After a couple of setbacks, Youth Advocates of Sitka can now move forward with plans to create a residential treatment program for teens and young adults experiencing homelessness, both in Sitka and from around the state. Earlier this year, the group had applied for a permit to convert a duplex into the facility, but was initially denied by the local planning commission. The nonprofit successfully appealed that decision before the Sitka Assembly on Tuesday (6-13-23).


Youth Advocates of Sitka, or Y-A-S, scored the $2 million dollar federal grant to develop the residential treatment facility last year. Dubbed Coastal Haven, the pilot program would house around a dozen teens and young adults, providing them with mental health services, wilderness therapy and life skills training. 

But the program hit its first snag in January, when the Planning Commission denied YAS’s first permit application to convert a duplex on Dodge Circle. The local nonprofit went back to the drawing board, landing on a duplex on state highway Halibut Point Road. But in April, they were again denied their permit, this time on a split vote. 

The reason for the denial was two-fold: the permit would affect the “character of the neighborhood” and it found the R1 zoning “incompatible” with the facility. It also cited “unified dissent of the neighbors.”

Amanda Johnson was one of the dissenting voices. She voiced concerns about safety and the HPR location. 

“It’s not just the safety of myself and my family. It is concerns about the safety for the clients at this residence being protected, being able to get to-and-from town, and their privacy at this residence,” Johnson said. “It’s not so much the neighbor’s privacy is the concern. It’s the fact that when they’re sharing that beach, when they’re in the house, they’re in a fishbowl.” 

Testimony and concerns from neighbors ranged from questions about YAS filing its appeal after the deadline, to worries about privacy, noise and other programming questions. And Brit Galanin, who said she’d helped circulate a petition that garnered 40 signatures challenged the idea that the neighborhood pushback had been discriminatory in nature.

“This was not a ‘Not in my backyard’ issue,” Galanin said. “This is actually about this house. It’s not about YAS. It’s about whether or not this house is the right place for this pilot statewide program. As YAS mentioned, they have almost two more years to find a more suitable location. I would highly encourage our community to come together to support YAS in doing that, because this is not the right location for it.”

Several said they felt like YAS hadn’t done enough outreach to the neighborhood. Supporters of YAS challenged some of those concerns. Wendy Leverett called for the assembly to grant the appeal, and said that the YAS facility needs to be in a neighborhood, even though she felt no matter what neighborhood they tried to move into, they’d get pushback.

“I get why people are nervous. There are a lot of unknowns welcoming something like this into your own backyard so to speak,” Leverett said. “These kids, these young people have been through more than we understand, and it wasn’t their fault. The only hope they have of having a healthy, normal life, is to be in a regular neighborhood and feel like regular people, and learn what healthy is, and what it looks like, and what they could have.”

And Rachel Jones who’d lived near another facility run by YAS said she didn’t find it had impacted her property value, and she’d only noticed the police at the property twice. 

“There was never any sirens, never any disturbance, and in the same amount of time, I actually had a neighbor called the police on us twice, once because they didn’t like where we placed a fence post and once because one of our chickens got loose,” Jones said. “Which are the kinds of things that happen in a small, tight neighborhood, and that particular house, I don’t think, caused any more disturbances than my fence or my chicken did.”

In its appeal before the assembly, Y-A-S argued that the Planning Commission, in denying the permit, had both overturned an application that met the conditional use requirements under city code, and also violated the Fair Housing Act, which prohibits housing discrimination.

An independent legal review from an Anchorage law firm also raised questions about whether the commission’s decision could be scrutinized under federal law. The report essentially called for more evidence, either from the planning commission supporting its decision to deny the permit under city code, or more evidence from YAS that its application was supported by code.

YAS executive director Heather Meuret said that if the assembly didn’t overturn the Planning Commission’s decision, they would file a housing discrimination report to the Housing and Urban Development, the federal department that awarded the grant. And Meuret submitted an additional stack of documents to the assembly for review, including the organization’s policies on noise and quiet hours, and a letter notifying the assembly of its official request for reasonable accommodations for persons with disabilities under the Fair Housing Act. 

But when it came time for the assembly to deliberate, they steered clear of discussing the constitutional question of whether the permit denial was discriminatory. Instead, they kept most of their comments to city code, and whether the YAS application had met the threshold for the planning commission to approve it.

Assembly member JJ Carlson said from her research and looking through YAS’s proposal, they met the city code requirements for a conditional use permit. 

“The adequate public facilities and service, they’ve met that. You’ve met the “reducing of hazardous conditions, by mitigating what they need for public health, like potential noise,” Carlson said. “I mean, this isn’t a paint factory. There’s no downside here to housing people. I mean, yes, “quasi-institutional,” but in a residential treatment environment, it does fit within a residential zone.”

And the rest of the assembly agreed. Assembly member Crystal Duncan said when reviewing the materials, she’d expected to find a hole in YAS’s mitigation measures, but she didn’t. 

“Did they end up having to give greater detail? Yes. Because there was that public pressure to say, ‘Well, we want to know more.’ Tonight, they brought forth policies to say ‘We do have policies around noise. We do have policies around this,'” Duncan said. “I feel like they have been tested and required to rise above what…somebody who wanted to operate a business would have to do because there is this public input saying we need more and more and more.”

The group unanimously found that the YAS had met the six requirements for a conditional use permit under city code, and voted to grant their appeal, making one adjustment to reduce the number of beds that YAS would serve by two. And while the decision was unanimous, most members acknowledged the feedback from neighbors, and assembly member Tim Pike said he hoped YAS would consider that moving forward.

“There’s no winning, so-to-speak, in this environment,” Pike said. “Both sides, in this case, actually have quite a few points that are quite good, so I hope that YAS has heard that they have some work to do with their neighborhood.” 

During her appeal, Meuret perhaps summed up best what’s next for the organization, now that they can move forward with purchasing the home on Halibut Point Road. “YAS is a good neighbor,” she said. “We will show everyone we are a good neighbor, and if you give us our permit, we will prove you all wrong.”