anchorage is building more rentals

Anchorage broke ground on Raspberry Townhouses, a new 58-unit rental development on the west side of the city, marking the first new rental project to start construction in years. The project is the first to go forward under a new municipal program that gives developers a property tax exemption on the building itself if they construct eight or more rental units, a policy the mayor says is meant to fix a construction slowdown that has left the city short of the roughly 1,000 new units it needs every year.

Under the program, developers do not pay property taxes on the building for at least 20 years, though they still owe taxes on the land. That savings can be the difference between a project penciling out financially or not. The developer behind Raspberry Townhouses said the project would not have happened without the tax break.

Assembly leaders also suspended certain zoning codes to help the project move forward. Those codes had limited how many units could fit on a given lot, making some projects financially unworkable. The developer said the combination of the tax exemption and the zoning changes made Raspberry Townhouses possible.

When it opens in 2027, one-bedroom units at Raspberry Townhouses are expected to rent for around $2,400 a month, with two-bedrooms projected at around $2,800.