The Anchorage Assembly has postponed a controversial proposal to loosen rules on home-building in some parts of Anchorage. The plan, called MMHOP, comes in response to a housing shortage in the city.
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The Assembly spent about four hours this week hearing public testimony on the proposal before voting to postpone discussion to Nov. 4. It now has 13 amendments to weigh, as well as an of the plan, introduced by Assembly member Janice Park, intended to limit its impact.
Assembly member and MMHOP sponsor Erin Baldwin Day made the motion Wednesday to postpone discussion, saying that she would like a work session to better understand the details of the proposed changes.
“I would hope that we would be joined by some of our technical experts who could talk to us about how all of those things work together, and then come back to this conversation when we are all grounded in what our code does and doesn’t say,” she said.
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As written now, MMHOP would loosen some zoning rules in parts of the city. The areas impacted would include much of the city north of Tudor Road plus areas further south along Old Seward Highway, Lake Otis Parkway, Jewel Lake Road and Dimond Boulevard. Supporters say the idea is to encourage the construction of more housing types at more price points, adding things like eightplexes and townhouses to increase density.
The would do a range of things, from shrinking the amount of Anchorage impacted by the zoning changes to establishing a mechanism for tracking the impacts of the proposal. The mayor’s office sponsored delaying implementation of parts of the plan until 2028. Another amendment would decrease proposed building heights. Right now buildings can generally be 30-feet tall, or three stories, in the most restrictive areas. MMHOP proposes 40 feet and this amendment would take that down to 35 feet, or half a floor.
The Assembly will hold the work session some time before Nov. 4. A date has not yet been announced.
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