The Juneau Assembly has adopted its long anticipated housing action plan, albeit in a squishier form than originally intended.
The assembly adopted the plan in a 7-1 vote on Monday with a resolution crafted specifically to exclude it from the city’s comprehensive plan. Planning commissioners and professional staff use the comp plan to guide recommendations and decisions on land use in Juneau.
The 68-page housing plan contains findings about the local housing market, policy ideas and action recommendations with an overall goal to make homes more affordable in Juneau.
Assembly member Jesse Kiehl spoke to his vote.
“Even if it’s not quite how I wanted it, I think it’s time to get moving toward implementation,” Kiehl said.
Loren Jones was the dissenting vote. He said he was unhappy that it’s being left out of the comp plan.
The assembly threw out an ordinance to fold it into the comp plan at a meeting last month, amid debate from the prevailing side that included misinformation and hyperbolic statements.
Debbie White was the harshest critic last month. She’d suggested city staffers were obstructionists when it came to homebuilding. Monday, she had a markedly different tone. She said she’d had a four-and-a-half hour meeting with the city’s chief housing officer to talk about the plan and as a result, she ticked off several specific pieces of the plan she wanted to revise in committee.
“I just felt that it needs to be fleshed out a little bit more, and I feel that the housing director and I did make some forward motion on it, and definitely, still working on it,” White said.
Her motion to kick it back to committee failed in a 4-4 vote.
Assembly member Mary Becker was absent. She’d made the motion last month that excluded the housing action plan from the comprehensive plan.
