Petitions
To Mayor Dan Sullivan and the Municipality of Anchorage Assembly:
The BOMA Anchorage Title 21 Rewrite Petition requests that the Mayor of Anchorage and the Anchorage Assembly slow the process of re-writing Title 21 to allow time for concerned citizens and the MOA to evaluate it for its costs, unintended consequences and its impact on property rights.
The petition further requests that the Mayor of Anchorage and the Anchorage Assembly cease enforcing the Title 21 Rewrite as law and instead enforce the actual Title 21 as found in the Anchorage Municipal Charter, Code and Regulations, Municipality of Anchorage, Alaska.
BOMA Anchorage Concerns:
BOMA Anchorage has spent thousands of hours reviewing the proposed Title 21 Rewrite. And although the Title 21 Rewrite has been a work in progress for the past eight years and many changes have been made to the proposed code, it is clear to BOMA Anchorage that the current proposed Title 21 Rewrite is a seriously flawed document that, if enacted, will be detrimental to Anchorage citizens. It is still a work in progress so all of its impacts are still not even known.
BOMA uses as a backdrop a quote from Ed McMahon of the Urban Land Institute, “when it comes to development, regulations can help avoid the worst, but they rarely lead to the best.”
A brief summary of BOMA Anchorage concerns with the proposed Title 21 Rewrite are that it:
• Grossly diminishes property rights by overreaching with government intervention;
• Creates more bureaucracy leading to bogged down predevelopment activities and longer development schedules;
• Significantly increases the cost to the Municipality for review and enforcement;
• Systematically “down zones” commercial land and in some cases residential land, when “up zoning” is needed.
• Creates disincentives to redevelop or pursue new development;
• Lessens the amount of available commercial and residential land for new development or redevelopment;
• Lowers property values and discourages utilizing properties to their highest and best use;
• Micromanages land development by picking “winners” and “losers”, thus nullifying market forces and capitalism;
• Significantly increases the cost of development (this during a time that Anchorage has entered into a recessionary period);
• Creates new onerous requirements and standards;
• Attempts to “social engineer” Anchorage land development and use;
• Is based on false premises about Anchorage and its built environment;
• Contains language that is often subjective and unclear;
• Creates a design and development process that is no longer objective but subjected to review by non-professionals;
• Prescribes design standards resulting in contrived designs;
• Dictates, in some zones, not what may be built but what must be built with no consideration for market forces;
• Will result in lower property values leading to less municipal revenue, which will put greater pressure on the Mayor and Assembly to further increase property taxes.
BOMA has been inundated by concerned property owners that feel their concerns with the proposed Title 21 Rewrite have fallen on deaf ears and have been left wondering what to do. This petition represents the desire of Anchorage citizens to make their concerns known to the Anchorage Mayor and the Anchorage Assembly before it becomes law.
Mr. Mayor and Anchorage Assembly, we again petition you to slow work on the Title 21 Rewrite and encourage you to work with local professionals and associations in creating an updated Title 21 which meets the goals of Anchorage 2020 as well as those of Anchorage property owners.
We furthermore, request that the Mayor of Anchorage and the Anchorage Assembly cease enforcing the Title 21 Rewrite as law and instead enforce the actual Title 21 as found in the Anchorage Municipal Charter, Code and Regulations, Municipality of Anchorage, Alaska.
Sincerely,
Concerned Anchorage Citizens