Group hosts meeting to blast Teton Meadows

By Cara Froedge
Date: October 29, 2007

Save Historic Jackson Hole says a proposed 500-home development in South Park would ruin the area’s rural character by increasing density and traffic.

During a community meeting Thursday that drew almost 100 people, the watchdog group’s executive director, Brian Grubb, outlined what he said was misinformation the Teton Meadows Ranch developers have given for the application, which is now making its way through the county planning process.

“This is about giving you better information so you can leave and make a better decision about whether or not you support this project,” Grubb said.

Developer James Reinert is proposing Teton Meadows Ranch for 288 acres of the 336-acre Roger Seherr-Thoss property adjacent to Rafter J and Melody Ranch. He has applied to rezone the property from rural to neighborhood conservation 2 to construct 125 traditional appreciation-capped affordable homes, with the remaining 375 “homestead units” reserved for those who work 30 hours a week in Teton County and agree to own only one residential property.

Reinert and his team — including planners Jim Verdone and Nancy Arkin of Verdone Landscape Architects and spokespeople Mike Gierau, a former county commissioner, and Kari Cooper, former marketing director for Jackson Hole Mountain Resort — have rolled out the project by contacting various news outlets and neighborhood and public agencies for presentations.

Grubb said the team has introduced the development with misinformation.

Save Historic Jackson Hole held its meeting last week to level the playing field, members said.

Teton Meadows representatives were allowed to attend but were told they could not speak during the event, so they fired back with a statement Friday morning.

“Only one local organization would have the absolute arrogance to offer to host a meeting to clarify information and not invite and allow to speak the very entity who is providing the information,” the statement says. “Yes, that was what the five-person self-appointed attack squad known as Save Historic Jackson Hole decided was the best approach to manage information on the Teton Meadows Ranch proposal.”

During Thursday’s meeting, Grubb, former planning director for the Town of Jackson, said he analyzed the proposal and found that traffic impacts were underestimated, most of the housing will not be affordable, the development is not compatible with the area and the application conflicts with the comprehensive plan.

Grubb said the traffic study underestimates impacts by 30 percent.

Teton Meadows officials maintain the project will generate 4,600 trips per day by 2018.

Grubb said the additional traffic that a “tenfold increase” in density will create will “ruin the rural character” of South Park Loop Road, turning it in to an urban-style thoroughfare.

Further, he said, the development is not serviced by public transit and is too far from town to commute by bike.

“I’d love to be a traffic consultant because you can pretty much say whatever you want and get away with it,” Grubb said as he showed a picture of a tractor-trailer and other cars in stand-still traffic.

Developers have recommended installing a traffic signal and turning lanes by 2013 and have plans to utilize the bus service.

Grubb said the Jackson/Teton County Comprehensive Plan states that development should be directed to existing nodes such as in the town, Teton Village, Wilson and Hoback Junction.

Grubb said the Teton Meadows proposal conflicts with those guidelines because it does not direct development to mixed-use villages.

“South Park is not an existing node,” he said, because it contains no mixed uses and has no commercial services.

“Teton Village isn’t mixed-use either,” said audience member Greg Epstein, one of the few people to challenge Grubb during the meeting. “They don’t even have a grocery store.”

Still, Grubb said South Park is a low-density residential area even though Teton Meadows is arguing that, given the size of Rafter J and Melody Ranch, it’s the appropriate place to develop.

“Three wrongs don’t make a right,” Grubb said.

Grubb also said Teton Meadows would be twice as dense as Rafter J, which has 0.92 units per acre, and four times as dense as Melody Ranch, which has 1.5 units per acre.

Teton Meadows, as proposed, would be 1.7 units per acre.

In addition, Grubb said the 0.17-acre lot sizes are from two to 14 times as small as lots in surrounding neighborhoods.

“I think they have a problem with compatibility as it relates to density,” he said.

Grubb said his group wants the project to comply with what current zoning allows: 50 homes.

The developers’ statement said the density of Rafter J is about 1.7 homes per acre based on 492 units on 298 acres and in Melody Ranch the density is 1.3 units per acre based on 331 units on 250 acres on the area north of South Park Loop.

Further, Grubb said anyone who supports affordable housing would “probably dislike” this project because Teton Meadows hasn’t committed to an initial sales price for its homestead units.

“After a couple years, you can sell your property for whatever you can get for it,” he said.

Grubb said without deed restrictions limiting the price, an owner could sell for $1.2 million.

Teton Meadows officials say the deed restrictions for the homestead units would cut out second-home buyers and speculators while giving each home buyer a “fair return on their investment and encourage our work force to come back to Jackson Hole or stay if already here.”

Grubb also said the project provides fewer affordable homes than Melody Ranch, 33 percent of which is traditional deed-restrict housing, he said.

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