Skagway is grappling with a housing shortage that elected officials have called a “crisis.” Some residents want to build more housing but face roadblocks due to municipal code involving property setbacks. As KHNS’s Andrew Cremata reports, a public perception that the local housing code isn’t enforced equitably or fairly adds to that frustration.

 

Skagway’s well-documented housing issues are negatively impacting both year-round and seasonal residents. Locals often lament that business owners are buying up year-round housing for seasonal housing. Seasonal residents unable to secure employee housing are sometimes relegated to substandard housing that some borough officials worry is unsafe. 

Two Skagway residents recently attempted to build quality year-round housing, but they discovered that the borough code prevented them from proceeding with their plans.

“The goal was to provide year-round housing in a quality, well-built studio apartment,” said Skagway resident Jonathan Hillis.

The newly elected assembly member purchased his home in February of 2023. The two-story house includes a separate garage built over a decade ago after the Planning and Zoning Commission approved a variance that allowed the owner to ignore the setback code.

A property setback is a distance between a structure and a property line as measured at the nearest point on a line perpendicular to the property line, and dictates where property owners can and cannot build. 

“The garage is incredibly well built,” Hillis said. “I often joke it’s better built than my house is … Already plumbed and water to it. Great building.”

With paperwork in hand, Hillis approached the Skagway Planning and Zoning Commission requesting a conditional use permit to upgrade the garage into a year-round apartment. When he was denied his permit, Hillis took his case to the Board of Appeals, a quasi-judicial board comprised of borough assembly members, but they rejected his appeal.

Borough officials cite setback guidelines as the primary reason for their denial, even though the previous owner was granted a variance. 

With every election, the makeup of Skagway’s assembly, boards and commissions change. Emily Deach, the deputy borough manager, says with each change comes the potential for different interpretations of code. 

“I know that there is frustration because you’ll get different people on the different boards or even on the assembly sitting as the board of appeals, and they are going to interpret code differently sometimes…” Deach said.

Deach added that municipal code is often vague, which is one reason why elected officials are currently attempting to improve and clarify the setback code.  

Regardless of the reason, residents like Hillis sometimes feel singled out. 

“Once it started to get out … I was submitting a conditional use permit, I was told by the majority of people I talked to that I shouldn’t have bothered applying; shouldn’t have gotten the municipality involved,” Hillis said.    “[That] I should have just done the project and not let anybody know about it.”

Some residents and business owners, like Jim Higgins, have tried circumventing the rules.

In 2021, Higgins’ brother and mother were living in Washington and suddenly faced the prospect of homelessness due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Higgins decided to convert his garage into a high-quality, year-round apartment to ensure his family members would have a place to live. 

He hired local licensed and bonded contractors, plumbers, and electricians to do the conversion work, believing it was okay to move forward because he couldn’t recall any other property owners in Skagway getting into trouble for this type of construction. 

He was wrong.

After spending $50,000 on the renovation and only two weeks from completion, Skagway’s permitting official stopped construction due to a lack of proper permitting. Depending on the outcome, Higgins could have to demolish the construction. 

Making the situation even more frustrating, Higgins garage was built in October of 1979, but had it been built ten months earlier, the structure would have been grandfathered into the 1978 code that allowed apartment construction without seeking setback relief. 

Higgins hopes that Skagway government officials can come up with a reasonable solution.

“I hope going forward is that the Assembly and the Planning and Zoning Committee will work together to review and update Skagway’s out-of-date building code and streamline the permitting and variance process,” he said.

The deputy borough manager also wants a resolution.

“We just hope that we can work with the community and that they’re willing to work with us…” Deach said.

Regardless of the outcome, Skagway’s housing issues continue. The Civic Affairs Committee plans to discuss setback issues and possible modifications to the code at their next meeting, Dec. 10 at 5 p.m.