Youth Advocates of Sitka (YAS) will likely get a property tax exemption for a duplex the nonprofit owns on Halibut Point Road, but only for one year, to give the organization time to establish a new program for teens. 

YAS purchased the house last year after the nonprofit scored a grant to develop a residential treatment program for unhoused teens. Developing the program has taken time though. Last fall, neighbors pushed back on the proposed location, and the planning commission denied the permit application. The assembly overturned the planning commission’s denial, giving YAS the greenlight to move forward. YAS executive director Heather Meuret said a neighbor’s appeal of the assembly’s decision slowed down the process further. 

“This appeal was in place since we purchased the building and then was recently dismissed by the state in February. So since then, which is only two months, we immediately began seeking bids for quotes for the interior modifications of the house,” Meuret said. “These modifications are required to be completed before we can move youth in the house and begin our new program.”

But some assembly members, like Chris Ystad, had concerns about offering a permanent property tax exemption when the program still hasn’t been fully established.

“We had an organization here not too terribly long ago that gave us their business plan, and told us the way they would operate, and we made choices on those assumptions. And a short time later, things changed, and we took a lot of heat for it,” Ystad said. “I don’t think that that is going to happen here. But as of right now, we don’t know that this facility will be operated as planned.”

Ystad said he’d prefer to leave the property tax exemption on the table as an incentive for when YAS begins operating the program. Assembly member Tim Pike suggested an amendment as a compromise–a tax exemption that sunsets after one year, allowing some time for YAS to get the program off the ground. But Kevin Mosher felt they needed to reexamine how the city approaches tax exemptions on a larger scale before making changes to agreements with individual nonprofits. 

“I would not be in favor of an amendment to sunset this, only because I think I think the Mayor brings up a good point that we have to have some sort of comprehensive look at the code in total, and we need to come up with a plan,” Mosher said. “Probably a code change, probably a policy change, with a little more fine tuned guidance, and that would need a public process.”

The assembly amended the ordinance to trim the tax exemption down to 1 year on A 5-1 vote with Mosher opposed. The full ordinance to give YAS the exemption, however, passed unanimously. It will come before the assembly for a final reading at a meeting in May.