Dear editor:
A few years ago, a group of concerned citizens noticed an RFP to build “low-income housing” at “400 W Snow King”, aka, the historic Teton County Fairgrounds.
An unelected bureaucrat in the Teton County Housing Authority had submitted a federal grant request to build housing at the fairgrounds without any public approval.
The Teton County Fairgrounds are zoned P/SP (public/semi-public), and just a few months earlier Town Planner, Paul Anthony, informed the hospital that they could not build housing on a piece of property also zoned P/SP. His memo stated:
On the issue of residential development, the P/SP zone is not typically intended to build residential housing and that is why the only form of residential housing it allows is ARUs (i.e., no apartments, townhomes, condos, or single-family homes).
Concerned residents began attending public meetings to voice their opposition and over 2,500 locals signed a petition.
Thousands of emails were sent opposing the taking of 10% of our fairgrounds (intended for everyone in the county) to house a select few.
The town submitted a Zoning Map Amendment (“ZMA”) which gave citizens the right to bring a referendum.
Eventually the town withdrew their ZMA when Mr. Anthony had a lucky last-minute interpretation of the zoning rules and decided that housing complexes were allowed like the 48-unit apartment complex eventually built there.
In another blow, the SLIB, and specifically Governor Gordon, Auditor Racines and Treasurer Meier, bailed out the Town for $1.25 million when they ran out of money for the project, despite 2.5 hours of public comment against it and only two people in favor, one of which was the actual developer himself, Tyler Davis.
The private developers received a FREE 99-year lease, $2.5 million dollars in grants from the town and county, “the public” guaranteed their nearly $7 million dollar loan, and now they are paid to manage their own building that sits on our public fairgrounds land. You can’t even make this stuff up!
Now the Regulatory Reduction Task Force, chaired by Democrat Senator Mike Gierau from Teton County, passed SF40 in the senate to limit protests against a development.
In the House, the Appropriations committee and Chairman John Bear scaled that language back.
While they were addressing rules regarding developments, they added an amendment to also restrict any city or town from requiring “housing mitigation fees” unless they can show where it is statutory or constitutional.
This is not just affecting developers like Teton County’s politicians like to allude.
I have been informing legislators about a multi-generational family in Teton County, for example, who had to pay $24,000 in mitigation fees to put a manufactured home on their property, and their grandson turned a 14’ x 20' shed into a house and had to pay $18,000 in mitigation fees, and their granddaughter bought a house that would have otherwise been torn town, and moved it onto the family property.
She also had to pay $18,000 in “extraction” or housing mitigation fees.
I bet the housing they're being forced to pay for is nicer than the shed and manufactured home they're living in.
In some cases, Teton County requires landowners to give up 70% of THEIR PROPERTY to work force and affordable housing.
They also have a “Housing Preservation Program” where they GRANT up to $200,00 to individuals for a down payment in return for putting a workforce deed restriction on their property. Yes, you read that correctly.
Public record requests show that the recipients so far include an executive who moved from San Francisco and a PhD administrator who has a family income of $180,000 per year. We are literally helping the top 3% of wage earners in America purchase homes through housing mitigation fees.
When SF40 went back to the senate for a concurrence vote, Senator Gierau said the bill needed to go to a conference committee since no public comment was taken on the amendment. This seemed odd to me since I personally testified in favor of the amendment, while lobbyists and associations testified against it.
Next up, Senators Darin Smith, and Charlie Scott spoke in favor of the bill. Then “Republican” Senate Majority Floor Leader Tara Nethercott encouraged the senate to stick together, apparently encouraging 29 Republicans to side with Gierau. SF40 is now waiting for that conference committee to be scheduled by Gierau.
The Wyoming constitution states that “private property shall not be taken or damaged for public or private use without just compensation”. If we don’t stop this, it will spread to other counties.
Email Speaker Neiman and Representative Bear and thank them for having the courage to take on this monster, and email President Biteman and ask him to support SF40.
Sincerely,
Rebecca Bextel, Jackson
