate problem, which is the cost of construction and the fact that it's so expensive to develop, that that's a significant problem. Um, but my fear is, is that if this proceeds, then those soft industrial uses that are kind of merging into a B-3 building, that's going to be more difficult, and that's going to exacerbate the problem. Are you tracking with my logic? Is that what you understand as well? Yeah, through the chair, I mean, that— it seems to me like a good discussion to have here.

Yeah, because we, we don't have good data on that, and we don't even really know what's happening in self-storage necessarily. And also, when you say industrial, it's like, well, What do we actually mean by industrial? I think about— I'm thinking like a factory producing widgets or whatever, right? Right. That might not even be— and actually, Tom Davis from our office, he said when he did the industrial land study, he was amazed and they were amazed at the just variety and interesting scale of industrial activity going on in acreage and in these little places that nobody really thought about.

So I think we just don't really have the data. And then in terms of are we talking about encroaching into industrial zoning or the uses encroaching into B3 space? Because the, you know, the land use map has a certain amount of industrial zoning, and industrial zoning allows a certain number of uses. Same with B-3. So I guess another question on top of that is, well, how many of the uses that serve the same purpose as industrial, which is probably sort of production for serving the area or the community, can actually happen in B-3?

So they need to be protected, or they should be encouraged to go in industrial. Honestly, the same thing came up with self-storage. Is self-storage appropriate as an industrial use? Or is it more appropriate as sort of a commercial retail use, like in a B-3? And of course, I don't think we have a good answer to it.

I think it's— that's kind of the big question. Yeah. And that a lot of these things are kind of grappling with. And I think, you know, when I read this packet to prep, I was thinking self-storage, like a lot of what we see, that somebody would go put their personal belongings in and pay their monthly fee. But looking at the pictures, those are commercial spaces that somebody's operating a business out of, which I see differently.

So I guess partly I just need to understand the scope of who this applies to. Through the chair, so this, it just applies to the use and what happens in that use after, say, you know, somebody comes in and say, I want to build self-storage. Yeah. Right now we'd say, oh, it's in B3, has to go through conditional use. Maybe they're in I-1.

It's permitted use. But what they do with it, what happens within that, from the zoning perspective, we don't really look at that in the future. Then it would be land use enforcement if there was some sort of violation and somebody was like creating a smell or a like noise or something like that. So this is just looking at that specific use, but we don't exactly know what happens after that. Thank you.

Were you able to look back at any of the garage condominium projects to find out what they were permitted under as a zoning use? And I—. Because I know as a developer, I was kind of shocked when the municipality decided one day that garage condominiums were going to be called self-storage, and And I think the main reason the municipality did that was because they wanted, they made a special, there was a special ordinance for self-storage to have 50-foot of queuing in front of the fence. And there was another special rule about having the, and this is not self-storage, this is a residential triplex on a B-3 lot. So anyhow, Luke has an example, but he will answer.

I'll take this down until you—. But, but I guess what my question is, kind of following up on the last question, is if we're, if we're seeing lots of businesses run out of these spaces, are we sure self-storage is really how we want to define these condo, these garage condo spaces? I mean, there's a really popular old one on Potter that used to have an after-hours gambling in it. So there's all kinds of different uses for these things.

I think it's— that's sort of the limitation of our code, is that the code is looking at this as a very specific type of activities and then attaching those associated regulations, the extra queuing out front. And it's not looking at it in terms of what are the actual impacts that happen from the site. Because, you know, say you could have something like this and people only come once a month to drop off their stuff. If you put a bunch of trees around it, you might not even know it's there. Versus what you're talking about where people are playing cards in there and making a bunch of noise maybe.

I mean, that is a really difficult thing to try to regulate without just maybe regulating site by site. Again, I don't think we have a good answer for that. We're sort of— struggling with. We need to— we need more refined tools, but we just have a pretty dull sort of hammer to deal with it. And then my other question is, because I agree with Commissioner Mills about maybe squeezing the industrial land by taking away some of the soft industrial stuff that's going into B3, but how hard— can you explain the conditional use process for us, just so we understand, because you're not actually taking it away, you're just making it a little bit more difficult.

So the conditional use process requires the Planning and Zoning Commission to review the case, and then you can basically put on all sorts of conditions. There's a pretty, pretty wide range of conditions you could put on. You could say when something could operate, what it could look like, you know, how big it could be, that sort of thing. Um, so I think that that is a pretty big difference than even like an administrative site plan review in terms of the soft cost that somebody feels going through that process. So what, what's the cost of the conditional use application in, in terms of permit fees?

Yeah.

All right, so the conditional use permit is—. The fees for that is dependent on the area of the site with the conditional use. Um, but in this instance, for a project that is 1.75 acres or less that is not single-family residential would be, uh, $4,720. Uh, for 1.76 to 5 acres, that would be $7,080. Uh, 5.01 to 40 acres is $10,385.

And 40.01 acres or larger would be $16,520.

Thank you. Um, those are my questions. Any other questions before we go to the public hearing?

Mr. Krishna. Yeah, I might just ask you to— I'm sure we'll— we might hear about this the public hearing, but I might just ask you to address the concerns about parking on separate lots for business uses. We had a comment about that because that is my largest concern, is that we don't meet the intent of this ordinance and instead we just add a lot of cost and barriers to business development, which we also really need in this town.

Yeah, I could address that now. I think the thing there is that, say you have a business and then on a separate lot you want to build the lot or the structure of 50 spaces or larger. So you would have to— under— if this passed, you would have to go through the conditional use process. The thinking there is that the policy direction is to encourage uses that have more employees or are more sort of people-centered or urban-centered, sort of something like that. I know that the counterpoint is that, well, that's attached to, um, like another sort of activity-centered use, so that this doesn't really understand that.

Unfortunately, the zoning only understands it sort of parcel by parcel. So that's the sort of policy direction there, is it's only looking at it the way it's structured. It does— I can't see that the way the code is structured, it would It would have fixed that problem if lots 50 spaces or larger and garage 50 spaces or larger were separate, and then they could be separated out, which potentially— I mean, you can make any recommendation you want. So, Commissioner Polis, I have a short question. Um, what is the definition of an auto-oriented retail business?

Seems like any business that has a driveway.

Funnily enough, I believe that a car wash is also— yeah, shit, find zoning.

What is it? Glossospirus. Do we have ana-oriented? Glossospirus. Oh, that's it, right?

You want to tell him? Go for it. So through the chair, we're looking at, um, 2105, and there's the vehicles equipment category, and in that we have vehicle parts and supplies, um, vehicle services. Oh, I, I think I misspoke. I believe car wash falls under, uh, vehicle service.

I Vehicle Service and Repair. So the definition of that is an establishment engaged in the major repair and maintenance of automobiles, motorcycles, trucks, vans. I'll just put it over here, actually. Let's see, repair.

And if I may interject, um, we do not have an explicit definition of automobile-oriented in code. However, we do have uses that are automobile-oriented within their definition, so it's a bit more granular within our code.

Okay, I got more questions backing up. Are we done here with the— we don't know. Commissioner Polis is the short answer.

Um, Commissioner Krishna. Yeah, I seem to recall that a couple of years ago we had a similar discussion about making parking lots or structures conditional in the downtown district, and I'm, I'm wondering— I don't remember why, why that didn't go through, but it didn't. It's not a conditional use in the downtown districts, and so I guess I'm struggling a little bit with us making it conditional everywhere but the downtown districts, which should be our most dense and transit-accessible and walkable commercial districts and, you know, making it much harder to have a parking lot supporting a business somewhere, you know, out in South Anchorage. So do you remember what happened with that, and do you have any sort of lessons that came from that? Yeah, through the chair, and just for reference, the downtown code sort of has its own mini Title 21, and so it has its own use table, and we updated that a few years ago.

And initially we did have it, but I think Some people on the working group just weren't comfortable with it. Maybe, um, it was the same with drive-throughs. We thought, well, downtown, it's supposed to be, you know, sort of pedestrian-oriented, and drive-throughs are sort of go against that. But it wasn't at that time. I think people just weren't comfortable doing it.

Uh, Commissioner McKee. Hi, I'm sorry, maybe I'm just I'm confused a little bit, and maybe a commissioner can explain this to me since I'm newer to the planning and zoning portion of it. But like, B-3 is— so, so I look all these classifications up so that I can try to understand what we're doing. But B-3 says it's intensive commercial, auto-oriented businesses along major arterials. They're supposed to be high vehicle access and high-density commercial activity.

So that then to me sounds like, you know, multi-story business facilities with large parking garages would be what you would put in a B3, or, you know, large storage facilities that are very much catering to vehicles. And then there's a statement in here in the discussion that says You know, that there— that people then build garage condos, man caves, she sheds, car washes. But the car wash to me seems like an appropriate thing to build in a B-3. So I guess I'm a little bit confused what it is that the assembly members that put forth this, this action are trying to achieve, because it seems like it's directly in contradiction with what a B-3 is intended for.

Yeah, through the chair, in AO-20, in case 2026-0034, the review of 2025-63, um, one of the changes is updating or changing that purpose statement to remove some of that language. And it is, it's a significant policy change, at least in the purpose of B3. I'd just like to make the comment, my read on this is that it was born out of a response to some news articles and a feeling that there was a lot of garage condos going on in high-visibility B-3 areas. I mean, I can say that one of them was my project along with another project because I built several garage condo type projects. I built the residential triplex in the B-3 that looks like a shop house.

It's not that attractive, but anyhow, um, and it felt to me like it was a lot was happening, and I was also I had previously done garage projects in industrial zoned areas, and then to be doing one in a B-3 didn't— it felt kind of weird to do one in a B-3 right on Lake Otis. So I don't think that the assembly was, you know, off base when they proposed it, but then it fizzled out and didn't go anywhere. So I think the job that we're being asked to do as the Planning and Zoning Commission is to weigh in and say what we think. This is like our chance to kind of push in the direction that we see fit and send that recommendation to the assembly. Is that— would that be fair?

I think that's exactly what the intent was in referring it back.

Go ahead. I mean, so I guess let me just say, since we're not in a contentious rezone with a bunch of the public, I think we can be a little more free in our, our comments. But, but if we're gonna start saying things, we should wait for the motion so that they are on the record.

So I like— the way I'm perceiving this is that they want to make it so that you would have to get a conditional use permit to build the type of things that would normally be built in a B-3 in favor of encouraging large-scale residential development, which doesn't really align with the definition of a B-3. Am I interpreting that correctly. Well, maybe Daniel could speak to this, but I think the next case changes what goes in B3. But Daniel, because I'm kind of looking at them together, like they seem like they are kind of a tandem thing. Yeah, they are intended to run together.

And so this is changing the purpose of B3, and it's changing what's traditionally been allowed in B3 sort of to align. With that purpose. Um, and it's— so it would limit those uses, but it doesn't limit any of the other, um, uses that are currently permitted. So that's kind of the other thing too, is I think when this was being discussed, there's a lot of discussion as if all B-3 had was self-storage and housing, but there's a whole other range of things in B-3. And it does seem that, you know, what gets built in B-3, a lot will depend on what people are willing to invest in and build.

And so a key piece is changing the purpose statement so that it's all consistent.

So if you built a large-scale senior housing— sorry, I have a lot of questions. I always have a lot of questions. If, let's say, you built a large-scale senior housing, which we do need, which this is asking to make that easier to do, that might very well need a parking garage. It would actually make quite a lot of sense to build a parking garage for seniors to have easy access to their building. This seems like it would make that in contradiction.

They'd have to get a conditional use permit to provide the parking garage for the large senior housing that they just built. Through the chair, only if it was on a separate lot. So on the same.

Lot, you wouldn't have to do it. It's the separate lot piece that— okay, thank you. Yeah, it's a standalone sort of primary use. Okay, thank you.

I do have one question that's slightly relevant, maybe irrelevant. When this— the definition of mixed use that you flashed up on the screen and you said you were messing with, It's troubled me for years because RO doesn't allow— RO has some limited amount of uses in it. And so I've often thought, well, maybe if I build a house and I call one of the bedrooms home office, then I'll be mixed use. And I've never really pushed it to find out. So just, can you elaborate on what you've come up with?

So yeah, this— the existing code just says mixed-use dwelling is a use. Um, and so that's kind of odd if you're doing a mixed-use development, because then to permit it, you're technically just permitting the dwelling. And this is like really pedantic, but you're just permitting the dwelling and not the whole development. So that was the first step, saying let's call this a mixed-use development and not a mixed-use dwelling. And then we went in a little bit more and sort of clarify that a little bit, because there was this weird situation said, oh, a mixed-use dwelling is like one, two or more— originally said two or more mixed-use dwellings in the same building.

It was sort of, um, a tautology or something. It's a little bit circular. So that was what this intent was, just to make it clear that if you do a mixed-use development, it's, it's something that has one residential unit and some other stuff in it. Previously, I think everybody kind of knew that, but it wasn't very clear in code. So that's trying to get to that, to just say Let's start by cleaning that up so it's a little bit clearer.

But there could be even better improvements to this, like the definition. It could just say a development where there's a, a residential use and a non-residential use or something like that.

Commissioner Polis. Just a quick easy one. You flashed a table where we changed some numbers, like the side yard and stuff like that. Um, are we approving that if we send this to the assembly, or are we only approving the other stuff and not that table mix-up? Now, through the chair, so this— everything that's on here that's not underlined, it, it's just my typo.

It's an error. So the only thing you would be approving is everything that's underlined and highlighted. So this other stuff, it would just pass through anyway because it's not underlined or changed. But this is just— it should— I mean, you could discuss changing that if you wanted, but that if we had intended to change that, we have to put it as underline.

And then if the Commission if the board chose to postpone these items, would there be— would staff be willing to do some sort of work session on it?

Absolutely, we could set that up. And you could also give us directions, say, could you look into X, Y, and Z, or answer the following questions, or try to find the answers.

Okay, uh, we should, we should get going.

Uh, next we will open the public hearing.

Is anyone from the public wanting to come forward and testify. Please state your name, let us know if you're representing yourself or a group. Good evening, my name is Laquita Chmielowski. I'm the land use planner at Dow, and I'm here tonight to recommend that the Planning and Zoning Commission remove the requirement for a conditional use permit for parking structures or surface parking over 50 parking spaces. If you look at Title 21, this is a commercial use and it's meant for vehicle parking that's not more than 72 hours— consecutive hours.

Vehicle storage is either considered self-storage when it's part of a self-storage facility or a storage yard if it's an independent facility for the storage of vehicles or other equipment. So those are two very different uses. With respect to parking, this resolution does not appear to fully consider the need for flexible tools to provide adequate parking across Anchorage. For example, the downtown code that, that you guys talked about, I was part of that working group. At the time, old code required a conditional use permit for parking structures.

When we worked as a group to look at the rewrite for downtown code, there was discussion that there was a need for parking, and so that the parking structure should be permitted by right, because conditional use permits, they do add a fair amount of time. They add risk to a project, and they certainly add cost. Um, the other thing that it doesn't take into consideration are other adopted plans, such as the Spinard Corridor Plan, which talks about having district or shared parking. Um, and so I know there's been work towards having a district parking within Spinard, but that doesn't exist. So businesses can work together to have shared parking.

A good example of this is the Windmill parking lot across from Chilkoot Charlie's. It currently supports several surrounding businesses, and And it was slated to also support the redevelopment of the Lamechs. Another consideration are campus-like settings like the Alaska Native Medical Campus that is all— almost all B-3. It has multiple properties and land is at a premium there. So over time, there may be a need to put a parking structure on a separate property, and now they would need to go through a conditional use permit process.

There's also examples of developments where you use multiple properties where your building will be on one property and maybe your parking is on that property as well as adjacent properties. Some examples of that are up until a few years ago, the Beartooth Theater was on 4 separate properties, and then also the Spenard Roadhouse is currently on 2 separate properties, and those have parking as a principal use. So, and I know I'm talking about a lot of different uses, but it applies to everything. So the same would apply for doing residential housing within the B3 if you found these certain types of scenarios. Um, so I would just ask for your consideration to not have that become a conditional use permit.

Question: we heard from staff that the fees for conditional use could be $4,000, $7,000, and $10,000. Let's say that's what they said. What would you estimate a firm like Dowell might charge for a $4,000, $7,000, or $10,000 conditional use? Um, depending on the complexity, a conditional use permit can be anywhere from $20,000 or more.

Thank you. You're welcome. Any other questions?

I see none. Thank you. Anybody else wishing to testify, please step forward.

Um, I do not see anybody. If we— if any commissioners were thinking they wanted to postpone, um, maybe doing it before I close the public hearing might be a good idea. Good night. Good night. Namaskar.

Krishna Krishna.

This might be sort of a comment and question. I think I'm— I hope this isn't too far off the rails, but I, I'm not sure I can support this as written. I think if I were asked right now, I think I would probably, um, not support the conditional use on parking lots. I—. It's hard to know without data on how many properties this might affect, um, so I think I would just put out there that I could see myself either moving forward with some amendments or moving to a work session.

This is one of the only times I've felt this way, but I would just say those are— that's what I would put out there. And I would ask if any other commissioners have felt strongly about either one of those options, moving forward today or a work session. So informal poll rather than just making the motion and taking the vote.

I think if everybody just weighed in, I mean, we could go into committee of the whole and then we could really talk loosely. But I think if we had everybody weigh in with their thoughts really quickly, we could get to the bottom of this. Commissioner Gardner.

Informally, not committing to anything, I would be interested in some, in particular, some.

Additional information about potential effects. It was really interesting to see the data on houses— housing units built in B-3, and I think without having— I mean, great if we could have something comparable for the uses that we're planning to push to conditional use and potentially locations as well in the context of the concern about pushing over into industrial areas would be really interesting, and I think it'd be helpful to have a discussion with some of that additional information on hand. Commissioner Pulis. Um, well, I was just gonna say that, you know, I think the intent of this case is basically a policy change to prevent self-storage and storage lots and, um, just all the stuff we're talking about from impacting B-3's ability to develop residential development. In the overall goal of what we're trying to do, I think that's a good thing.

However, I don't know if I can support getting rid of parking lots and parking structures. Those seem pretty important to me in the B-3 district, so that's kind of where my head's at with that. It sounds like the motion might be appropriate. Commissioner Krishna.

I, I would make a motion to postpone this case and to direct staff to schedule a work session.

My preference would be to do it for both this and the subsequent case since I see that they're— I, I believe they're connected and both go to the larger intent and goals of the B3 District. And that way we can request more information on, you know, multiple topics. So I see some nodding, so I will go ahead and make the motion to postpone both Case 2026-0035 and 0034 and direct staff to schedule a work session. Um, Since we are currently in the middle of a public hearing on case— on the first case, I think we should handle the cases separately, but I think the intent is there.

Okay. And yeah, the intent is to keep the public hearing open. Correct? Yes.

Um, did you want to testify on this case before we make a motion to postpone? I'm not sure if it's testify or not. It—. Yes, we'll call it testimony. So before we do this, you can go ahead and state your name for the record and testify.

You say whatever you want, and Since we'll likely postpone and continue the public hearing, you— if there's subsequent— if there's some substantive changes, you'll be able to testify again.

My name is Linda Arden. I'd like to point out that you have a spelling problem in your motion to postpone. Direct is not spelled correctly. That's all.

Thank you. You're welcome.

Yes, thank you.

Okay, the Motion by Commissioner Krishna is seconded by Commissioner Gardner. Commissioner Krishna, would you like to speak to your motion?

I believe I've already made my intent clear. I think I would welcome direction from the Commission on additional information that they would find helpful at a work session. For my part, I will start with Maybe some overall guidance that I would request on the, the goals of the B-3 District in general and the uses that we'd like to support within the district. I'll start there.

Uh, Commissioner Mills, I think just one comment to add to this. One thing that would be beneficial for the work session would be further clarification or definition about who the conditional use applies to, because the B-3 is— its intent is for like commercial use. So like a commercial industrial use being restricted from versus like a residential self-storage? Just a little bit more clarity as to who, who and which types of uses are going to be conditional and which ones aren't.

I'll just add on to that. I don't— there is no such thing as really a residential self-storage, like you store your residential goods. So I know what you meant by that, but in code, I don't think there's a residential self-storage versus commercial self-storage versus hazardous waste. I mean, the building code definitely defines those differences, but, um, so I don't want to belabor it, but maybe some expanded definition of when you rise to the level of qualifying as a self-storage versus traditional commercial space or warehouse space.

And that could be one of those boxes where the further you dig into the details, the harder it gets to solve.

But it would be good to talk about it at the work work session.

Commissioner Polis, I, I think I'd like my easy first question answered, is how many uses are going to fall under auto-oriented retail uses? Um, it seems like everything to me, so that's what I'd like some more info on.

Okay, um.

Hearing, seeing nobody speak to the motion, we'll call for the vote.

The motion passes.

Um, next may be some guidance for staff. We haven't even began, Case 2026-0035. Um, if the intent should— I guess this would be a question for the commission. Would you like to hear— start with the staff rec— or staff presentation for 2026-0035, or do we want to just postpone now.

Commissioner Krishna. I would like to hear staff's presentation. I think that will let us make a more informed decision on whether to postpone. Through the chair, it's the same presentation, but we'd be glad to provide it again if you'd like.

Or I could just provide a quick overview of the differences of that one. Should we do that?

Okay, um, again, Daniel McKenna Foster, Long Range Planning, here with Luke Bertram, also Long Range Planning. Um, I think the main differences— so 2026-34 was the stick 206635 is the carrot. Um, it allows all forms of housing, so townhouses, single family, all sorts of stuff. Um, simplifies the definition of mixed use and eliminates lot sizes and restrictions on the number of structures in B-3. So this is all permissive.

That was really easy.

So the question is, do we open the public hearing on this one?

As well.

I'm okay. I— that will be in the same spot if we choose to postpone this case. I'm going to go ahead and open the public hearing.

Anybody from the public wishing to testify?

Okay.

Seeing no one, uh, what is the will of the commission? Um, I'm recommending that if we are choosing to postpone, we do it now with the public hearing still open.

That motion is made by Commissioner Krishna. Seconded by Commissioner Gardner. Commissioner Krishna, do you have anything to add? I would just add that I think we've heard from staff that these two, um, these two cases are linked, and so I think it would benefit us to have a work session on them together. So I would direct staff to have a joint work session on these two cases.

Um, you know, and I think my comment and question on this is going to be maybe a little bit familiar to Commission that heard me during the Transit Supportive Development Overlay conversation, which is that, you know, I at first glance have a question about both trying to support higher density non-motorized access to commercial corridors while allowing single-family dwelling units in places that they weren't before. And I know that that might just be a larger theoretical discussion about how we best create housing, whether it's by trying to aim straight at higher density residential developments or by allowing the full spectrum of housing. So I look forward to hearing the thought behind that.

Any other commissioners wishing to add any direction for staff? In preparation for a work session, Mr. Chair, can I— I can read back what I've listed here. I don't know if that's appropriate to do within this case or another, or I could do at the end if you'd like me to. Go ahead.

So, so far I have overall guidance on the goals of B-3 district in general and the uses that the district should support, numbers and locations of uses made, uh, that would be— have been made conditional use by the previous ordinance, further clarification of the definition about what the conditional use applies to What the difference is between self-storage, um, self-storage, commercial space, warehouse space, info about pressure on industrial land, um, a definition or explanation of how many used things fall under auto-oriented retail uses, and looking at the question of trying to support transit corridors, allowing single-family, aiming straight at higher density, or allowing the whole spectrum of housing. Anything else?

I think you got it, but if not, we'll let you know at the work session.

Um, let's call for the vote.

That motion passes. Next on the agenda is Title 21 discussion. Are there any Title 21 discussions? Is aside from what we do or do not do with the B-3?

Commissioner— or Mr. McKenna Foster? I will just mention that we are working with the Assembly Legislative Services. They are doing this Civic Anchor project to get more public information out in the lobby. So the first thing we did is we put up just a list of some of the zoning reforms that have gone through in the past couple of years. So that is out there.

Tomorrow night also we have a sort of open house. It's really more of tabling here, but we're having open catch, people coming and going. So we will be talking a lot about all the zoning changes that have been going on and just talking with people, have materials. So if you know anybody who's interested in that, please encourage them to come. That's tomorrow night?

So the Civic Anchor will be just in the library in the atrium for a couple weeks or months. Tomorrow night, yeah, we'll just be tabling out there and we'll just have a bunch of information, hoping to catch people coming and going. A lot of Title 21 talk.

Sounds intriguing.

Uh, any— anything else from the Commission? Any Commissioner comments?

Hearing and seeing none, uh, and we can entertain a motion to adjourn.

Moved by Commissioner Gardner, seconded by Commissioner McKee. Any objection? Hearing none, we adjourn.