The housing squeeze in Sitka will improve a little next year, thanks to a big shot of funding from the federal government.
The Sitka Community Land Trust has won a grant from US Housing and Urban Development (HUD) for the construction of a four-unit apartment building in its existing cottage neighborhood. Work should be completed in 2025.
There’s a lot to be said for having the right project at the right time. During a senate recess in February, Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski visited Southeast Alaska. Weather prevented her from coming to Sitka, but in a call to KCAW she said that she was hearing a message from Alaskans.
“Everywhere I go is ‘housing, housing, housing,’ and then throw in some childcare and then more housing,” said Murkowski.
Fast forward to the middle of March and Randy Hughey, executive director of the Sitka Community Land Trust, opens an email from Washington, D.C.
“I sat down, I sort of teared up and read it again. And went ‘We got it!’” said Hughey. “I showed it to my wife Carol, handed her the phone, and said ‘Read this.’ Yeah, it was quite emotional. I was very, very surprised and really happy.”
The email informed Hughey that the Land Trust had been awarded $2.17 million to construct a four-unit apartment complex. Not partial funding, not a matching grant – the full amount.
Hughey believes the Sitka Community Land Trust was well-positioned to benefit from government support. Planning for the project was well underway in the organization’s existing S’us’ Héeni Sháak Community neighborhood on Halibut Point Road.
“We’ve subdivided off the westernmost end of the property,” Hughey said, “and so it’s outside of the homeowners association, etc. And we have created the space for the building to fit. And actually we have already hired an architectural firm and engineering firm and environmental firm – we were doing all of the work to get ready for this building long before we actually had the money. So it’s an awfully sweet thing to have the actual construction funding come at such a time.”
Hughey said that prior to receiving the funding, he outlined the project in a 5-minute phone conversation with the senator herself, followed by a much longer call with a senate aide, where he went into more detail. Each apartment will be two-bedroom, 825 square feet – roughly the same size as the smallest standalone cottage in the neighborhood. And, per the Land Trust mission, they’ll rent at below-market rates. Hughey says everyone on the applicant list for cottage housing in the Land Trust will automatically be placed on the list for the apartments, when they become available.
Funding from the Denali Commission has covered planning and design expenses, as well as site preparation and utility installation. Hughey thinks it could be up to a year for the HUD money to arrive, which would allow for construction in the spring of ‘25.
Hughey says the funding is about far more than creating four more apartments in Sitka – it’s about sustaining the Sitka Community Land Trust itself, which has been grown principally on the work of volunteers and semi-retired staff like himself.
“That’s not a way that an organization can continue in the future,” Hughey said. “There has to be a certain number of staff members, all of whom make a living wage to work. And this apartment is a really big step in that direction.”
The Land Trust has used the same builder for all of its existing cottages. Hughey says that in the interest of fairness, the construction of the fourplex will be put out to bid.
