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Town councilors and county commissioners are moving ahead with plans for one of the town’s most dense developments ahead of a vote on the ground lease next month.
The Town of Jackson and Teton County bought the Virginian RV Park last year for $28 million, with the aim to turn the land into housing that’s affordable to people living and working in the community.
Disagreements remain about how many homes should be allotted to the project, though the selected proposal from Pennrose LLC sketches out 226 units.
Despite differences on density and traffic concerns, the prevailing consensus is that more deed-restricted housing is needed — something voters also voiced support for in 2022 when passing a measure to use Specific Purpose Excise Tax (SPET) funds to back the project.
At Monday’s meeting, Councilor Jonathan Schechter said that finding common ground on density amid traffic concerns could slow the process to finalize project details before the end of the year, though that is the goal date.
“If we build something at this site — whether it’s 150 units or 250, whatever it’s going to be — there’s going to be more traffic. The fundamental public policy question here is how much more traffic are we willing to accept for how much more housing?” Schechter said.
Schechter ultimately voted to move the proposal forward, but his concerns were shared by council member and mayoral candidate Jessica Sell-Chambers. Sell-Chambers worried about rushing plans and having to bail out private developers, referencing past renegotiations with developers who needed more financial support than they thought.
“We keep trying to apply these individual frameworks onto these projects after the fact and muddle them up and extend them, cause time and delays and subjectivity, which increases costs and ultimately a product that is not affordable,” Sell-Chambers said Monday.
Sell-Chambers ultimately voted against moving the ground lease proposal forward to a vote next month, the lone “no vote” for the town council.
On the county commissioner’s side, both Greg Epstein and Luther Propst also voted against moving the ground lease proposal forward to a vote, citing density concerns and cost.
While elected officials all agreed that more affordable housing units are needed, some public comments suggested that traffic considerations haven’t been studied enough.
Others suggest that traffic congestion is not as big of a concern and worry that the talking point is connected to NIMBYism, otherwise known as the “Not in My Backyard” housing movement which seeks to stall development.
With the majority of electeds in favor of moving the ground lease proposal forward — which requires a minimum of 200 homes — it could likely be approved at the next joint information meeting in November.
