The City & Borough of Juneau tip-toed toward a federal buyout program for homeowners on View Drive this week, a street that’s been hit the hardest by annual glacial outburst flooding. The city’s asking those residents if they’ll help pay for it.
Eighteen homes line the forested cul-de-sac on View Drive, which extends into the Mendenhall River like a peninsula. They’re located beyond the temporary levee the city built last year, which protected hundreds of homes during the record flood in August.
The buyout program, through the Natural Resources Conservation Service, or NRCS, would cost roughly $25 million if every household participates. The federal government has offered to cover three-quarters of the cost. The local portion could be around $6 million.
City Manager Katie Koester spoke about it at a Juneau Assembly finance committee meeting on Jan. 7.
“The project would be a buyout of up to 18 homes on View Drive, and those homes would need to be demoed and turned into parkland in perpetuity,” she said.
The city sent an informal ballot and letter to View Drive residents on Wednesday, asking if they’d be willing to give up hundreds of thousands of dollars from their home payout to shoulder that local portion. But it’s still unclear how this would work. In exchanges with KTOO, staff from the federal agency and the city explained it differently.
Tracy Robillard, a spokesperson for NRCS Alaska, said in an email that state governments typically sponsor the 25% cost-share — including in New Jersey and Connecticut, and upcoming projects in New Mexico and South Carolina — where state environmental protection agencies have programs to purchase floodplains. In other cases, city governments have paid the local portion, Robillard said.
Brett Nelson, Alaska’s watershed program manager at NRCS, said at the committee meeting there is another option.
“The more likely route would be some sort of third party coming up with the 25% local cost share,” he said.
That third party could be a nonprofit. City staff spoke with the Southeast Alaska Land Trust back in July, but leaders there said they can’t commit millions of dollars in such a short time frame.
NRCS hopes to offer the buyout before the next flood, expected this summer, Nelson said.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is working on an engineered solution that would protect the whole Valley, but it’s still years away. In the meantime, homes on View Drive are expected to flood again and again. Some residents have said that leaving feels like their only option.
“That’s an individual decision for those property owners, whether or not to, you know, take their chances and wait for an enduring solution,” Koester said at the meeting.
If the buyout program moves forward, homes would be appraised at their 2024 value, prior to the flood that year.
The city is asking residents to submit their informal ballots by Feb. 16, and plans to discuss the results at a Juneau Assembly committee meeting on Feb. 23.
