When it comes to managing land, it’s more complicated for CBJ than you might think
The City and Borough of Juneau is always dealing with land issues, whether it’s about buying, selling, or managing land. Recent topics of public interest include the clearing of trees and brush between a city park and a neighborhood, whether to have private access rights through a city-owned playground, how to sell a property long used by a social service agency, and the role of CBJ in land development and subdivisions. Citizens often comment that government should learn lessons from or behave more similarly to the private sector. Let’s talk about land through this filter.
When a private party sells or buys land, they ask for the highest price or pay whatever they feel is reasonable or what their bank allows. They quickly can decide to sell or purchase, or pivot to other options. They are not constrained by what their friends think and do not have to make rules to ensure that they are being fair. For instance, home buyers can stare at their savings and weigh their wants and needs from the privacy of their kitchen table. The factors for buying or selling are often all about money and timing.
For CBJ, the process is much more constrained and cumbersome. If a citizen walks in the door and offers to buy a piece of city-owned land, several steps have to be considered. First, staff checks our Land Management Plan, which is the official policy on how to manage municipal property. One question CBJ must figure out – Is the land reserved for a purpose? Maybe CBJ is saving it for a school 30 years from now, maybe it’s managed as a park, or maybe it’s needed for some public purpose that is not obvious to the public, like a future infrastructure need of the water or wastewater utility. Some land is designated for disposal, which in municipal-speak means for lease or sale.
And whenever the CBJ buys or disposes of land, there are many opinions about whether the transaction is a good idea, and whether the prices being considered adequately protect the public interest. In short, CBJ cares about what the public thinks and sometimes it isn’t easy to sort through the broad range of opinions.
Because of public interest in land issues, it takes an act of the Assembly to alter the Land Management Plan and it takes an act of the Assembly to decide whether to sell directly to the person who walked in the door, or whether to go through a competitive process. Acts of Assembly involve a public process with adequate time for public notice. If a private person was thinking of selling a piece of land and someone came through their door offering to purchase, the process is a lot simpler.
As a negotiator, CBJ is also different. Everybody can guess the city’s negotiating stance; it is written into the local laws and discussed in public. When CBJ works around land, it is about money and timing, but also the balancing of competing needs, the requirement to act transparently, and the core value of equitably managing public tax dollars and giving the public equal chances to participate. And in political decision-making, equity usually wins out over speed and efficiency. Elected officials will rarely tell their constituents that a business decision is more important than a fair process. And that’s the way the writers of the municipal charter intended local government to be.
Land transactions with the CBJ may be frustrating at times, but keep in mind that city staff who deal with land are working under complicated constraints. And while the process may seem cumbersome, the purpose is to allow full transparency and to allow the public to participate in land decision-making.