JACKSON, Wyo. — In a marathon meeting on Tuesday, the Teton County Board of County Commissioners (BCC) voted to continue discussion of the development plan for Northern South Park (NSP) at its Oct. 6 meeting.
Teton County Senior Planner Chandler Windom began her presentation for the BCC around 10 a.m. and wrapped up around noon. Commissioners took an hour-and-a-half lunch break, and the meeting reconvened at 1:30. Gill family representative Amberley Baker presented on behalf of the developer, then public works, transportation and engineering experts shared their presentations. Six community members gave public comment. Around 4:30 p.m., Commissioners were still deliberating, and decided to pause the discussion until their next meeting in October.
Nikki Gill, a member of the family who owns the land for the proposed NSP neighborhood in Area 1, read an impassioned message to the BCC describing her family’s long history of community benefaction. “Institutional memory in Jackson is getting shorter,” she said. “Many people making decisions and commenting on this project simply weren’t here for those stories. And there is nothing wrong with that. But if no one tells these stories, they disappear. And it becomes very easy to assign motives to people without understanding where they came from.”
The area at hand is a 74-acre tract owned by the Gill family that borders High School Road to the north and South Park Loop Road to the west. Area 2 neighbors the parcel to the east and is owned by the Lockhart family. That property is not part of the current planning discussion. In 2024, County Commissioners approved zoning for the entire area, allowing up to 1,437 homes on the combined properties.
Area 1 is anticipated to contain 557 housing units: 70% will be 100% deed-restricted affordable units and 30% will be market-rate. The plan contains about 20 acres of land set aside for schools and parks, and 5 miles of pathways and sidewalks. Nine blocks in Area 1 will be conveyed to two housing nonprofits — the Jackson Hole Community Housing Trust and Habitat for Humanity of the Greater Teton Area — to construct the affordable homes.
The BCC meeting was intended to iron out findings for nine conditions of development. The transportation condition was a principal hangup for the BCC, which was asking the developer to take on more financial responsibility up front for improved safety infrastructure on High School Road. A dead-end, East-West Connector within Area 1 was also a flash point, due to the unknown nature of when Area 2 will be developed in order to complete the road. Wildlife permeability, groundwater, cul-de-sac turnarounds, snow removal, and pathway widths and locations were all discussed in minute detail.
Teton County/Town of Jackson Transportation Manager Charlotte Frei explained to the Commissioners the three components that were used to formulate the transportation condition. The first began with community engagement: “The Town and County had already been doing transportation planning in anticipation of growth in West Jackson,” Frei stated. “Through the West Jackson Transportation Study and the Community Streets Plan, we worked with the community to identify transportation priorities and think about what the future network should look like.”
That work was then used to create a conceptual design for High School Road. The final step included calculating a nexus, or causal link, to Area 1 based on the likely proportional impact of the development. Frei and Jackson Hole Community Pathways Coordinator Brian Schilling brought a stack of informational materials to the meeting to share with the public. The Town of Jackson Mobility Vision is a newspaper-style flyer that is intended to give an update on the Community Streets Plan, which the Town has been working on for two years. The papers will be available for free at locations around town.
“I hope that the developer will pay their proportionate share,” Commissioner Luther Propst said toward the end of the meeting, referring to safety improvements along the High School Road corridor. “But either way, we’ve got to figure out how we’re going to fund that, because I think public safety for schoolchildren is the most important priority.”
