Mental Health Lands in Gustavus
October, 1998
By now, probably everyone in Gustavus has heard about "Mental Health lands." But unless you have followed the details of how they were established and are being managed, you may not have a clear picture of their importance for our town. It's beginning to look like Gustavus may have the chance to make some decisions about these lands. This article is a first stab at bringing everyone up-to-speed on the options.
Importance of Mental Health Lands to Gustavus
Mental Health lands, which are private, include most of the beach, some of the best woods for berry picking and many of the important moose hunting areas. Because of their location, these lands are also valuable for home sites, commercial and industrial development and tourism facilities. Currently, people use these private lands as if they were open to the public, but in fact, we are trespassing every time we hunt, pick berries or recreate on them.
History
At statehood, part of Alaska's land entitlement was earmarked for use as a revenue source to support mental health programs in the state. These lands were called the Mental Health Land Trust (MHLT). The state government, however, never really activated the MHLT and obligated a lot of the Trust lands for other purposes. About ten years ago, a group of mental health advocates sued the state, demanding that the MHLT be reconstituted. After a long legal battle, the state was ordered to comply. Many of the original lands couldn't be reclaimed for that purpose, so the state had to make up the deficit from unobligated state lands. Gustavus had a lot of these, and about 3000 acres around town (about 1/5 of Gustavus!) were selected to be put back into the MHLT (see map). The Trust received title to these lands about a year ago.
Just after that, Steve Planchon, the MHLT land manager, and John Pugh, MHLT board member from Juneau, held a meeting in Gustavus. They made it clear that their mandate was to realize maximum revenues from MHLT lands, but they also said that they wanted to cooperate with the community as their plans went ahead.
Present Goings-on
This year, the MHLT folks have been reviewing options for their lands throughout Southeast Alaska. Finding that many of these lands are very important to communities, they are looking for ways to make development on them palatable for local people. They have suggested that one avenue may be to keep certain key MHLT lands undeveloped as part of an overall plan for their lands in a given community. They have also said that given presently low timber prices, non-timber land like those at Gustavus would be a good place to begin planning.
Of course, given their mandate to make money, the MHLT has to receive revenue for any development opportunities forgone. Which brought another outfit, called the Trust for Public Lands (TPL), into the picture. This non-profit organization acts nationwide as a broker between owners of lands with important natural values and communities or other groups that would like to see these values retained. Chris Rogers from TPL's Seattle office has come to Gustavus twice now. He is optimistic that money can be found to buy out some of the equity in Gustavus MHLT lands, IF that is what the community wants.
The Gustavus Community Association has set up a committee to look into this matter. We are in the early stages of gathering residents' views on which MHLT lands are important for community use, and identifying options that can ensure those lands will continue to be available to the community. Whatever information the group gathers will be passed on to the community. Whether anything concrete happens will be up to Gustavus residents.
A First Cut on Options
We don't have a clear view of options yet, but they will certainly be limited on the one hand by the amount of equity the MHLT is willing to sell and on the other hand, by the amount of money TPL can help us find. Gustavus will have to decide which lands are most important for community use in their present condition, and MHLT will have to decide which of these they are willing to deal on.
According to Chris Rogers, there are various ways to acquire equity to such lands. One is outright purchase. Another is buying easements, which leave title to the land in the original owners' hands, but allows others the right to use the land for specific purposes. The owners are compensated for leaving certain things intact. These "certain things" can be pretty much whatever we can think of, such as public access across the property, public hunting, greenbelts or leaving everything on the property as-is. Once purchased, these lands or easements can be turned over to some body to be held in trust for us. That body could be GCA or some other group the town sets up; or it could be an outfit in Juneau called the Southeast Alaska Land Trust (SEALTrust, send them e-mail), which is already set up for that purpose.
What happens to MHLT lands will have a lot to do with our future. In fact, residents of Gustavus recently ranked obtaining easements for MHLT lands between Good River and Glenn's ditch as the fifth most important issue facing the community, based on a survey sent to everyone in the July, 1998, electric bill. To date, MHLT lands have remained available for a variety of community uses. It looks like we may have the opportunity, AT NO MAJOR COST TO OURSELVES, to protect our access and use patterns if the community agrees that it is something we want to do.
By Greg Streveler
For more information, see the Mental Health Land Group's web site at http://gustavuslandlegacy.org/