Cheers and tears flowed outside the Teton County administration building on Tuesday as six years of negotiations concluded in a final “yes.”
By a 4-to-1 vote, Teton County Commissioners approved the largest affordable housing development in the region’s history, a multi-developer project in northern South Park of nearly 400 deed-restricted homes and some 165 free-market units.
Len Carlman used his dissent to encourage the landowning Gill family to spend even more on traffic-easing infrastructure such as roundabouts. The family agreed to pay $1.3 million for transportation improvements, with two nonprofit partners splitting an additional $2.2 million to meet the county’s request.
Those payments were the final sticking point in approving a 17-block development plan that paves the way for permits and shovels. The full buildout is estimated to take 10 to 20 years.
“I’m sure there will be challenges, because there always are, but I think we’ll work together and we’ll solve them,” said ranching matriarch Patti Gill.
Nonprofit developers Jackson Hole Community Housing Trust and Habitat for Humanity of the Greater Teton Area both expressed confidence in their ability to fundraise for sidewalks and roundabouts even before the first blocks are approved.
“I’m overwhelmed,” said Housing Trust director Anne Cresswell. “This is a historic moment for our community.”
She described the expected fundraising lift – roughly estimated at tens of millions – as “manageable and reasonable and achievable.”
Habitat CEO Ben Johnson said it’s much easier to fundraise for a project that is actually being permitted. He called the approval “monumental.”
Teton County needs to build 2,000 affordable homes in the coming years to meet the goal of housing most workers locally, according to the most recent needs assessment.
Commissioners Luther Propst and Wes Gardner said they overcame earlier reservations about the project. Nobody received everything they wanted, Commissioner Natalia Macker said, but patience and compromise helped push plans to the finish line.
“I can’t wait to see the trucks start moving,” Gardner said.
Propst’s vote came as a surprise after he had previously cast doubt about the nonprofits’ ability to fundraise. He remained critical on Tuesday, describing the Gill’s offer of land in exchange for a profitable upzone as a “quid pro quo.
“The principal benefit promised to the community, which is deed-restricted homes, remains speculative and contingent,” he said. Barriers include fundraising, legislative threats, and solving traffic safety, he said. But he decided to vote “yes” to show support for the nonprofit partners.
“Hope and trust is not a housing strategy,” he said. “Nevertheless, I hope and trust that Habitat and the Housing Trust will raise the necessary funds quickly.”
While county planners will continue to oversee permitting, Tuesday’s meeting capped more than 50 years of uncertainty for some of the most highly valued undeveloped land in the country.
The legacy Porter Estate of the South Park region of Teton County has been eyed for expansion since the 1970s, including for a Walmart.
Following the rejection of a workforce housing development in Hog Island in 2020, commissioners approached the Gill family for a development plan that included workforce housing. In the months and years that followed, commissioners and community members said the deed-restricted housing plans weren’t enough.
But the Gill family, advocacy housing groups and citizens eventually rallied around a highly crafted “neighborhood plan” that allowed the landowners a big upzone, so long as 70% of homes were restricted for locals.
Housing advocacy group Shelter JH pushed unsuccessfully for regulations requiring the deed-restricted homes to be built at the same pace as the free-market offerings.
A similar buildout, with the same affordability restrictions, could happen on neighboring Lockhart family land. The Lockharts and Gills are different branches of the Porter family, but longstanding family tensions have dovetailed with dramatically different development paths.
Patriarch Kelly Lockhart has not stated publicly what his family’s plans are for their ranchland.
Lockhart did not immediately return a request for comment on Tuesday.
