JACKSON, Wyo. — The Teton County Board of County Commissioners and the Jackson Town Council met on Oct. 7 to discuss the ground lease between the Town and County and their selected developer Pennrose LLC for the housing development at 90 Virginian Lane.
According to the Jackson/Teton County Housing Authority, the current and future needs for housing workforce locally includes 2,000 deed restricted homes in the next five years.
With it being an election year, if the development process is delayed, potentially new members of the Town Council and Board of County Commissioners will weigh in on the development, which at this point has narrow support from both bodies.
Following the two-and-a-half hour discussion, County Commissioner Natalia Macker moved a motion to direct staff to draft the ground lease based on the terms outlined in the staff report and to bring it back for consideration in November. At that meeting, terms for the development agreement will also be presented. Then, the joint board will be asked to vote on the development agreement at a December meeting.
The County Commissioners passed the motion with three votes in favor, with Commission Chair Luther Propst and Commissioner Greg Epstein in descent. On the Town side, current Council member and mayoral candidate Arne Jorgensen made the same motion, which passed four to one with current Council member and mayoral candidate Jessica Sell Chambers against.
April Norton, Affordable Housing Department Director, explained that the key terms of the ground lease include: the lease term of 99 years, with a payment of $10 per year; the commitment from Pennrose to construct a minimum of 200 permanently deed restricted units; five rights of first rental to the Virginian Hotel; and 20 units with preference to senior households, offering five units in each of the four income ranges.
Thirteen meetings on the development have been hosted thus far, with many being informational, where staff provides context and details prior to a decision needing to be made. Discussions about the ground lease began at the Aug. 5 meeting. While members of the Board and Council have aired grievances about the development and the process in general, the vast majority of public comment has been in support of the project and the proposed density of 226 units.
Claire Stumpf of Shelter JH spoke on behalf of the group’s 600 members at the Oct. 7 meeting. Stumpf recounted the passing of SPET measure #12 in 2022 and the need for housing in the community.
“The passing of not only SPET #12, but all the other housing measures that year laid out a crystal-clear mandate from voters,” Stumpf said. “We approved tens of millions of dollars to invest in our housing crisis and we are desperate for homes, so please believe us when we say we want these homes. We may not get another chance to house hundreds of locals at such a perfectly positioned parcel.”
She noted that the density per acre is aligned with other housing developments like Jackson Street Apartments and King Street Apartments, along with a Town Square-sized park in the middle of the property.
Comments in support of the development also came from nearby resident and Housing Supply Board Chair Laura Bonich, Joint Advisory Affordable Housing Supply Board member Whitney Oppenhuizen, Housing Supply Board member Kari Cooper and community member Julien Hass. Bonich and Cooper also sit on the Joint Advisory Affordable Housing Supply Board.
Perri Stern, who is running for a seat on the Town Council, spoke out against moving forward with the ground lease.
Stern said she did not support the unit mix, suggesting that not enough units are being built for households in the 80% average monthly income (AMI) range.
“Whose needs are we meeting? Whose priorities are we addressing? I don’t really understand the rush to enter into the ground lease,” Stern said.
Following Stern’s public comment, and a request for clarity from Mayor Hailey Morton Levinson, Norton clarified that the discussion on unit affordability will come during the development agreement process in November because deciding on the minimum number of units will inform that discussion.
Norton also went over some concerns the joint board posed at past meetings, including reducing the density from Pennrose’s proposed 226 units to 150 units and the development’s impact on traffic in the area.
Norton explained that it would be more than twice as expensive to build 150 units compared to 226 and the public subsidy would increase by $10 million to $15 million.
“Fewer units reduces the revenue, which reduces the borrowing capacity, and increases the need for public subsidy,” Norton said. “Many of the costs remain the same, no matter how many units you have, like the land.”
Fewer units also impacts the layout of the buildings, removing the cost effectiveness of a parking garage, causing the parking to return to surface level, absorbing the open spaces, Norton explained.
The traffic study found that the development “results in moderate traffic to the network but the network can handle it and it didn’t change the grade at any single intersection, for this one development,” Norton said. Adding that “regional growth, in the long term, is the primary driver of traffic impacts.”
Norton explained that the current proposal of 226 units with $10 million (plus the land) in public subsidy, pulled from the voter approved Community Housing SPET fund which totals $20 million, results in $168,142 per unit in public subsidy. If the unit count was brought down to 150 units, the public subsidy would increase to $25 million to $30 million (plus the land), and it would cost $335,333 to $386,667 per unit in public subsidy.
