JACKSON, Wyo. — During the Jackson Town Council meeting on Monday, May 6, community members overwhelmingly voiced opposition to Mogul Hospitality Partners’ Sketch Plan for a new three-story, 290,000 square foot mixed-use hotel with 171 hotel rooms, 36 residential condominiums and underground parking lot on a 2.75-acre site along North Cache.
The development plan would build a city block-sized building across 11 lots, vacate a portion of the alley along North Cache and create a two-story underground garage that would sit within the underground water table.
To incentivize more housing, the Town of Jackson implemented a square footage no-cap bonus for buildings in town. The North Cache project is benefiting from this bonus by receiving more than 100,000 square feet from a 2-to-1 bonus. The sheer size of the hotel’s design plan has incited residents to request that current Land Development Regulations (LDRs) be amended to cap bonus square footage.
According to the Town, a Sketch Plan is required in the Commercial Residential – 2 (CR-2) zoning district by the Town of Jackson LDRs for projects with a base floor area (i.e., above-ground habitable) that exceeds 13,800 square feet. The proposed development’s base floor area is approximately 90,000 square feet.
The Sketch Plan also includes a portion of the alley to be vacated along North Cache, Mercill and Glenwood. Mogul requested approval of a petition to vacate a 20 foot by 360 foot (7,200 square feet) portion of the alley. In exchange, the development company would create 30 affordable deed restrictive units in the building, and pay for Town’s portion of the center turn-off lane on South Park Loop Road.
Mogul Capital said during the meeting that it would provide housing to 120 local employees, 194 additional units of housing and 247 parking spaces.
In spite of the addition of affordable deed restrictive units, Jackson residents showed up in force to discuss the building’s impacts on groundwater, and the need to amend current LDRs.
Kay Modi, an engineer who lives near Flat Creek, which is located near the proposed development, said the scope of the plan’s geotechnical plan is too simplistic for its over-reaching impact on surrounding groundwater. She asked for the garage to be limited to only one underground level.
“The study doesn’t address the fact that Flat Creek floods four times every winter,” Modi said. “Approximately 4,000 to 10,000 gallons of water per minute will have to be pumped out so they can have a two level underground garage.”
Modi explained that if the pumped out water is injected into other areas, overall groundwater levels will rise.
Protect Our Water Law and Policy Advisor Kevin Regan also said that the Sketch Plan fails to consider its impact on the Town’s hydrology.
“Mogul is proposing to build a parking garage that 20 feet deep, but the ground water in this area is between two and eight feet deep, so the garage will be located right in the aquifer,” Regan said to the Town Council. “There’s a chance that the building will require permanent de-watering…more than four million gallons of water will need to be pumped out per day. This pumping will draw out ground water from all directions, including the site that used to be Texaco that had problems with benzene and hydrocarbon contamination.”
The Jackson Hole Conservation Alliance Community Planning Director Amy Kuszak discussed what she sees as the inadequacies of the current LDRs, specifically the lack of a maximum building size within the CR-2 zone district.
“The proposed development is located at the gateway to our town,” Kuszak said. “When the LDRs were amended to remove the cap on building size — a 300,000 square foot building is not what anyone imagined. I would like to take this opportunity to urge Town Council to amend the current LDRs. The building will dwarf the adjacent buildings in the neighborhood.”
Local architect and member of the Town’s Design Review Committee Kathy Koriakin, also voiced concern that the current LDRs could undermine the character of Jackson.
Speaking on behalf of Town Planning Commission members Katie Wilson and Steph Wise, Koriakin said, “We don’t have adequate teeth in the design guidelines to address buildings of this scale while maintaining the character of our town that the community desires.”
After many other in-person and on-line residents spoke in opposition to the proposed hotel and condominium building, Mayor Hailey Morton Levinson motioned to postpone the vote on the Mogul Capital Sketch Plan. The Town Council unanimously agreed to open the Monday, June 3 regularly scheduled Town Council meeting to address the community’s questions and concerns.
