Juneau’s controversial landslide maps make a comeback in latest draft risk assessment

Juneau officials are updating the local hazard mitigation plan to make the city eligible for federal disaster funding.

The update must be finished by October in order to qualify for a federal grant to fight glacial outburst floods in Mendenhall Valley. The more than 300-page draft risk assessment covers everything from severe weather to cybersecurity. But at a public meeting on Monday, people wanted to talk about one thing: landslides.

That’s because the draft includes landslide maps made in 2022 that the public rejected and the Juneau Assembly did not adopt. The maps made it into the draft because the Federal Emergency Management Agency requires that the plan uses the best available data.

Laura Young is the business manager at Fairweather Science, the contractor creating the assessment. She said that landslides are mentioned in all of the public comments she’s received so far.

“What we’re trying to do is make sure that we’re providing the information, but we’re not providing it in a way that causes harm or is political in any way,” Young said. 

Residents have described how the landslide maps have affected their property values, even though the city didn’t formally adopt them. 

Larry Fanning lives on Starr Hill, a neighborhood hemmed in by steep mountains. He said his neighbor had to significantly drop the price of their home when they sold it following the .

“Unfortunately, there’s unintended consequences to publishing these maps in the hazard mitigation plan, because the appraisers are going to use that data to determine property values,” Fanning said. “So my recommendation would be to go more generic.”

Since the city hasn’t adopted the maps, they can’t be used to impose land-use restrictions on property owners. But because they are publicly available, the maps can be used by assessors, lenders, insurers and buyers to the potential financial detriment of owners.

In response to the public feedback, Young said she’s removed the controversial hazard severity labels from the risk assessment — so now the draft simply shows that the downtown area deals with landslides. 

The city and the Central Council of the Tlingit & Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska, which is working with the city on the assessment, plan to share a list of potential hazard mitigation projects for public comment this week.