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Two Hoback residents are suing Teton County in federal court for what they believe are unlawful development fees.
The lawsuit comes on the heels of a legislative session fraught with bills that targeted the county’s fees, which are intended to offset the impacts development has on affordable housing.
Shelby and Trey Scharp filed the complaint because they don’t believe they should have to subsidize the county’s affordable housing program for “problems they didn’t create.”
It’s not news that Teton County has one of the most expensive housing markets in the country. One contributing factor is that jobs far outpace available housing. The county is only adding new units at half the rate of jobs, which is still better than the surrounding area. Even then, many units in town are often priced at rates unattainable for much of the local workforce.
The couple currently lives in a cabin near Hoback Junction, south of Jackson. Both have been dude ranch managers at Flat Creek Ranch, an hour’s drive north of Jackson, for the last two decades.
The Scharps have plans to construct an onsite single family home, with the goal of turning the cabin into a rental unit, according to a press release.
Before they could get the permit for the new building, the Scharps had to pay a $24,325 fee that goes toward the county’s workforce and affordable housing mitigation efforts.
The complaint argues this fee is unconstitutional, according to the Pacific Legal Foundation attorney, David Deerson, representing the Scharps free of charge.
“The Scharps didn’t create the affordable housing problem in Teton County. In fact, they’re helping to solve it by building new units and adding new supply,” Deerson said.
His firm has settled previous lawsuits against similar housing fees, including a 2024 case in the Sonoma County, California, town of Healdsburg.
KHOL reached out to the Scharps through their attorney but didn’t immediately hear back.
Teton County had not yet been served with the complaint when reached for comment.
The county attorney referred to its most recent “nexus study” in a statement, which determines how much property owners like the Scharps have to pay in housing fees to get new building permits.
The residential fee is assessed on a combination of factors, including the number of new housing units a project builds compared to the number of units needed in the area.
“Teton County strongly stands by our most recent affordable housing nexus study completed in 2023,” Chief Deputy County Attorney Keith Gingery said in an email. “The county’s adoption of affordable housing mitigation fees is fully compliant with all constitutional provisions requiring an essential nexus and proportionality.”
Mark Newcomb, chair of the Board of County Commissioners, declined to comment for now and referred KHOL to Gingery’s statement.
This isn’t the first time the county’s program has been challenged. It faced an upward battle at the state Legislature earlier this year, with members of the Freedom Caucus writing an amendment that would have barred the town and county from requiring the mitigation fees, though it ultimately failed.
The bill, Senate File 40, had the backing of several prominent Teton County Republicans, including Rebecca Bextel, who recently lost her bid for state GOP chair.
“I feel confident in the legal footing we have and if we need to defend it, we will stand up and defend it,” County Commissioner Natalia Macker previously told KHOL in a March interview.
The county’s prosecuting attorney, Richard “Dick” Stout, said he also believes the housing program fees are constitutional.
“I will defend it rigorously through the court process,” Stout said in a text message.
