This fall, the City and Borough of Juneau will begin to make permanent changes to the way downtown Juneau is zoned. For the time being, the city has a temporary solution in place to make it easier for homeowners to make adjustments to their homes.
The CBJ Assembly approved an ordinance Monday night that puts temporary zoning regulations in place for downtown Juneau and Douglas. This temporary rezone will make it easier for homeowners to apply to renovate, add onto or even rebuild their houses, CBJ Senior Planner Jill Maclean said.
“This is temporary because it will give us time to fix the underlying zoning,” Maclean said. “In order to fix the underlying zoning, we need to do the public outreach and have the conversations with the community to find out what it is that they want and what fits these neighborhoods. This is a placeholder to give us time to make the adjustments to the zoning.”
Maclean said this process is similar to a homeowner getting a variance — that is, having the Planning Commission grant an exception to the zoning — but it makes it easier to meet the requirements to get an exception. The process will still have to go through the Planning Commission and will still have a public comment period.
The rezone — which only affects residential property — will be in effect for two years in Juneau and three years in Douglas. This is because the design process for the permanent rezone is expected to take about a year and a half or two years for Juneau and then an additional year for Douglas, Maclean said.
Streamlining the process comes as a breath of fresh air for homeowners such as Bill Glude. When Glude bought his historic home on 12th Street in 1992, he did so in part because of the look of the neighborhood.
The old houses, many of them built in the early 1900’s, are tightly packed in and are just a few feet from the road. The current zoning of these neighborhoods, however, dictates that houses must have 20-foot setbacks — that is, they must have 20 feet between their house and the edge of their property — in front and behind their homes, similar to what suburban houses must have.
This presents a problem for residents such as Glude if they want to rebuild part of their house or add on a porch or a garage. Glude, whose house was built in 1914, was in this position a few years ago when he had to rebuild his garage.
“It was quite a hassle with the city because it wasn’t really fitting properly where it should be,” Glude said. “It didn’t come anywhere near meeting current setbacks, but back then I was able to get a variance to rebuild it on the same footprint.”
Though Glude did eventually get to rebuild the garage, the process took months and he had to get special permission from his neighbor as well. With this new zoning, homeowners will be able to get through the process faster and easier, Maclean said.
There’s been limited criticism to the plan, which Maclean said stems mostly from the temporary zoning regulations being a new concept in Juneau. As she explained at a June 12 Committee of the Whole meeting, this concept is new to Juneau, but is commonly used in other cities around the country.
In Glude’s mind, this temporary rezone and the upcoming permanent rezone will keep Juneau’s historic neighborhoods looking as old-fashioned as ever.
“People want to preserve that feel, of an older neighborhood,” Glude said. “That’s why they live here instead of some place like Anchorage.”
• Contact reporter Alex McCarthy at alex.mccarthy@juneauempire.com.
