During Tuesday’s Anchorage Assembly meeting, an ordinance pertaining to residential zoning came up before the Assembly and ruffled some feathers.
Assembly Chairman Chris Constant begged his fellow members to vote down an amendment on the ordinance, but the amendment passed 8-4.
The next thing that Constant was supposed to do was return to the main motion, but instead, he shocked the room and, evidently, most of the Assembly.
In a fit of pique because he did not get his way, Constant went on a diatribe against the Planning Department. Without even handing over the gavel to Vice Chairwoman Meg Zaletel, he said:
“To the Planning Department, I believe you are lying to the public and I no longer trust you. So that is the condition that now exists. Because you have presented to communities one message, and you had another move in your hands. That move is now before us, as we heard it was brought on behalf of the Planning Department,” Constant started.
“And we saw this with Town Square Park, and this is now the new pattern. And I’m sad, because I’ve been an ally with the Planning Department since I joined the body and before, when I worked on neighborhood planning to achieve harmonious neighborhoods. I believe you are now agents of disharmony. And it’s fine, you want to be disruptive, and it’s fine that members of this body are all about ‘let’s just get rid of all residential zones, let’s just do radical change right now without contemplating the impacts and without telling the public,'” he continued.
“So for my part, my takeaway on this is that you can’t trust the Planning Department anymore,” Constant concluded.
The amendment had been offered by Assembly members Meg Zaletel and Felix Rivera, and it removed some restrictions on heights for some properties that are zoned for multi-family, or apartments and condos. The aim is to get more affordable housing built in Anchorage in properties are zoned R-4A.
Assemblyman Kevin Cross said he didn’t see it the same way as Constant.
“And I think we ought to be real careful when we make statements like that, Mr. Constant, because many times we’ve brought actions before us to do public hearings, and then make radical amendments. We used to have an open session of [public comments] from 5:30 to 6 pm … and we told people we were bringing forward an action to adjust the time, and during that, we amended it [the public hearing time slot] to completely remove it. And the public said the same thing about us.”
Cross went on to defend the integrity of the Planning Department. He was joined by Assemblywoman Anna Brawley, who said that “as a planner, I also feel compelled to defend the Planning Department.”
Assemblywoman Meg Zaletel then said the amendment had been brought the first day the item was available for a public hearing “and so it’s been around. It wasn’t brought at the last minute. It wasn’t brought today. It has ridden with this item through its prior postponement.” She called the change a minor drop in the bucket compared to all the other changes to zoning that need to take place to ensure there is more housing in Anchorage.
Zaletel said, “I’m all for big bold moves because until we do it we don’t actually move the ball forward.”
Assemblywoman Karen Bronga said the area that the zoning change would affect is relatively small, and that height of buildings restricting sunlight for existing buildings is minor compared with the need to build more housing in Anchorage.
Assemblyman Randy Sulte also cautioned against disparaging the Planning Department, reminding Constant that it’s hard to get people to even work these days, “and if it’s not a welcoming environment where they feel valued they’re not going to want and come work for us.”
Sulte added that Anchorage is out of really easily buildable land, “and the only way to go is up.”
Constant violated the rules more than once, by not formally handing the gavel to Vice Chairwoman Zaletel, but simply by arguing with members of the Assembly who disagreed with him and besmirching the integrity and impugning the motives of the Planning Department, without following Roberts Rules of Order. No member called him out for his transgressions.
Mayor Dave Bronson objected to throwing “the Planning Department under the bus,” and said that he is impressed with the quality of the people in the department.
“I know sometimes in the heat of emotions when we lose we get that way but I’ve got to agree with some folks here….These are great people, and I think they need our support,” Bronson said.
In the end, Constant was the only one on the Assembly to vote against the main ordinance, which passed 11-1.
