A district court judge has delayed the pending eviction hearings of three tenants who have refused to vacate their residences in Juneau’s downtown Telephone Hill neighborhood until at least Friday morning.
That’s so the judge can review a motion filed late Tuesday by the tenants’ attorney.
The motion asks the court to delay the evictions pending the outcome of a lawsuit filed by tenants against the city. The lawsuit seeks to stop the city’s demolition of the historic neighborhood and reverse the evictions.
The city had given the tenants living in the homes until Nov.1 to move out. The city plans to demolish the houses on the hill later this winter to make way for newer, denser housing to combat the city’s housing crunch. However, some tenants are refusing to leave and the city earlier this month filed legal action to evict them.
At the courthouse on Wednesday morning, John Ingalls, one of the tenants who hasn’t vacated and is a plaintiff in the lawsuit, said he’s going to fight tooth and nail to stop the evictions.
“They’re just gonna make people pissed off at them. They’re gonna make people angry because I don’t think they have what’s right on their side, and I think people are going to stand up for what’s right,” he said. “I’m not worried about it. If they want to take my stuff. Fine, take it. Go ahead. If you want to be really ugly, let’s get ugly.”
An attorney from the city’s law department argued that the late filing of the motion was an intentional delay tactic and requested that the judge proceed with the hearing. The judge instead pushed Wednesday’s hearings back till Friday morning at 8:15 a.m.
City Attorney Emily Wright said if the evictions are approved on Friday morning, the city plans to take swift action. She said the city gave the tenants more than enough notice and time to move out of the homes before taking legal action to force them out.
“If the city were given immediate possession of the homes on Friday, we would change the locks,” she said. “We would take possession of the homes, and we would work with the tenants to get their belongings out of the homes as soon as possible.”
In response to the tenants’ lawsuit, the city denies the claims that it improperly evicted people on the hill, illegally phased the redevelopment and that the project fails to comply with federal and state historic preservation acts.
