The future look of Juneau may well be shaped by two plans that were presented to the city Planning Commission on Tuesday.<\/p>\n
The commission reviewed the Division of Lands and Resources\u2019 land management plan and the engineering department\u2019s concept design for Franklin and Front Streets.<\/p>\n
Both plans are still a ways off from implementation (no action was taken by the commission during the meeting), but here\u2019s a look of what is being planned:<\/p>\n
The Land <\/strong>Management Plan<\/strong><\/p>\n The last time the city updated its Land Management Plan \u2014 an instruction manual of sorts regarding the management of all city-owned land \u2014 Britney Spears and the Backstreet Boys were still dominating the radio, Star Wars had just been rebooted (for the first time) and some people were worrying about Y2K. The year was 1999 and the plan was only four years old.<\/p>\n Somewhere along the way, the plan, which was supposed to be updated every two years, fell by the wayside. But when the city hired Greg Chaney as its lands and resources manager a few years ago, he began working to update it.<\/p>\n \u201cWe had this legacy where we were aware that there were problems with the plan,\u201d Chaney told the Empire in an earlier interview. \u201cWe just hadn\u2019t gotten around to sitting down and working to fix them.\u201d<\/p>\n The first thing he did was take an inventory of all city-owned properties. The city has purchased more than 100 properties and sold about 90 since the plan was last updated.<\/p>\n Now after two and a half years of work, Chaney and the Lands and Resources staff have a draft plan ready. They\u2019re making the rounds to get the word out about it; their most recent stop was the Planning Commission.<\/p>\n The new draft plan contains an up-to-date log of all city-owned property and recommendations for what to do with each parcel. The options are two-fold: retain or dispose. The city may be able to sell parcels marked for disposal \u2014 Chaney said some of these parcels could be developed for housing.<\/p>\n Most Juneauites will never see the plan at this level of detail. Many may never see it at all. But it has the potential to impact everybody, according to Chaney.<\/p>\n \u201cIt puts everything in a broader context,\u201d he said. \u201cIt makes it easier for the Assembly and the public to look our land as a community and say \u2018What are we doing?\u2019 It\u2019s hard to keep perspective when you\u2019re looking at it one piece at a time.\u201d<\/p>\n Chaney hopes the Assembly will approve the plan by early next year.<\/p>\n Franklin and Front Streets Concept Design<\/strong><\/p>\n Michele Elfers, an architectural assistant with the city engineering department, presented the department\u2019s concept design for improving Franklin and Front streets. This is the \u201cfirst phase of a streetscape improvement project,\u201d according to the project report.<\/p>\n Elfers told the commission that the targeted portion of downtown, which roughly overlaps the city\u2019s historic district, is a 30-year-old streetscape, and \u201cthere\u2019s actually a lot of problems with that.\u201d<\/p>\n Age and weather have taken their toll on the sidewalks and infrastructure, and both Franklin and Front Streets present accessibility challenges. The sidewalks are narrow, and the light poles are bulky and take up a lot of space, making pedestrian travel cramped and difficult.<\/p>\n Chief among the projects recommendations are: preserving parking, replacing (and where possible widening) sidewalks, adding benches and improving canopies.<\/p>\n When asked by a commission member what the next step for the project is, Elfers pointed out that it will need funding from the Assembly. It currently has none.<\/p>\n Right now, the project is still in the public outreach process. The engineering department has already held several meetings seeking the public\u2019s input about the design concept. The next chance to comment will be at a meeting on Dec. 9 at 6 p.m. in the Baranof Hotel.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The future look of Juneau may well be shaped by two plans that were presented to the city Planning Commission on Tuesday. The commission reviewed the Division of Lands and Resources\u2019 land management plan and the engineering department\u2019s concept design for Franklin and Front Streets. Both plans are still a ways off from implementation (no […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":107,"featured_media":0,"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-28096","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-local-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28096","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=28096"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28096\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28096"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28096"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28096"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=28096"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}