Juneau Mobile Home Park Sues Over Sewer Billing Dispute
Mobile home parks in Juneau face monthly water and sewer charges averaging nearly $170 per unit under a municipal billing system that ignores actual consumption, the Juneau Empire reported.
Coogan Alaska LLC, owner of the Creekside and Sprucewood mobile home parks, filed a lawsuit on October 15 in Juneau Superior Court. The complaint accuses the City and Borough of Juneau of enforcing a discriminatory utility structure.
Under current municipal rates, each mobile home unit is billed a flat $44.90 monthly for water and $116.95 for sewer service. Including a 5 percent sales tax, the combined monthly bill reaches $169.94 per unit.
Apartment buildings and condominiums with three or more units receive metered residential service. Those properties pay a base rate alongside additional fees tied directly to measured consumption.
Title 75 of the municipal code places individual mobile homes into the flat-rate residential category. Coogan challenges the legality of that classification.
Coogan reviewed 45 months of water usage and billing records running from January 2021 through September 2024. The company compared what the two parks paid under the flat-rate system with what they would have owed under published metered rates.
The analysis revealed an average overcharge of approximately $67 per unit each month across the properties. The filing notes that two-bedroom apartments at Island Hills averaged less than $45 per unit in monthly water and sewer charges under metered billing.
The municipality already tracks water usage at Creekside and Sprucewood through its own meters. Those recorded readings are not used to calculate monthly bills for the parks.
Coogan argues that park owners maintain much of their own water and sewer infrastructure. As a result, the city spends less to service mobile home parks than certain other residential developments.
The lawsuit estimates that roughly 1,055 mobile homes sit in parks across Juneau. Property owners and residents throughout the borough potentially face the same flat-rate billing arrangement.
The assembly approved annual 5 percent increases for water and sewer service through 2029 in June 2025. City officials said that the extra revenue was necessary to maintain existing infrastructure, fund improvements, and meet debt obligations.
Before filing the lawsuit, Coogan presented its findings to the City and Borough of Juneau and requested a meeting to resolve the dispute. The city declined to offer a resolution.
City officials maintained that their billing practices comply with municipal code and applicable law. Coogan contends that treating similar residential properties differently without adequate justification violates the Alaska Constitution.
The lawsuit asks the court to declare the flat-rate utility arrangement unlawful. It demands that the city require metered rates for mobile home parks and reimburse alleged overpayments alongside legal expenses.
The case has not yet established whether mobile home park residents were unlawfully overcharged. A court must evaluate the city’s justifications for its rate classifications alongside Coogan’s financial comparisons.
The dispute leaves open the question of why two households receiving municipal water and sewer service pay different rates based solely on whether they reside in a mobile home park or an apartment building.