Would you believe that in Juneau, a town with a housing problem so tight it makes a sardine can look like a Wyoming golf course, some occupied apartments are being declared illegal? If you own a home, are buying a home, are a renter, or are renting this might be happening to you soon. I know this because a recent dig in the city’s property agreement archives revealed that the apartment I live in is too large. The place I have called home for a year is not, legally speaking, an apartment. And because of that it may soon no longer be my home.
How large is too large? In certain residential zones, the limit is, apparently, 600 square feet. Mine, due to a small kitchen and dining addition in the ‘90s, is just about 170 square feet beyond that. The property agreement, signed 1998, states with no irony that the space can become rentable as long as a city inspector verifies that the kitchen has been thoroughly removed from the home. If this invokes images of a dining table teetering out of a surgically rectangular hole, a slice of house carted away on a flatbed like an abandoned schoolbus, I think we’re on the same page.
As I’m writing this, the riverbanks are overflowing, pushing an already overcrowded Juneau to higher and higher housing anxiety. Last time I tried to find a place to buy or rent (twice in 2023), the scarce options slipped away week after week, month after month, for reasons such as “a tour company offered me twice the rate” and “I charge an extra $250 a month in rent for pets, including your reptile.” I wince at the memory of finding affordable housing which is so many others’ present struggle and which may, very shortly, be mine once again.
If you rent a portion of your house, you may soon find yourself at the wrong end of this ordinance yourself, losing a source of rental income or footing the bill for a hamfisted remodel. I point no fingers, personally. My landlords are fantastic. I know the zoning laws were written somewhere back when “Jurassic Park” was full price at Blockbuster, and a city Assembly dutifully looking for tomorrow’s solutions can’t be expected to notice all of the obsolete statutes of yesterday. But I also know that in a time of great pressure like this, every nook and cranny makes a difference.
I love Juneau. It will always be my home. But if I have to move again, there’s a good chance it’s going to be to another city. I have to wonder how many others are in a similar situation: wanting to stay, but pushed out after years of unstable housing made worse by scarcity in the market, rising prices, and now, even a home deemed illegal.
Guy Unzicker
Juneau