Housing
Development
On paper, the City and Borough of Juneau is bigger than Delaware and Rhode Island put together - but realistically, we know that much of the land is either inaccessible or undesirable for building. That means it’s a no-brainer for the City to develop the parcels that we have that are buildable. I will push for us to replicate the process that we used to get Riverview Senior Living built, to develop the two CBJ properties downtown in order to increase our housing stock. We have the opportunity to incorporate community input and develop two projects that will have the capacity to majorly move the needle in the right direction in our current housing crisis.
Another challenge that we face in growing our housing market to meet demand are the quirks and inefficiencies in our land use plan’s zoning. I want to review and through big sweeps eliminate those snags wherever it makes sense. Digging into our usage requirements and restrictions should mean less parcels sitting unused, and less roadblocks to increasing density and development.
Land Use
Funding
While the City does not have infinite resources, I think it’s important that we continue to spend the affordable housing fund aggressively while we are in such crisis levels of demand. Utilizing public funding in the form of grants can help make a project pencil out for a developer, and the benefits to the economy and the community will be immediate.
STRs
The Assembly has asked city staff to get a census of our Short Term Rental or STR market, and come back with a list of potential regulations based on the census. Many owners in the community rent an apartment or bedroom on-site, which is a great way to pick up some extra income, or meet the needs of our independent tourists and traveling nurses by renting an entire unit. However, if we have a dire housing shortage, it hurts our residents to hold too many homes off the market for short term use by visitors. This is one reason why I strongly supported the STR restriction for the grants to homeowners building Additional Dwelling Units (ADUs) on their property.