An Anchorage Assembly work session on a proposed ordinance, AO 2024-104S, opened with sponsors describing a temporary pause to selected multifamily residential design standards in Anchorage Municipal Code Title 21 to reduce costs and speed housing development.

The ordinance would suspend specific sections of the Title 21 residential design standards that apply to buildings of five or more dwelling units. Sponsor Anna Brawley said the pause is intended as a three-year window to “get out of our own way for a period of time, collect data on what works, what doesn't work, and then have an ongoing conversation about what residential design standards should be in place.” The sponsors clarified the proposal would not change Title 23 health-and-safety requirements or separate landscaping, screening and fence rules that exist elsewhere in code.

Why it matters: Assembly members and administration staff framed the proposal as a tool to increase feasible multifamily housing production in a market the planning and development community has repeatedly described as unable to deliver mid-rise and larger multifamily housing without subsidy. The ordinance would also require the planning department to provide annual reports on utilization and impacts, and sponsors said they plan a floor amendment to extend the pause deadline from January 2028 to May 2028 and to convene a working group to study outcomes.

Cook Inlet Housing Authority and private developers described concrete impacts they attribute to the current standards. Tyler Robinson, vice president of community development and real estate at Cook Inlet Housing Authority, said the January 2024 site-access and pedestrian-frontage rules caused many in-design projects to no longer meet the code. “When we first came to understand what this ordinance did in late 2023, we said, ‘holy cow,’” Robinson said, describing the change as new and broadly disruptive. He told the Assembly the proposed pause would let projects in a multi-year pipeline proceed with more certainty while a collaborative rewrite of the standards is developed.

Robinson and others provided examples they said show cost and feasibility impacts: building articulation requirements that mandate facade jogs, upper-story stepbacks or extra window area; a northern-climate sunlight/menu that includes options such as transit stops or atriums that Robinson said are impractical for small multifamily buildings; and a “major site plan review” threshold that triggers for residential developments of 32 units in three or more buildings. Robinson said major site plan review typically costs about $60,000 in consultant and fee expenses and takes four to six months; he said that process also requires projects to be drawn to about 65% completion before approval, increasing time and upfront expense.

Market-rate developer Sean Debenham described similar sensitivity to added costs. “We are experiencing death of housing units by a hundred different cuts,” Debenham said, calling the ordinance a “great first start” that addresses some of those cuts for both market-rate and subsidized projects.

Planning director Maylisah Babb answered questions about landscaping and code overlap, saying the planning department believes the landscaping code that requires perimeter and parking-lot landscaping would remain in force even where the multifamily design standards are paused; she said the paused sections primarily affect additional, smaller foundational landscape beds and driveway/landscape relationships in townhouse contexts.

Legal limits and alternatives: Quincy Arms of the Department of Law advised against the alternative recommended in a community communication—drawing a geographically limited, time-unbound exemption—because state case law treats narrow, site-specific exemptions as impermissible spot zoning. “Under the Alaska Supreme Court, [that] would be per se illegal spot zoning,” Arms said. The Department of Law therefore urged a time-limited citywide pause rather than carving out selected neighborhoods.

Administration support and next steps: Graham Downey, special assistant to the mayor, said the administration supports the ordinance and views it as a top item for the city’s 10,000-home strategy. Sponsors said they will present the ordinance for a regular Assembly session (floor action), with a planned amendment to extend the pause to May 2028, to convene a working group, and to request updated policy guidance in the city’s plans. No formal vote or final action occurred at the work session; the item remains a pending ordinance.

Discussion highlights and concerns: Assembly members asked whether the pause would apply to rehabilitation of vacant or abandoned buildings (members were told it does apply to 5+ unit rehabilitation unless nonconforming rights or variances apply), whether well-and-septic lots would be affected (members and developers agreed such sites typically cannot support large multifamily projects), and how the pause would prevent low-quality “big box” development. Sponsors and staff repeatedly said that many other code protections (landscape chapter, Title 23 health and safety, dumpster screening, and zoning use tables) would remain in place and that market forces would disincentivize poor-quality, high-rent construction.

The Assembly and staff also discussed data and metrics for the proposed working group. Robinson and members asked the planning department and developers to measure the pause’s effects on project starts and completions, unit counts, costs per unit, time to permit, and whether the pause materially affects neighborhood character in ways not already limited by other code provisions and market constraints.

Votes and formal actions: No motion or vote was taken during the work session. Sponsors indicated they will file amendments before the floor hearing and that the planning department recommended approval of the pause with three additions: extend the pause to May 2028, convene a working group, and update policy guidance.

The Assembly scheduled the item for its next floor agenda where members will consider sponsor amendments and hear public testimony.