An organization dedicated to housing Alaskans has purchased more than 600 acres of university land across the state for future residential projects.
Daniel Delfino, with the Alaska Housing Finance Corp., said housing is tight all around Alaska. The idea, he said, is to jump-start development in a way the organization and others hope to replicate in the future.
“You can think about it as money that the private sector or another person doesn't have to come up with,” he said. “That's what we're bringing to the table. It's going to make housing go up in communities that probably wouldn't otherwise see it.”
The organization used a combination of state and federal funds to buy the land from the University of Alaska. The $12.3 million purchase includes parcels in Anchorage, Fairbanks, Seward, Palmer and Wasilla, plus funding to develop land in Cordova.
The next step is to work with local governments and other organizations to figure out the best way to develop the land, said AHFC CEO Bryan Butcher. He said those projects could take many different forms including partnerships with local and tribal governments, regional housing authorities and the private sector. They could be funded through various mechanisms, such as municipal bonds, tax credits, loans, grants and anticipated rent.
“We want it to be unique to each community,” he said. “Because there is such a difference between what each community in Alaska needs, we wanted to make sure that we would be able to have the flexibility, to be able to tailor it to whatever each individual community may need.”
Butcher said he doesn’t know when housing projects might be completed because AHFC doesn’t know how the housing will be developed.
All the land was purchased at appraised value. Butcher said the price tag looks extremely low because a lot of it is wetlands, and not developable. Even so, he said, it’s a great deal - the team walked every site this summer to make sure there was enough developable land to make the purchases worth it.
The turn-around time for the sale was quick, less than six months. That’s because funding came in part from COVID-era Emergency Rental Assistance that needed to be spent by Sept. 30.
A smaller portion came from a $4 million appropriation in the state’s 2024 capital budget called the Statewide Housing Development Program. AHFC manages the program and is tasked with working with four state agencies – the Alaska Mental Health Trust Authority, the Alaska Railroad, the Department of Natural Resources and University of Alaska Land Management – to make state land available for housing development.
Butcher said it’s a test case, one he hopes AHFC can use again.
“The most important thing is people will have houses, and potentially the economies are going to benefit in those communities,” he said. “If we have an opportunity to then do this round two, we would jump at the opportunity.”
There is still $2.5 million available from the state appropriation. Butcher said AHFC is exploring options with the state agencies to use the rest of the money.
