Analyst Sheds Light On Housing in Sitka

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Created on Tuesday, 17 September 2024 16:06

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By SHANNON HAUGLAND
Sentinel Staff Writer
Over the past several years Sitka has made progress in adding housing units, but housing, particularly for seasonal workers, remains a problem, a Juneau economic consultant told a Sitka audience Thursday.
“There’s 2,200 more workers in the summer than there is in the winter, and this is where your housing crisis is right now,” Meilani Schijvens said at the gathering in Centennial Hall for the annual State of the Sitka Economy report. The audience of some 60 filled the meeting room.
“You’ve worked your way out of a year-round housing crisis, and now the crisis is mostly June through August, a little bit in May and September,” said Schijvens, owner and director of Rain Coast Data.
She added today that “housing looks OK in March – it’s just those summer months that reach the crisis level.”
Sitka Economic Development Association sponsors the annual economic report. Schijvens also presents the “Southeast by the Numbers” report at the Southeast Conference annual meeting.
In her presentation here on Thursday Schijvens spent time focused on housing, including rental prices, but also talked about other local economic issues, such as a decline in workforce-age residents at the same time as there is an increase in jobs.
She also spoke of the challenges of the seafood industry, and the global seafood inventory backlog that led to the crash in salmon prices.
Her main recommendation for improving housing availability and affordability in any housing market is to add housing stock, and take advantage of programs available to solve the problem.
“Whatever we can build, we should be building,” she said. “We need to increase the housing pie.” In Sitka, special attention is needed to house summer workers in the tourism, seafood, construction and other industries, she said.
In her PowerPoint presentation, Schijvens showed average single family home “values” – from the Zillow website – going down but still high, at $498,000. The average single family home value hit a high of $617,405 in 2022.
“If you look at 2016 to 2024 the average value of a single-family home has gone up by 3%, when you take into account the decline (over the last two years),” she said. “Nationally it’s 76% (up) compared to Sitka’s 3%. ... that’s good because it makes Sitka more attractive to people from outside.”
About 315 new homes built over the last 10 years in Sitka is one of the highest per-capita increases in the state, Schijvens said. Sitka added 32 units in 2020, another 37 in 2021, 36 in 2022 and 44 in 2023, which was the highest in the last 10 years.
In a survey, Sitka business leaders say housing availability is a significant barrier to business. Some 67% say it’s a significant barrier, and another 21% say it is a moderate barrier.
Sitka ranked highest in the list of Southeast communities saying housing is a significant barrier to business. One of the figures that interested the audience was the April estimate that 17%, or 700, of Sitka’s 4,140 housing units, were vacant. But Schijvens said that statistic is similar to what she sees in the region and statewide.
Sitka also has a two-thirds to one-third split between homeowners and renters.
“That’s really normal, it’s a really healthy division,” she said. One unusual figure for Sitka is that 10 percent of local housing is mobile homes, which is twice the figure for the region and the state.
Sitka’s 5.7% vacancy rate is similar to that in the rest of the state, which is 5.9%. She said Sitka’s median adjusted rent is identical to the state’s, at $1,400, up 10% since 2010.
One slide said “short-term rentals are leveling out,” with 137 active listings this summer. About 88% are available only in summer. In 2021 there were 98 listings, but in the next three years it was 133, 134 and then 137.
After the presentation, audience members asked Schijvens for clarification or more information on some of her findings, or just added their own views on what they’re observing.
Larry Edwards was one, noting that the number of new housing units reported includes units built by SEARHC for their new employees, which he said doesn’t help Sitka’s existing housing problem.
“Their intent is not to worsen the problem we have,” he said.
Schijvens commented today that the new SEARHC housing does help Sitka in attracting workforce-age people to town for other jobs.
Randy Hughey, director of the Sitka Community Land Trust, spoke of the effect on housing prices and availability caused by wealthy nonresidents building houses and not living in them.
Commenting on the need to identify  available land for construction, city administrator John Leach drew attention to the $450,000 the city has allocated for such a study which is under way.

Business Leaders Views
    One of Schijvens’ slides showed a sample of 38 Sitka business leaders, representing 700 workers, who have a generally positive outlook for the Sitka economy, with 70 percent saying next year will be just as good as or better than this one.
The same springtime survey indicated a general awareness of some of the barriers facing Sitka in business leaders’ ranking of problems they want to see addressed to create a “vibrant business climate.” Those were housing, followed by childcare, development of a state fiscal plan and attracting younger people.
Schijvens touched on other industries in the Sitka economy, including seafood, which showed catch numbers way up in 2023 – biggest catch in 10 years – but total value going down due to global pressures affecting prices.
Government is another big employer here. In Sitka, local, state, federal and tribal governments account for 1,200 jobs, she said. Fishing is the biggest employer (by wages), followed by healthcare, government and tourism.
The PowerPoint is available at sitka.net.

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