Tommy Jimmie Jr. and Joe Johnson sat in the bright afternoon sun on the steps leading up to the Telephone Hill neighborhood in downtown Juneau on Thursday.
The pair came to relax near the tall green trees and thimbleberry bushes. Jimmie said he’s there almost every day.
“This has always been a part of my walk going through this neighborhood. I do the flume, and oftentimes I’ll meet him here, and I’ll come down this way,” he said.
Jimmie is Lingít and grew up in Juneau. He said he didn’t know that there were plans underway by the City and Borough of Juneau to redevelop the area to make way for more housing.
“I think those houses are just as old as some of those that are down here in the village,” he said. “I would think they would be renovating some of those houses up there rather than trying to get rid of them — they’re historical monuments, as far as I’m concerned.”
The neighborhood sits on roughly four acres of land on a hill in the center of downtown Juneau. There are seven houses and one five-unit apartment building there. Most residents there have openly opposed the city’s redevelopment plan.
But in February, after a handful of community meetings on the topic, the Juneau Assembly asked city staff to move forward with a redevelopment plan that would demolish the neighborhood’s historic homes and add more than 100 new housing units.
But when that will happen is still up in the air. At Monday’s Assembly committee meeting, City Manager Katie Koester said it all depends on the developer.
“I think the earliest we can do anything would be next summer — which I find that to be very unlikely — but I hope it doesn’t take up to three years which is the other end of the spectrum on that,” she said,
At the meeting, the Assembly approved a plan to seek interested developers who might want to take on the project. Once the city chooses one of them, that will determine how quickly the project moves along.
All the people who live on Telephone Hill right now are renters, but some have lived there for decades. The land is owned by the city, which acquired it from the state in recent years. Before that, the state had owned it since 1984.
Koester said the city is not actively maintaining the houses up there anymore but will continue to let the renters live there for the time being. But if any health or safety issues arise in the buildings, they may need to vacate the residents.
“We are encouraging people to move out and find alternative housing as soon as possible,” she said.
Affordability is also a key point for the Assembly in its decisions about how the project should move forward. For years the Assembly has been trying to find different avenues to tuck affordability requirements or incentives into development projects amid Juneau’s housing crisis.
On Monday, the Assembly approved a goal for the Telephone Hill project to have 20% of its units to be below-market rent at 80% of the area median income.
But, Koester warned that requiring developers to sell some of their units below-market will likely come with a cost to the city.
“Tax abatement, site development, land transfer — we don’t really know what strategies might be needed. But, if the Assembly wants to mandate something as part of the development, we can expect to have to pay for part of that one way or another,” she said.
Mayor Beth Weldon made the motion to add the affordability aspect to the redevelopment plan. But she worried some developers would be discouraged by it.
“Part of me wants to just let the free market reign on this particular piece of property,” she said. “It’s a prime piece of property — this is my struggle.”
Koester said the city will put out the request for interested developers in the coming months.
