At a meeting of the Housing and Neighborhood Development (HAND) Commission, municipal staff detailed a planned seasonal designated safe‑parking pilot intended to give people who are car camping a legal, organized overnight option.

Thea Agnew Bemben of the mayor’s office told commissioners the pilot would operate under Anchorage ordinance AO 2024‑2026 and municipal code chapter 16.128 and is planned to run this season from July 1 through Sept. 30, with a request for proposals (RFP) expected to be posted “hopefully next week.” She said each site would require on‑site sanitation and security, a permit for each vehicle and access to case management or peer support on an as‑needed basis.

The pilot’s design follows municipal code limits: a minimum site capacity of 25 vehicles and an authorization to scale up to 50 vehicles per site with a health‑department waiver. Thea Agnew Bemben said the program hours will be 6 p.m. to 8 a.m., seven days a week, and that eligibility requires that vehicles be roadworthy and maintain license, insurance and registration because municipal operators cannot create a system that conflicts with traffic enforcement.

Commissioners asked how the pilot would reduce neighborhood impacts and whether sites should be open during daytime hours. One commissioner said, “Asking someone to leave every day takes away from that stability,” expressing concern that a nightly‑only site could force people to disperse into neighborhoods each morning.

Municipal staff said the overnight hours were chosen to align with the closing of other public spaces and for budget reasons: the initial pilot is constrained by available funding and is intended to collect usage data to inform whether expanded hours or additional sites are needed in 2026. Staff also said site selection will prioritize municipal right‑of‑way and B‑3 and PLI zoning parcels but that vendor proposals may also include privately offered locations.

The RFP will allow proposals that include services only, location only, or both; if a vendor proposes services without a site, the municipality may supply a municipal location to enable faster implementation. Staff emphasized that the pilot is intended both to provide a safer place to sleep and to connect people who are vehicular‑camping with services the municipal system is not currently reaching.

Staff said they plan outreach to community councils and other stakeholders and offered to share a finalized document for commissioner review and a potential commission resolution of support or concern once the RFP and site materials are final.

Why this matters: the city lacks reliable data on how many vehicles are used for long‑term car camping; staff cited a 2024 estimate of roughly 100–120 people experiencing vehicular camping. The pilot will produce permit and usage counts that municipal staff expect to use in planning and budgeting for 2026.

The commission did not take a formal vote on the pilot at the meeting; staff asked commissioners for feedback and suggested a draft resolution could be developed over the next weeks and placed on a future agenda.