Teton County is reviewing all mitigation fees assessed since 2022 after settling a federal lawsuit with the Scharp family and apologizing for miscalculating their $25,000 building fee.
The county failed to account for a historic cabin on the property, and wants to make sure similar mistakes weren’t made in other cases, Teton County Commission Chair Mark Newcomb said Monday.
The settlement marks the latest in a long line of anti-regulation challenges to end the program that funds housing for local workers. The most recent rounds of scrutiny have come from the state legislature and groups like the Pacific Legal Foundation, which represented Trey and Shelby Scharp for free and told KHOL it hopes to take a related case to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Lead council Austin Waisanen said he’s heard from other homeowners in Teton County who might file similar cases.
“The Scharps didn’t bring this lawsuit just to recover money, they were hoping to bring relief to the hundreds if not thousands of other Teton County property owners who have to pay these ridiculous and expensive permitting fees,” he told KHOL.
It remains to be seen whether the foundation will take up additional cases. The Scharp family declined to comment.
Newcomb says it might be time for the county to take a more comprehensive look at the program.
“I think it’s always a good idea to do that when you are asking private citizens to come up with a fee to address an impact on the community,” he said.
A state law eliminating the fees – which are only used in Jackson and Teton County – failed to pass this session, but Rep. Andrew Byron, a Hoback Republican, voted for the bill and said the fight continues.
“I think there’s more momentum than ever,” he told KHOL. “Certainly, it’s going to be discussed in Cheyenne next year.”
Bryon voted for a similar bill last year that also failed. In 2020, the Jackson Town Council cut mitigation rates for commercial development by 50% for commercial development after similar efforts surfaced in the state Capitol.
The town and county have defended the program in the past by pointing to the math. The fees are calculated based on third-party assessments – or nexus studies – of jobs generated by new development.
Short of eliminating the program, Byron said he would support increasing the threshold for the size of homes that incur fees. Currently, fees are only assessed on homes over 2,500 square feet, which is based on a state average. He’d like to see it go up to 3,500 or more.
Others in town would like it doubled to 5,000. Latham Jenkins, a Jackson-based realtor who helps sell large ranches, said he paid $8,000 in fees to build an additional play room for his children, a price he said felt unfair.While Jenkins doesn’t plan to sue to recoup that fee, he said the Scharp settlement “did open a door.”
“This is a very sensitive matter with a lot of locals just trying to provide housing for themselves,” he said.
Jenkins acknowledged that Teton County struggles to provide affordable housing for local workers. He pointed to occupancy as the primary issue and said stronger deed restrictions are the solution.
“I don’t disagree with mitigation fees as one source of revenue to help our pool of funds available to put towards community housing efforts,” he said, but the program needs to be structured in a way that doesn’t penalize locals.
In a March meeting, commissioners estimated the county reaped over $4 million in recent years from mitigation fees. They plan to use that pot to purchase units in the Virginian Lane project, a conversion of a 5-acre RV park set to break ground this fall.
