Anchorage Mayor Suzanne LaFrance’s administration has proposed two ordinances aimed at fostering new housing construction in the state’s largest city.
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The proposals would add tax exemptions for first-time homebuyers purchasing what the LaFrance administration calls “starter homes,” and for people buying newly built condos in underused commercial buildings.
Most new homes built in Anchorage are more expensive than the city’s average assessed household value of around $490,000, said Nolan Klouda, a policy director for LaFrance.
“There are people out there who are buying those, right?” Klouda said. “But if you’re talking about people who want to buy a home for the first time, or people who have more median-level income, they can’t buy that house.”
The first ordinance would give a 10-year property tax break to a first-time homebuyer purchasing a newly built home that is at or below that average value. The other ordinance would give a similar break to anyone who buys and lives in a new condo in a mixed-use building. A developer of four or more housing units in a mixed-use building would also receive a 10-year tax break, but only on the new residential units.
Klouda said the benefit would help to incentivize the building of newer, cheaper housing.
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“If your tax bill is lower for 10 years, then you can put more of your income toward payments on that house,” Klouda said. “So it makes it easier to actually get into that house in the first place.”
For homebuilders, the concept of a tax break for first-time home buyers is great on paper, said Skyler Quinn, president of the Anchorage Home Builders Association. But Quinn said he’s concerned with the price cap on what homes would qualify. He said recent increases to labor and materials expenses have often made the cost of building an average-value home in Anchorage more than the homes are worth.
“If the cap is $490,000 that’s just a really tough number to hit,” Quinn said. “I would like to see it, I don’t know at what number, but, but certainly something higher than that.”
The LaFrance administration’s two recently proposed ordinances are in addition to a number of tax incentives the city has taken up in recent years in order to reach LaFrance’s goal of 10,000 homes built in 10 years. Other proposals the Assembly has approved include a tax break for the construction of multi-family buildings with more than eight units and a break for remodeling abandoned and vacant properties.
The recently proposed ordinances are set to be introduced at the Anchorage Assembly’s next meeting on June 23 and could be approved as soon as July 7.
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