The Juneau Assembly voted to adopt the 2016 Land Management Plan, which calls for the disposal and development of the Pederson Hill subdivision among other things, at its Monday night meeting. Several developers spoke out against doing so. <\/p>\n
During a robust public testimony period, developer James Sidney recommended that the Assembly throw out both versions of the plan \u2014 the draft 2016 plan and its predecessor from 1999 \u2014 to \u201cgo back to square one and start over.\u201d He said that the city needs to avoid getting into direct competition with developers.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think I speak for a lot of people in the borough about this particular problem,\u201d Sidney told the Assembly.<\/p>\n
Eight people, six of whom are developers, testified against the plan, particularly as it applies to the Pederson Hill subdivision. Another five people testified and shared generally favorable opinions of the plan.<\/p>\n
Developer Marciano Duran said that he doesn\u2019t support the Land Management Plan as it stands, but he would like developers to have a voice when the city talks about its affordable housing problem.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think it can be accomplished through the Assembly, the Planning Commission and developers coming together to get something done,\u201d he said, adding that developers \u201cstill need assistance from the city coming up with a solution.\u201d<\/p>\n
Several other developers shared that sentiment, requesting a seat at the table as the city discusses fixing its housing problem. <\/p>\n
During the meeting, developer and Affordable Housing Commission member Wayne Coogan said that two years ago, the city began speaking with the development community about how to lower the cost of housing. Both parties decided that the city would need to relinquish some of its 26,000 acres of land in order to do so. But the city \u201cdropped the ball\u201d by not further involving developers in its plans, a stipulation that Coogan said the city should add to the Land Management Plan.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe should revisit this plan a little bit and add that provision and hopefully find a little more consensus,\u201d Coogan told the Assembly.<\/p>\n
Several Assembly members thanked the developers for their input and recognized that involving them in future housing discussions would be beneficial to both sides. But most Assembly members said that the Land Management Plan \u2014 in its current state \u2014 would allow for that.<\/p>\n
Assembly member Jerry Nankervis voted to adopt the plan, noting that most of the public testimony was specific to the Pederson Hill subdivision rather than the plan as a whole.<\/p>\n
\u201cI look at this more as a guideline, and I don\u2019t think anything is written in stone,\u201d he said. \u201cIf anything is going to happen to any plot of land, it has to come back before this body.\u201d<\/p>\n
Assembly member Kate Troll added that the Land Management Plan is more of a \u201cblueprint\u201d for city land disposals. It only recommends the disposal and development of Pederson Hill; it doesn\u2019t specify how the city should dispose of lots in the subdivision.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is very much the 30,000-foot level,\u201d she said, speaking in favor of the plan. \u201cIt has been vetted as a blueprint. All of these detailed questions that are coming before us have yet to be figured out.\u201d<\/p>\n
One public testifier pointed out, though, the devil is in the details. Margaret O\u2019Neal, the chair of the Affordable Housing Commission, said she was frustrated that city officials have already made so many decisions, impermanent though they are at this point, regarding Pederson Hill.<\/p>\n
\u201cSome of those decisions have already been made,\u201d she said. \u201cThe land has already been rezoned in a somewhat restrictive zone and costs have been incurred.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Assembly adopted the plan with a 6\u20133 vote, and some of those who voted against adopting it shared their concerns. <\/p>\n
Assembly member Loren Jones said he might support the plan at a later date, but he wanted the Assembly to look into it a little further before he would feel comfortable approving it. The plan is more than 100 pages long and includes recommendations for each city-owned parcel of land.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t think the Assembly has had any meetings where we\u2019ve talked about or delved into the Land Management Plan,\u201d Jones said. \u201cI can\u2019t support this for a variety of reasons, the most of which is I\u2019m confused about what it actually does.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2022 Contact reporter Sam DeGrave at 523-2279 or sam.degrave@juneauempire.com.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Juneau Assembly voted to adopt the 2016 Land Management Plan, which calls for the disposal and development of the Pederson Hill subdivision among other things, at its Monday night meeting. Several developers spoke out against doing so. During a robust public testimony period, developer James Sidney recommended that the Assembly throw out both versions […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":107,"featured_media":16047,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":4,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[75],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-16046","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-local-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16046","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/107"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16046"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16046\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16047"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16046"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16046"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16046"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=16046"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}