Facing housing crisis, Anchorage loosens rules to encourage more backyard cottages and above-garage studios

Andrew Chopping and his spouse constructed an adjunct dwelling unit six years in the past, above the storage behind their downtown Anchorage home.

With the state’s economic system heading into recession on the time, the one-bedroom condo helped them “double down” and keep in Alaska. It has offered regular earnings from their long-term renters, and a attainable nest of their very own after they grow old and wish to downsize.

“It’s not a money-making scheme,” he stated. “Nevertheless it offers us choices.”

The Anchorage Meeting final month authorized a measure — initiated by the planning division underneath former Performing Mayor Austin Quinn-Davidson and carried ahead underneath Mayor Dave Bronson — that can present extra choices for residents trying to construct accent dwelling items. The items are sometimes referred to as in-law flats, granny flats or yard cottages. Some are constructed inside homes, and others are indifferent on the property.

In a near-unanimous vote, the Meeting expanded the place the items could be inbuilt Anchorage, loosened the utmost measurement allowance, and eliminated a requirement that the house owner lives on the parcel, resembling within the major home, amongst different adjustments.

Accent dwellings are more and more frequent in Anchorage, although information point out there aren’t greater than 1,000 of them. They’re seen as a part of the answer to the housing scarcity in Anchorage and nationwide that has contributed to hovering dwelling costs and rents.

Not sufficient of them are being constructed to satisfy metropolis plans that decision for 1,000 new ones by 2040, metropolis officers say.

The brand new guidelines will assist change that, stated Meg Zaletel, an Meeting member for Midtown.

[Anchorage’s average home price rose to a record $456K, but higher interest rates are starting to cool the market]

“This may cut back obstacles to creating them occur and it opens up alternatives to much more property house owners within the municipality,” she stated.

However just a few neighborhood councils have expressed deep displeasure with the adjustments.

Members of these councils say they help accent dwellings usually. However they are saying the brand new guidelines may result in an overabundance of rental items in neighborhoods, together with short-term leases that tighten housing markets. They worry doubtlessly bigger dwellings may intrude on neighbors’ daylight and privateness.

“This was an enormous loss for our neighborhood and others,” stated Pete Mjos, president of the Rogers Park council, referring to the brand new laws. “We’re very dissatisfied to say the least.”

Not only for single-family properties anymore

The principles take impact Feb. 7. Along with eradicating the owner-occupancy requirement, different stipulations embrace:

• Permitting a single ADU to be constructed on any parcel with a dwelling unit, together with close to duplexes, triplexes and even condo complexes. They have been beforehand restricted to plenty with a single-family dwellings.

• Altering the utmost measurement cap to 1,200 sq. ft, though zoning limits retained by the Meeting will assist be sure that many ADUs will nonetheless be capped on the outdated restrict of 900 ft, metropolis officers say.

• Maintaining the utmost top at 25 ft for items within the Anchorage Bowl, besides these above garages, which may now attain 30 ft.

Nonetheless, there aren’t any restrictions on whether or not the items can grow to be short-term leases. The Meeting plans to quickly sort out short-term leases as a separate concern, which may embrace the primary limits on their numbers or different new necessities.

Supporters of the adjustments embrace the American Affiliation of Retired Individuals Alaska. Extra accent dwellings will present extra housing and earnings choices for households, with Alaska’s inhabitants getting old, stated Katie Severin, with AARP Alaska. Future retirees would possibly construct one that gives reasonably priced hire for a relative who’s a caregiver, or a grandkid attending faculty, she stated.

“It has the influence of holding seniors right here, together with all of the contributions they make to our economic system,” resembling volunteering and spending disposable earnings, Severin stated.

[New report spells out factors driving Alaska’s tight housing rental market]

Mark Aafedt, a semi-retired mason, stated he constructed a two-bedroom accent dwelling on his giant property in South Anchorage in 2020. He’s renting it out to some.

“I’m not the spring rooster I was,” he stated. “So I constructed it for household functions. I didn’t know if sooner or later my children or in-laws may be in there. However proper now, it makes good sense to hire it out and make just a few {dollars} on it.”

Meeting desires to take up short-term leases individually

The Rogers Park council needed the Meeting to approve shorter top limits, in step with Decrease 48 cities, and new limits on the place the accent dwellings could be constructed on heaps, Mjos stated. The council is particularly involved that bigger dwellings may block daylight of neighbors to the north.

“It’s about photo voltaic entry, and privateness and respect for the neighbors,” he stated.

Kris Stoehner, Midtown council president, stated parking is one in all her issues. The Meeting in November eliminated off-street parking necessities for brand spanking new developments, to spur extra housing, leaving it as much as the developer to find out what number of parking areas to construct.

“Should you go from a single-family dwelling to a multi-family dwelling in a single lot and also you don’t have room for parking for this second group of individuals, the place do they park?” she stated. “They park on the road, and that’s not a constructive step for Anchorage.”

The earlier owner-occupancy rule supported a stability of house owners and renters, a sample that helps diversify and strengthen neighborhoods, stated Nancy Pease, a Rabbit Creek council board member. However with out owner-occupancy necessities, there can be a better proportion of leases in neighborhoods, and a better turnover price of residents, she stated.

Pease stated accent dwellings are a strong instrument that may assist lower- and middle-income people purchase and preserve a house, since they’ll have a gentle earnings stream on their property. However underneath the brand new rule, they could “must compete with bigger buyers who should purchase out struggling owners and create two leases on a property,” she stated.

Proof from research exhibits that short-term leases can tighten housing markets by decreasing the provision of long-term leases, stated Mark Foster, a Rogers Park resident and marketing consultant who studied short-term rental and accessory-dwelling markets for the Rogers Park council.

A tighter market results in larger rents and residential sale costs, he stated. That’s opposite to the Meeting’s purpose, he stated.

“You’d anticipate another unit of provide would lower costs in a housing market,” he stated. However platforms resembling Airbnb encouraging owners to chase excessive potential earnings from short-term leases have helped shift that dynamic, he stated.

Zaletel and different Meeting members stated they plan to quickly handle short-term leases, which may result in potential regulation resembling limiting their numbers, or different necessities, she stated. The leases, usually used for vacationers, have been proliferating in Alaska and their numbers are highest in Anchorage, state economists reported final yr.

Zaletel stated the Meeting listened to the councils’ issues, and tried to deal with them, together with by not altering their setback necessities from property strains.

‘They do make a distinction’

Jeannette Lee, Alaska analysis director for nonpartisan suppose tank Sightline Institute, was a part of a working group that reviewed accent dwelling proposals from the planning division.

“These received’t radically revolutionize the housing inventory when it comes to provide, however they do make a distinction when it comes to giving folks extra choices, and it’ll add to the housing inventory,” Lee stated.

Meeting member Daniel Volland, representing North Anchorage, stated he supported the adjustments as a result of it could actually present extra reasonably priced housing that forestalls Alaskans from leaving for the Decrease 48.

“I’m actually involved about outmigration and the way costly it’s for younger working professionals and households to search out housing in Anchorage that’s near skilled alternatives,” Volland stated.

He’ll have an opportunity to deal with the issues about short-term leases when that concern comes earlier than the Meeting, he stated.

“This may permit lots of inventive conditions for many who are retired and wish to age in place,” he stated.

Kameron Perez-Verdia, representing West Anchorage, was the lone Meeting member to vote towards the adjustments. He stated they have been handed close to midnight in a “rushed” course of, and the Meeting didn’t have an opportunity to completely handle neighborhood issues.

However he stated he typically agrees with the adjustments.

“It will increase alternatives for lower-cost housing, which we’re in determined want of,” he stated.

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