JACKSON HOLE, WYO – BrushBuck Tours is caught between a rock and a hard place and fully wrapped up in government red tape as it tries to make a toilet.
What began innocently enough with the tour company getting permission to park its safari rigs at the old Maverik gas station site next to Cuttys/Teton Gables Motel, would later turn into what town engineer Brian Lenz referred to as “quite an endeavor for such a small project…that has snowballed rather quick.”
BrushBuck Guide Services eventually purchased the half-acre parcel in late 2016. When the tour company attempted to begin full-scale operations out of the 35-year-old building they hit a few snags.
For one, the property was annexed into the town in September 2016. It was previously considered part of the county. As part of the annexation, the property was also rezoned AC (Auto-Urban Commercial).
In order to be compliant with the new town regs, BrushBuck Wildlife Tours must jump through some hoops, including obtaining a CUP (Conditional Use Permit), which means the business then has to comply with parking guidelines and employee housing calculations.
In fact, in order to obtain a Certificate of Occupancy (COO), BrushBuck has to prove it has provided one deed-restricted employee housing unit. They do have an employee housing unit upstairs, no problem, but they need to hookup the bathroom to the town water/sewer infrastructure. Currently, washroom facilities in the building are on a well and septic. The town is trying to get everyone off of these systems.
BrushBuck owner/operator Adam Lackner described his frustration of having to appear before the council to ask for more time to pull his COO. He’s looking at an expensive excavation job and can’t find a contractor who has time to do it. The digging season has also closed (a ‘no dig’ ordinance took effect October 15) so Lackner is hoping the town will extend him some more time.
Lackner explained how he’s looking at a quarter-mile dig to tie-in with the town’s water/sewer at Cuttys, or he could possibly just run 100 feet of pipe uphill to tie-in at Old West Storage who he said agreed to allow this. Lenz said he hasn’t seen plans for this idea but guessed it would likely require a pump.
Lackner said he would like to get an extension to November 1, 2019 in order to take advantage of a full excavation season. The town suggested they could let him have until July 2019.
“I’m not sure we could finish by July. Every excavation company is booked out next year with the building boom,” Lackner said.
Lackner added he cannot get a building permit or a COO without water/sewer hookup, so he has a perfectly usable apartment for an employee that he technically can’t use. “It’s sort of this Catch 22 where we can’t do this unless we have that,” Lackner said.
“All of this work is to accommodate one bathroom in one building?” councilman Don Frank asked in disbelief.
Jim Stanford added, “It’s hard to believe this was once a Maverik with customers coming and going to the bathroom all day long.”
The council, perhaps in tacit acknowledgment they had created a burdensome wall of red tape with their own rules and regulations, unanimously granted BrushBuck until November 1, 2019 to get its potty pipe hooked into the town’s water and sewer utilities.
