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The Teton County Planning Commission has delayed a vote on the Gill family’s latest application planning hundreds of homes to mull the issues like traffic control and green space.
Planning commissioners, who vet plans and suggest votes to elected officials, met Monday to discuss plans for a neighborhood in northern South Park that would be the county’s largest development to date.
The Gill family owns about half of the 220-acre project. The Gill land borders that of the Lockhart family, which has yet to express interest in development anytime soon.
Teton County Interim Parks and Recreation Director Steve Foster wanted to reevaluate about 12 acres of required park space he said were just “landscape buffers in people’s backyards” on “unbuildable space.”
The Gill’s latest plans for park exactions didn’t meet Foster’s idea of a “public park benefit,” which he said was important given the high density of the future development.
Foster is concerned that the parks are more like parcels and wouldn’t lend themselves to future recreational space, such as racket sport courts, playground or turf areas.
This was the most critical part of Monday’s four-hour discussion, as commissioners were overall receptive to plans for up to 600 homes that could fit 1,400 people on about 100 acres of what are now cow pastures.
Getting to this point took years of public debate, community input and planning. Those homes would need connecting roads and other infrastructure like sewers with the potential for a school.
Still, Foster’s comments didn’t sit well with Gill attorney Amberley Baker, who urged the commission not to delay homes over parks.
She said if commissioners followed Foster’s advice, it would mean going “back to the drawing board” and that “housing will not be prioritized.”
“I would have some legal questions if a park plan is rejected that meets all the stated criteria,” Baker said.
That language resembled the sense of urgency Baker has brought to public meetings about northern South Park for the last five years of high-level planning.
She wasn’t the only one wanting to expedite the plan’s approval.
Anne Cresswell, executive director of the Jackson Hole Community Trust and a partner on the project, stressed Jackson’s urgent need for housing at Monday’s meeting.
“We have 1,100 households on our waiting list, which represent over 1,500 people patiently waiting for the opportunity to have stable, affordable housing in the community that they serve,” Cresswell said.
Jackson Hole Conservation Alliance’s Jenny Fitzgerald, however, wants to see more research before the commission moves forward.
“The picture I’m hoping you understand tonight is that this plan is lacking in more ways than just wildlife and traffic,” Fitzgerald said during public comment.
“I urge you, as we’re getting late here, to postpone the review of this until these issues have been adequately addressed in the application,” she said.
Addressing traffic concerns, the applicant team assured the public that a road connecting the entire project would be built regardless of whether the Lockhart family’s portion of northern South Park is developed. That way residents wouldn’t have to rely solely on High School Road.
At the request of planning commissioner Bob Weiss, the appointed members delayed approving the master site plan just yet and will revisit it during the next meeting in early March.
