A total of 81 of 466 property owners filed objections as of Friday afternoon to a city proposal requiring them to pay about $6,300 each for a semi-permanent levee along the Mendenhall River to protect from glacial outburst floods — far fewer than the number likely needed for the Assembly to reject the proposal at its meeting Monday night.
However, property owners have until the public hearing on the matter is concluded at the meeting to file objections. The Assembly’s decision will in a sense be determined by what a majority of property owners favor, but that is not a certainty since the specific guidelines involved are more nuanced.
“The City Manager recommends the Assembly take public testimony and at the close of public testimony take an at ease to count all written objections” to the proposal, City Manager Katie Koester wrote in a memo to the Assembly. “If more than 50% of the property owners who would bear 50% or more of the cost of the improvement do not object, the City Manager recommends proceeding with adoption of the ordinance.”
The votes of four of the 466 property owners carry extra weight because they would be required to pay $50,000 for riverbank improvements as well as the $6,291.85 payment for the levee — thus equating to about nine “votes” each, since the tally is based on the collective cost of the project.
Another key consideration is property owners not providing a response to the city are counted as being in favor of the proposal.
If objections surpass the 50% cost threshold eight of the nine Assembly members would need to approve the proposed ordinance establishing a Local Improvement District (LID) that would authorize installation of the levee. Two Assembly members have told the Empire they would likely vote against the LID if a majority of property owners are opposed.
The levee would consist of HESCO barriers three feet square and four feet high being provided by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, with officials saying they would likely be installed for up to a decade while a more permanent flood protection solution is implemented.
Record flooding from Suicide Basin the past two years has damaged hundreds of homes in the Mendenhall Valley and experts say such floods are likely to be a regular annual occurrence in the future due to climate change. Army Corps of Engineers officials have stated the HESCO barriers are the best feasible prevention that can be installed by this summer.
The City and Borough of Juneau would be responsible for the cost of installing and maintaining the barriers, which Koester estimates would be about $7.8 million. The ordinance calls for the city to pay 60% and the property owners in the LID 40%, with the latter having up to 10 years to pay the amount in full.
Objections filed as of Thursday afternoon were released as part of the meeting packet at CBJ’s website, with many property owners including explanations in varying levels of detail along with their official forms.
“The reason for our opposition is that this temporary measure, of which the effectiveness is unknown, is a financial burden on us affected residents in the LID area,” wrote Brett and Debra Coblentz, who live on Division Street. “The homes in the affected area (and those in the proposal area that were not affected directly) have become difficult to sell and lost sellable value since the flooding. This was not reflected on the city property tax assessments. This is a double punishment. Our home was not flooded yet we are included on this LID area. I am for some sort of improvement, but not at the direct cost of the proposed LID area residents.”
Jessica Leeah, a Rivercourt Way resident, wrote “I support the Hesco barriers and mitigation efforts. But I disagree with the city’s plan to create an LID to fund the project. The plan is based on a false premise that only those houses that were assessed for the LID will benefit from the barriers.”
“This is a Juneau problem,” she wrote. “It should be spread to the entire community through the General Fund. If the floods continue, house prices will plummet even more, driving down the tax base — this will affect the entire city.”
• Contact Mark Sabbatini at mark.sabbatini@juneauempire.com or (907) 957-2306.