The borough assembly has declared as “hazardous” and assigned a property value of zero to the two lots owned by victims of the deadly Nov. 20 landslide at 11-Mile Zimovia Highway, making the owners eligible to possibly receive state land as replacement for their unusable property.
The owners or their estate could build on their new lots, hold them undeveloped or sell them and keep the proceeds, explained Hannah Uher-Koch, who runs the land grant program at the Department of Natural Resources’ Division of Mining, Land and Water.
“There are no requirements at all as to how they use the land,” she said in an interview Friday, Jan. 26.
The borough action applies to the parcels owned by Otto and Christina Florschutz and Timothy and Beth Heller. Otto Florschutz died in the slide, as did the Hellers and their three children.
The state land grant program for natural disasters has been on the books since the 1960s but only used a couple of times — after the deadly landslide in Haines in 2020, and after flooding in the Matanuska-Susitna Borough, said Lorraine Henry, spokesperson for the department.
The borough assembly action is required for property owners to qualify for the state program, as is a state disaster declaration, which Gov. Mike Dunleavy issued the day after the Wrangell landslide.
Department of Natural Resources officials have been discussing the land grant program with borough officials, Henry said.
Alaska statute allows grants of state land “to replace land which is rendered unusable by a natural disaster for the purposes for which it was used before the natural disaster.” The law says the land grants are intended “to alleviate damage, suffering and hardship caused by the catastrophe.”
The borough’s determination that the two parcels are unusable for housing is an initial step in the process to qualify for the state program. The assembly approved the resolution unanimously on Jan. 23: “The resolution aims to declare these parcels as hazardous due to the presence of sharp metal, oil, toxins and other hazardous debris” buried in the mud.
The resolution also set the assessed value of the two lots at zero for this year’s property tax rolls.
The 1.796-acre waterfront parcel owned by the Hellers was assessed last year at $78,200 for the land and $160,000 for the home.
The 4.59-acre lot upland of the highway owned by the Florschutzes was assessed at $68,900 for the land and $544,400 for the improvements.
Though the state program allows for a land swap, where the state would take ownership of the hazardous parcel, the state can choose to grant a parcel to property owners outright and not take title to the damaged land, Uher-Koch said.
The state parcel granted to the owners must be of like value or like size to the unusable lots, she said, with the state looking at the assessed value of the land before the disaster.
State land selected for the grant could come from most anywhere, Uher-Koch said — there is no requirement that the parcel must be on Wrangell Island, which, like much of Southeast, has little available state land.
For example, the Haines property owner who received state land after losing their property to the landslide in that community selected a parcel at Clark Bay, near Hollis, on Prince of Wales Island, which they later sold.
Selecting an unsold parcel from an earlier state land sale program avoids the cost of surveying, which the property owner in the deal would otherwise have to pay, Uher-Koch said.
The land grant program is separate from other state disaster programs, such as temporary rental assistance for people displaced by the landslide and reimbursement of direct expenses such as building repairs, medical bills and additional transportation expenses.
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