Anchorage Considering Consolidation of Residential Districts

The Anchorage Assembly, fresh off ADU reforms and the elimination of parking requirements, are considering changes to the city’s residential zoning code that would consolidate zoning districts and make it easier to build multi-family housing in residential zones.

According to an article by Zachariah Hughes, elected officials have proposed changes to the city’s Title 21, the section of municipal code that governs residential zoning, to better realize the city’s long-term development goals, as expressed in the city’s 2040 Land Use Plan, adopted in 2017.

“[Assemblymember Kevin] Cross pointed out that many of the residential building codes in Title 21 are from a drastically different economic era, when high-paid oil and gas jobs drove development toward large single-family houses on big lots,” reports Hughes. “The latest proposal from Cross and his cosponsors states that demographic projections for Anchorage anticipate more aging households, families with fewer children, ‘diverse households and income levels that need more affordable housing options and more transportation choices,’ more multigenerational families and a less transient workforce.”

Hughes is reporting on the proposed reforms after Cross reduced the scope of the reforms from an original proposition.

“The original version of the measure from Cross and Assembly Vice Chair Meg Zaletel, who represents Midtown, proposed eliminating distinctions among the 15 different residential zoning district criteria in the municipality and replacing the complicated jumble with two broad categories,” according to Hughes. “The new version ‘further simplifies the proposal by creating a single residential zone, effective January 1, 2025,’ the Assembly members said in a statement.”

As also noted by Hughes, the proposal will not change zoning in business districts, the downtown district, or industrial districts in the city.