Anchorage officials are working to finish rewriting the municipality's land-use regulations. As part of this work, the city, with the Anchorage Economic Development Corp., had a study done to determine if we had enough industrial land to meet our needs over the next 20 years. (For a full copy of "Anchorage Industrial Land Assessment" visit www.AEDCweb.com).

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The study concludes that depending on the level of future growth, we could be short as much as 280 acres, including land in Eklutna. It also provides several recommendations for what we can do about this.

One recommendation is to preserve the industrial land we have from being consumed by commercial use, such as for stores and office buildings, by restricting non-industrial use of land zoned industrial. Current zoning allows most commercial uses on industrial-zoned land. The city is seriously considering keeping this recommendation in the new land-use regulations.

Adopting this recommendation would make a bad problem worse.

True, some of our industrial land is already being used for commercial uses. Anchorage's growth has made some of the land that was originally envisioned for industrial use now logically suited for other commercial development. For example, the Target store under construction on C Street in South Anchorage is on industrial-zoned land.

The Multiple Listing Service shows Anchorage has 19 industrial-zoned properties listed for sale. But seven of those, because of their locations, are better suited for commercial use. These properties are priced for commercial use at about $20 per square foot, which is much higher than the $12 that industrial land gets. So there are really only 12 listings for industrial use. That is not very much. We are, in fact, already short of industrial land.

Anchorage is landlocked and short of all types of land. Restricting one use creates a shortage of another use. For example, according to the Multiple Listing Service, there are no commercially zoned parcels larger than 10 acres on the market. The only large parcels for sale that can be used for commercial are zoned industrial.

If there was a restriction that prevents commercial use on industrial-zoned land, a commercial user needing more than 10 acres would have to find commercially zoned land not on the market. This would be far more difficult than buying land on the market, and even more difficult when the location of the land is critical, such as for retail.

It would mean for example, the corner of O'Malley Road and C Street, which is industrial zoned but is a prime retail -- commercial -- location, could be used only for industrial and not retail.

We need industrial land, and we need commercial land, too. Reducing the amount of land available for commercial use will shift the problem to commercial land, which is higher value, generates more property tax revenue, and has greater demand. Limiting land available for commercial use will cause the price to rise, making commercial development all that more difficult to pencil.

It makes more sense to have the Anchorage Bowl develop with higher-quality commercial use, plus some high-quality industrial use such as light manufacturing, and have the lower-quality industrial use, such as storage yards, be located in lower-cost land areas such as Eklutna, or perhaps Anchorage's Fire Island or Mat-Su's Point MacKenzie.

Unfortunately the study did not have an adequate budget to thoroughly analyze land use and looked only at industrial land and the city's overall land needs. The study is too shallow to be basing land-use regulations on.

We need to figure out the best uses of all the land we have. This requires having complete information and well-thought-out solutions that only a thorough land-use study can provide. We need to be realistic, forward looking and understand there are no easy answers or short cuts, such as this recommendation suggests.

The city has been working on the rewrite of our land-use code for seven years and is to be commended for taking the time and making the effort to get it right. The future economy and character of Anchorage is going to be determined in large part by our land-use regulations. We need to take the time and spend the money to do a comprehensive land-use study so we get it right -- the first time.

Chris Stephens, CCIM, is a local associate broker specializing in commercial and investment real estate. His opinion column appears every fourth Sunday.

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