As threats to divest and develop public lands from the federal government are ramping up, public lands supporters are on edge. Now, a new plan to use federal land in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem to house private-sector workers is at the center of hot-button issues around extreme economic inequality, underfunded federal agencies and long-held land-use ethics.
A proposed housing project on public land in Jackson, Wyoming, is set to be the first of its kind in the nation. Run by a nonprofit developer, the project would build housing on the Bridger-Teton National Forest for U.S. Forest Service staff and for private-sector employees on federal land under a special-use permit.
The use of administrative parcels to house Forest Service employees in the forest where they work is commonplace across the country. However, private-sector workers living on public land — and paying rent to a private entity — under a SUP sets a new national public land-use precedent. That fact has galvanized opposition from a number of residents and organizations, who believe it presents an undesirable blueprint for development and private benefit on public land.
The project consists of 7.5 acres of BTNF land located at the Nelson Trailhead on the east boundary of the town of Jackson. The nonprofit developer is the Jackson Hole Community Housing Trust, which will pay to construct and manage 13 rental units for Forest Service employees. In exchange, the Forest Service would allow an additional 23 rental units to be constructed and managed by the Housing Trust, and which would be made available to private sector workers in Teton County meeting income qualifications for affordable housing.
Since its unveiling in September of 2025, however, the scope and potential implications of the project have divided the local community between those who support affordable housing construction in any capacity, and those who believe the public land aspect of this project means it should be limited to federal workers only on federal land. In addition, local residents and conservation nonprofits have highlighted a lack of public transparency, knowledge, and public comment around an important precedent: public land as affordable housing for private sector workers under a SUP.
“The slippery slope of using federally protected wild land to expand the urban boundary of Jackson in order to subsidize housing that includes underpaid private sector employees is, frankly, terrifying for the future of Jackson Hole,” local resident Judd Grossman told the Town Council during public comment in a December meeting about town employees possibly living on the land.
The project was created by BTNF Forest Supervisor Chad Hudson and Housing Trust Director Anne Cresswell to build some of the needed forest units, and then use the rest of the land to construct housing for other community employers and members. A red-hot, extremely expensive real estate market fueled by wealthy buyers and developers who scoop up existing homes and land to redevelop for the luxury market have made it nearly impossible for many local residents to buy or rent a home.
To help alleviate pressure on federal workers, the construction for the Forest Service homes would be paid for by the Housing Trust with $12 million in philanthropic dollars which have already been secured, according to the Housing Trust. Those 13 units were subject to a 2009 environmental assessment and approved in 2012 with a Finding of No Significant Impact, indicating the surrounding forest and wildlife habitat would not be negatively impacted.
In order to accommodate the involvement and management by the Housing Trust and the additional units, Forest Supervisor Hudson issued a 30-year SUP to the Housing Trust, the first in the nation for a private housing development on public land.
“The slippery slope of using federally protected wild land to expand the urban boundary of Jackson in order to subsidize housing that includes underpaid private sector employees is, frankly, terrifying for the future of Jackson Hole.”
Judd GrossmaN, Jackson resident
For the Jackson Hole Conservation Alliance, which supports the federal housing component, the private employee benefit crosses the line of how public land is used. “We caution against a project that puts private-sector employees, whose work benefits private employers, on public land,” said Catherine Hughes, conservation director for the Alliance. “We do not want to be the gateway community that opens the door to this kind of public-land use.”
The Housing Trust says it has raised more than $12 million in philanthropy and grants, which the nonprofit says is enough to pay for constructing the Forest Service units. According to the Bridger Teton’s Jackson District Ranger Todd Stiles, the forest needs more than 13 units for employee housing. Cresswell did not respond to a request for comment on her funding model or whether more philanthropic fundraising was possible so the BTNF could fill more of its own housing needs on its parcel.
However, to fund the rest of the 23 units, the Housing Trust planned to ask the town of Jackson as well as Teton County, Wyoming, to each chip in $4 million ($8.1 million total) for public housing to help complete the project. That money would guarantee the right to rent six units each for public-sector town and county employees. Additional monthly rent will be paid to the Housing Trust. The right to rent equates to $675,000 per unit, or more than twice as much as some other affordable projects cost in Teton County.
In early December, the Housing Supply Board, which provides guidance to both the town and county government on affordable housing, recommended against using public funds for the Nelson Drive project because of lack of long-term security on a 30-year permit, and the high cost of each unit. Cresswell told the board the project’s extra 23 units would go ahead as designed with or without public money for town and county employees. At the December 2025 Town Council meeting in Jackson, elected officials voted to fund the six units anyway.
According to the Housing Trust, an unnamed nonprofit has donated money for six more of the units to house the unnamed nonprofit’s employees, and the remaining five units would be filled by the Housing Trust from the general applicant pool of local workers. Supporters of the project consider it a clever, win-win action among ever-increasing housing woes, in a way that allows the BTNF to keep 13 more of its employees in Jackson and includes other workers, some of whom currently commute from outlying towns like Victor, Idaho, which is 30 miles away, or Pinedale, Wyoming, at about 80 miles.
“This proposal is not luxury development on remote public lands, which we would oppose,” Clare Stumpf, executive director of the housing advocacy group, Shelter JH, said in a phone interview with Mountain Journal. “As we understand it, the Forest Service does not have the financial capacity to build housing. This project is a symbiotic arrangement: the Forest Service contributes land it already manages for administrative use, and the Community Housing Trust and the Town of Jackson (among other supporters) enable the creation of homes that would otherwise remain unfunded and unrealized.”
Other residents are more lukewarm but see little alternative in the face of intense pressure and housing costs. “I don’t think it’s right to expand in that direction,” said Sara Kirkpatrick, a teacher at Jackson Elementary School in an interview. “But where shall we live? Where do we go? All the homes we used to rent and live in sit empty, remodeled and owned by some third or fourth homeowner, and it makes everything else so expensive,” added Kirkpatrick, who is currently searching with her husband for a larger home to accommodate their two growing children. “We should stop approving all these luxury condos and developments.”
Kirkpatrick’s husband, Chris, took a different stance. “Looks like ugly condos on forest service land,” he said, “but it’s housing, so I’m for it.”
The Teton County Board of Commissioners had expressed more skepticism around the price tag and public-land issue than the Jackson Town Council (though neither entity has jurisdiction over how federal public land is used). On March 3, 2026, commissioners reviewed the plan and unanimously denied the funding request given the high price tag for rental rights on top of paying rent to the Housing Trust. “The price is way out of line, and I also oppose using USFS land to provide housing for the private sector,” said Commissioner Luther Propst. The best path forward to provide all the BTNF Propst suggested, would be to turn to community philanthropy to raise money to build out all the units the BTNF needs.
The project is now mired in litigation. A lawsuit filed in federal court in early January by local attorney and Nelson Drive neighbor Michael Clement challenges the permitting process. Clement alleges in a 56-page complaint that the project inclusion of 23 non-forest service units is not allowed in the scope of a special-use permit, the public was not given enough notice, and seeks to stop the project moving forward as currently designed with private sector homes. The Housing Trust had planned to tentatively break ground in spring of 2026, but that timeline is now uncertain, given the current litigation.
This project is a symbiotic arrangement: the Forest Service contributes land it already manages for administrative use, and the Community Housing Trust and the Town of Jackson (among other supporters) enable the creation of homes that would otherwise remain unfunded and unrealized.”
Clare Stumpf, executive director, Shelter JH
Nelson Drive is not the first project to place private employees on federal public land, although it is the first to do so under a special-use permit. In Summit County, Colorado, a partnership between Summit County, the town of Dillon, and the White River National Forest to build 162 homes on 11 acres of administrative land formerly used to store equipment is in the works. That project was developed under a provision in the 2018 federal Farm Bill to allow leasing federal administrative sites to local governments for affordable housing.
In return for a 50-year ground lease on the land, the county will construct a new administration building for the forest and Forest Service employee homes. Remaining units will be open to county residents who meet the affordable housing income requirement. Summit County will manage and run the project.
“It is a public-public partnership, the development process was very public, with open houses, scoping, and NEPA process,” said Adrienne Saia Isaac, communications director for Summit County. Nonetheless, the “free land” aspect is not a silver bullet, nor is it an easy avenue, either, Isaac said. “We are trying diverse housing initiatives, but a big problem is wages have not kept up with cost of housing, and the USFS is vastly underfunded. In this project, we haven’t broken ground — we are still figuring out the financing.”
In Teton County, where balancing a long history of conservation, an intact ecosystem and wildlife habitat preservation with the ever-growing demand for growth is an increasingly sore spot, the one point that has so riled up opposition is also the very same point that supporters of Nelson Drive find attractive.
Local resident Mandy Dornan summed up opposition succinctly when she addressed town councilors in December. “I don’t agree that local employers or nonprofits should be able to house their employees on federal land,” Dornan said. “I just think it’s a slippery slope.”
The parameters of that very concern, however, is the part the Housing Trust’s executive director Cresswell told the Jackson Hole News and Guide last September she is most proud of. “This really is the pinnacle of my 22-year career,” she said. “This project is about creating a new model that we hope will be a model for communities across the country that are struggling to house their essential forest employees.”
