A number of people are asking, "What's wrong with businessman and lawyer Dan Coffey rewriting Anchorage's zoning code?"
The biggest problem is that his work has been done in secret, behind closed doors for over a year now. We have only a tiny glimpse (from a Daily News interview) whom he talked with and how they advised him. Municipal employees who have seen his work are not allowed to disclose the contents But we do know that it is a rewrite, without typical editing marks, of chapters the Assembly provisionally adopted over a period of several years.
Compare this process with the publicly noticed meetings and detailed reports beginning in 2002, describing how the land use section of municipal code, Title 21, was being revised to implement Anchorage 2020. The comments and municipal responses are still there on the municipal website.
But since Mr. Coffey took control in 2010, the public has not been able to see which comments he considered or changes he made. We are told that public hearings for his rewrite will be complete in a matter of weeks. It is not clear how he expects professionals and citizens to so speedily comprehend how this rewrite will affect their interests when it took years to understand and shape the provisionally adopted code.
Mr. Coffey recently explained that he wanted to "put development back into the language of the [2001] comprehensive plan" as he held up Anchorage's 1982 comprehensive plan. But our newest comprehensive plan was written to balance the interests of development and the public. It was based on the testimony, comments and participation of thousands of people. Now that balance is threatened. In 2002, when work started on Title 21, officials stated that the rewrite process would be transparent from start to finish, unlike past custom where community decisions would be made in public and then some of the city's more powerful leaders would go to the mayor's office and "fix" elements they didn't like.
In 2004, Mayor Mark Begich appointed a "Mayor's Real Estate Advisory Task Force" that met regularly for some months and succeeded in eliminating a number of standards designed to improve access to parks, northern design standards, sunlight penetration and wildlife protection.
Developers secured more compromises from the Assembly's Title 21 committee that met twice a month for years, poring over Title 21 page by page. Residential yard space was reduced, garage doors got bigger, wildlife habitat and water quality protections were cut further, residential variety and landscaping requirements were whittled away.
But still another set of developers were upset about proposed changes, and produced their comments in July 2010, the same month Mr. Coffey received his first Title 21 contract. They said development costs would increase and rejected municipal studies showing costs will actually go down. They were openly hostile to Anchorage 2020 goals such as adding design standards, landscaping, bus service and more sidewalks, preferring "business as usual" without government interference.
In a recent fundraising letter, Mr. Coffey deplored Title 21 as imposing "costly and unnecessary government regulations on development." He made it sound as if Anchorage should not learn from the Lower 48's development errors. But we have to. Our families face rising energy costs, limited housing and transportation choices, sedentary lifestyles and higher health costs. Anchorage's comprehensive plan and provisionally adopted land use code respond positively to our northern climate and contain concrete strategies to conserve energy, provide housing and transportation choices and make it easier and safer to get outdoors and be more active.
Enough is enough. It is time for Title 21 to go public again.
Mr. Coffey's rewrite should be released now. The Assembly should bring up the provisionally adopted chapters for final adoption. Changes to those chapters should be proposed through amendments, one by one, as has been the rule up until now. If Mr. Coffey wants to tear down the community's comprehensive plan, it should be done in the light of day, where we can all hear about the values he thinks are best for the community.
Cheryl Richardson directs the Anchorage Citizens Coalition.
By CHERYL RICHARDSON