Juneau weighs a $27 million View Drive flood buyout with the homeowner share still unpriced

Sixteen of 18 eligible homeowners on Juneau's View Drive are moving ahead with appraisals in a roughly $26.8 million federal buyout of flood-prone homes. The city has not settled who carries the risk of collecting the local share.

The Assembly Committee of the Whole takes up a View Drive status update Monday at 6 pm in Assembly Chambers, a worksession with no public testimony.

The buyout runs through the federal Natural Resources Conservation Service's emergency watershed protection program, which buys out flooded property and covers 75% of costs, leaving a 25% nonfederal share. The City and Borough of Juneau, known as CBJ, signed the agreement with NRCS in May. Emergency Programs Manager Ryan O'Shaughnessy wrote that the Assembly must appropriate about $27 million upfront, covering home purchase, demolition and preparing the sites as parkland. The city would own the lots and maintain them as public land in perpetuity. Participation is voluntary. Appraisals and property-level costs are due Oct. 31, when owners learn what their homes are worth.

The Assembly indicated in January, February and March that participating owners, not the city, should bear the 25% share beyond the $558,000 already appropriated for appraisals and cost estimating. That cost would come out of owners' buyout proceeds. No one has said how much it will be; O'Shaughnessy wrote the item comes to the committee "with incomplete information." NRCS confirmed the city could pair the sale with a separate enforceable repayment agreement. That "requires CBJ to collect those funds after closing," O'Shaughnessy wrote, and "places all the risk of non-collection (and burden of collection) on CBJ." The city is weighing recovering the share at closing instead, which he called less burdensome and likelier to succeed. Staff asked how much repayment risk the Assembly will carry.

The city's project page says View Drive has flooded repeatedly and is most likely to flood again in future glacial outburst floods. The National Weather Service says the road past 9374 View Drive becomes impassable when Mendenhall Lake reaches 14 feet. Clearing the homes is a form of managed retreat.

The committee is scheduled to settle the mechanics Nov. 2, with introduction Nov. 16 and a public hearing Dec. 14. Owners see terms in January 2027, and any change to who pays the local share must come before then.