Subscribe to Jackson Unpacked. Available wherever you get your podcasts.
Rep. John Bear sat second row, head cocked, taking notes as Teton County commissioners discussed what’s anticipated to be a final step of Teton County’s largest housing development.
The Wyoming Freedom Caucus leader lives over six hours away in Gillette. While he didn’t comment during the meeting, Bear shook hands and answered questions from commissioners and reporters during breaks.
“I have concerns that the solutions that Teton County is looking for, for workforce housing, are further from the free market solutions that I would apply,” Bear said.
Bear’s presence indicates state lawmakers are still keeping tabs on Teton County’s housing regulations. In 2023, representatives of both families told a state regulation reduction task force that planning was taking too long. The Gill family first approached the county with an iteration of the current plan in 2020.
Other Republican state lawmakers tuned in online, according to several Teton County electeds.
During the meeting, Teton County Commissioners delayed a decision on a plan to govern where development of homes and roads should go. They will revisit the issue on May 19.
If built on 75 acres of the Gill’s 101-acre property, plans could provide around 600 homes, the majority deed-restricted for local workers.
Some are pushing commissioners to more tightly regulate the upzone to address affordability, traffic, wildlife and timing of the buildout. But Bear and the landowning Gill family say developers need more leeway.
In 2024, commissioners approved the option to upzone the 200 acres that are now cow pastures south of town, split between two branches of the same family, the Gills and the Lockharts. The Gills are eager to develop, while the Lockharts have not indicated they intend to do so. Development has been scrutinized for over three decades.
Bear said Sen. Mike Gierau, a Teton County Democrat who co-chaired that committee, encouraged him to attend the May 6 meeting. The two tangled over a bill Bear amended in the last legislative session that would have limited local control of housing strategies used in Teton County. The bill, seen by the county as an attack on local control, died in the Senate.
Sen. Gierau was not at Tuesday’s meeting, but told KHOL he was “tickled to death” that Bear took up his suggestion. He wants Bear to see how Teton County residents view housing.
After listening, Bear said he “prefers local control,” but some discussion sounded to him like threats to private property rights.
“If a local government is disregarding the Fifth Amendment, we’d probably need to step in,” he said.
He knows Teton County housing costs are extreme. The Jackson Hole Real Estate Report said the median sale price for a single-family home last quarter was over $5 million.
But housing costs are rising around the state, up 44% from last year, according to Redfin.com. In Bear’s eyes, that makes the local process a state issue, even going so far as to suggest regulations could “disregard” the Constitution’s protection of private property. County commissioner Natalia Macker disagreed. She said housing issues are best solved locally.
“Any blanket solution to housing in our state will be challenging because there are different market forces at play in different areas,” Macker said.
The Democratic commissioner leads a statewide county advocacy group and has long touted the need for bipartisanship in state and local governments on issues like housing.
She would have liked Bear to attend a meeting that included public comment.
“Teton County is often on the agenda in terms of housing, and people all over our state have ideas about how we could resolve housing challenges that we face here,” Macker said. “So I welcome anyone being on the ground to see what it is that we are dealing with.”
If the master plan is approved, the Gill Family will have to return to the county with specific development plans.
