The City and Borough of Juneau plans to evict all residents of the historic downtown Telephone Hill neighborhood by Oct. 1.
It’s part of a plan that will demolish existing homes and clear the area for newer, denser housing in response to the city’s housing crunch this fall. But no developer has signed onto the project.
Tenants living there now have about four months to move out and find new housing before demolition begins.
The Assembly’s approval of the redevelopment project on Monday was a decision years in the making. The only Assembly member to vote against the plan was Paul Kelly.
Assembly member Christine Woll said she recognizes the decision was a difficult one.
“I wish we could sign an agreement with a contractor today that said we aren’t kicking out these families until we have a plan to get 10 times more people in that place — that’s not possible,” she said. “I’m excited to move forward on investing resources that we’re going to need to build that high-density, affordable housing in this place.”
The Assembly approved spending roughly $5.5 million in city dollars — pulled from a few different sources — to fund the first phase of demolition and site preparation for the area. The total project cost is estimated at $9 million.
But the city has not yet secured a developer to construct new housing there.
Some residents, like Tony Tengs, who lives downtown, said the Assembly had already made its decision long before the vote even occurred.
“This will be a very visible $9 million scar in the heart of downtown and the subject of much ridicule,” he said. “You may go down as the most notorious Assembly in the history of Juneau, if your big gamble doesn’t pay off.”
The city plans to get the land ready for a developer to then come in and start building housing next summer. But, as Douglas resident Mark Whitman points out, no developer has signed onto the project yet.
“You are waiving a $9 million carrot, hoping someone will buy into this — and no clear takers,” he said. “A bad gamble with our money. This is not fiscal responsibility.”
The neighborhood gets its name because it was home to Alaska’s first commercial telephone service. The hill and many of its houses were a part of the original Juneau townsite in the late 1800s.
All the people living on Telephone Hill are renters, and have been since the state took ownership of the neighborhood in the 1980s. It was originally intended to be redeveloped back then to build a new Capitol complex there — but that didn’t happen.
The state then transferred the land to the city in 2023. Last year, the Assembly voted to redevelop the neighborhood and add more than 100 new housing units there in response to Juneau’s ongoing housing crunch.
Assembly member Wade Bryson said the Assembly’s decision shouldn’t be a surprise.
“People who are living on Telephone Hill, how much time would be enough? Because this action, this night was talked about five years ago, four years ago, three years ago, two years ago, a year ago,” he said. “This was not a surprise, or it certainly should not have been a surprise to anybody that eventually it would come to this.”
Demolition is slated to begin between October and December, and city officials say they hope that a developer could begin construction as soon as next summer.
