The Bureau of Indian Affairs has extended the public comment period over Southeast Alaska’s largest tribal organization’s effort to put its downtown offices and surrounding parking lots into trust.
The Juneau-based Central Council of Tlingit and Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska recently learned that a long-running effort to put seven parcels into a federal trust was nearly complete.
The council’s trust application could give it more control and exempt it from local laws and regulations.
The federal government’s extension came at the request of the City and Borough of Juneau, which had asked for more time to consider its position.
The comment period will now run through June 5.
Both the council and the city say they are working on an agreement that would continue police and fire protection for the land that includes the Andrew Hope building and parking areas.
The council says it has no development plans for the land and that putting the land into trust would increase its ability to attract federal grants.
If approved, the trust application would be the second of its kind in Alaska.
The Department of Interior had — until last year — precluded Alaska Native tribes from putting land into trust.
Native American tribes in the Lower 48 routinely put land into federal trust to add sovereign territory exempt from state and local laws.
