On Monday, the Juneau Assembly approved a $3 million loan for Creekside Apartments, a 60-unit apartment complex in the Mendenhall Valley which is expected to be completed by 2026.
The Assembly’s Lands, Housing and Economic Development Committee (LHEDC) reviewed the local developer’s proposal and forwarded it to the Assembly for approval on Nov. 4, 2024. The developer, Tower Legacy II LLC, plans to build the two three-story buildings across the street from the Mendenhall Mall. The project is expected to cost $8 million.
The money for the apartments comes from the Juneau Affordable Housing Fund (JAHF). In July 2024, the Assembly approved $4 million for use in total. The other $1 million was approved last month to a separate developer planning to renovate the downtown Gross-Alaska Theatre into an apartment complex. Applications are accepted from for-profit and nonprofit organizations who are interested in the creation of affordable or workforce housing.
“We are trying to help both nonprofits, organizations like St. Vincent’s and AWARE that are helping build affordable housing, but they don’t need to turn a profit,” Christine Woll, who serves as chair of the Assembly’s Finance Committee, said. “They can apply for a grant to help with those efforts. And for-profit developers, we’re not giving away money to private developers. We’re providing a loan that they have to pay back. But helping incentivize them to build more affordable housing than they would be able to afford otherwise.”
The proposal for the Gross-Alaska Theatre renovation was originally for $1.1 million, and the Assembly will consider increasing its already approved $1 million at the next meeting on Feb. 3.
Woll said eligibility is based on Area Median Income (AMI). She said the number of units proposed and what percentage are for affordable housing are taken into consideration.
“The fund is specifically for targeting low- and middle-income residents, and so those are defined as zero to 80% of average median income is what’s considered low income,” she said. “And then 80% to 120% average median income is considered middle income, and so the fund is for both of those.”
A study by Rain Coast Data in May 2024 noted housing in Juneau is increasingly becoming less affordable, following national trends. In 2024, the Alaska Department of Labor surveyed 1,006 units in Juneau that showed the overall rental vacancy rate was 4%. A healthy vacancy rate is considered to be approximately 8%, according to Rain Coast’s study.
For projects to qualify for JAHF, 20% of the units must be between 0% and 80% AMI. Woll said these are new conditions of the loan agreement the Assembly adopted after Ridgeview sold condos at market price. Ridgeview was one of two projects that received a loan without affordability requirements.
“By the time we set up an agreement with them they had changed their business plan,” Woll said. “It didn’t meet the new criteria that we have. The program was new. We were in a bit of an experimental phase to figure out, ‘OK, how do we make sure that we are adding housing stock to Juneau?’ So some of those requirements were waived for that project. However, as a result of the pushback that we got for that, the Assembly did revisit those criteria to make them stronger.”
Assembly members during their annual retreat in December included JAHF as a goal for 2025, along with a suggested review of fund guidelines. City Manager Katie Koester said the Assembly uses the JAHF guidelines as a “living document that can get tweaked every year to adequately address the community’s needs.”
The committee reviewing proposals against the criteria also takes the background of the applicant into consideration and what area of town is being targeted.
Scott Ciambor is the city’s Community Development Department Planning Manager. He said the way the city participates in housing needs has come a long way in recent years.
“I moved to town in 2008 or so and worked outside of the organization as the staff liaison to the Affordable Housing Commission at the time, as well as the chair of the Juneau Homeless Coalition,” he said. “At that time the conversation about housing was all about how to get the city more involved: ‘Will they recognize this as an issue and can we get some more resources towards housing?’ From those conversations back in 2008 to see what the Assembly is doing with the fund the last five years, it is a complete turnaround and it’s fantastic.”
He said the city’s action was spurred by the Housing Action Plan in 2017 that encouraged the use of resources. Ciambor said since then there has been money put out for competition that incentivizes organizations to envision projects.
“The Assembly has been super committed to making sure that there’s funds available for private developers and affordable housing developers, tribal housing authority to use, which is really, really important, because the gap financing from what development costs to how much folks can charge for rent is severe,” he said.
Ciambor said the housing fund is just one of the city’s strategies to increase housing in Juneau.
“The Housing Action Plan said, use all your tools,” he said. “We have tax abatement, we have a land use code and revision through Title 49 going on currently. There’s a short-term rental task force. And so all of those activities combined, we compare with what’s going on in other communities and across the country, and then we also resource best practices through national groups who focus on what local governments can and can’t do. So those conversations happen continuously.”
Koester said part of the Assembly’s commitment to providing more housing is developing city property. She said the development of the Pederson Hill subdivision is a high priority. On Monday, the Assembly unanimously approved three rezonings on North Douglas Island and three rezonings in the vicinity of Auke Bay.
“Those are rezones on city property increasing density that will eventually become projects where we can say, ‘OK, how can we put in a road or do something to open up more developable land for Juneau developers and Juneau homeowners that want to build on them?’” Koester said.
• Contact Jasz Garrett at jasz.garrett@juneauempire.com or (907) 723-9356.
