Leapfrog development in Jackson/Teton County, Wyoming is making it more difficult for both humans and wildlife to move fluidly across the valley floor. Photo courtesy Jackson Hole Wildlife Foundation. To learn more about their good work go to: jhwildlife.org
EDITOR'S NOTE: In the guest opinion piece, below, Jackson, Wyoming Town Council member Jonathan Schechter writes about why he voted against a development promoted as a free-market attempt to address Jackson Hole's notorious affordable housing crisis. The issues Schechter raises in his piece can be applied to many towns in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem and mountain communities up and down the Rockies. Can affordable housing issues really be overcome without major investment of public tax dollars and more generosity from developers? Further, what if elected officials set out to solve for affordable housing by reducing land use regulations in order to accommodate clammer from the buildings, trades and real estate industries, yet those actions contribute to an accelerated loss of community character, exacerbate the costs of dealing with growth and sprawl, worsen other problems like traffic congestion and result in the destruction of critical habitat in towns famous for their wildlife? If you have thoughts you'd like to share, send them along by clicking here. We may publish them below. Keep your thoughts on point and address Schechter's central contention—that we need better ways to protect the special nature of places we love. Schechter's thoughts are his own and do not represent the Jackson Town Council. —Mountain Journal
by Jonathan Schechter
I serve as an elected member of the town council in Jackson, Wyoming In early February, the council approved "The Loop," a 195-unit apartment complex on a main road serving the southwestern part of town.
The Loop's developer took advantage of relatively new regulations to create the densest housing project in the town's history. In exchange, 45 percent of the units will be designated "workforce housing," which requires occupants to work in Teton County.
The fascinating thing about The Loop is how it embodies so many of Jackson Hole's current opportunities and challenges. And while Jackson Hole is special, it’s not unique. As a result, many of the issues raised by The Loop are also facing communities throughout the Greater Yellowstone region.
For example, even though 45 percent of the project will be workforce housing, 55 percent won't be. And because all new development—whether commercial buildings or free-market housing—creates the need for more housing, every Loop free market unit will make our housing problem a little bit worse.
From that perspective, is The Loop 45 percent full or 55 percent empty? The answer is "yes"—depending on the project, more housing can be good, bad, or somewhere in-between.
I voted "no" on The Loop. Not because I oppose affordable housing—far from it. Instead, it's because I saw The Loop as a "somewhere in-between" project, raising so many unanswered questions that I couldn't support it.
I voted "no" on The Loop. Not because I oppose affordable housing—far from it. Instead, it's because I saw The Loop as a "somewhere in-between" project, raising so many unanswered questions that I couldn't support it.
My particular concern was how The Loop will affect traffic. In approving the project, I worried the town would also be approving the creation of a permanent pinch-point, making an already-bad traffic situation even worse.
Making that trade-off – building new workforce housing in exchange for a daily traffic jam – may be worth it. But that’s not how the issue was framed, which for me was a huge problem.
I was also concerned by a variety of other issues, including potential additional growth in the area and the fact that, directly across the street from The Loop is High School Butte, an area which serves as habitat for deer and other animals. As I explain below, though, none of these additional issues came into play.
It’s well-documented that growth doesn’t pay for itself. Second, there is a large and growing misalignment between our economy and how we fund government. Add the two together and Jackson faces a situation where the cost of basic services is growing faster than government revenue. As a result, we are quickly approaching a day of reckoning, one where the town will either have to find more revenues or reduce services. It's that simple.
Bigger picture, The Loop shines a light on three fundamental questions Jackson Hole is not asking itself. I’m guessing the same is true throughout the ecosystem:
° ° ° ° What are the cumulative effects of our growth?
° ° ° ° Because growth doesn't pay for itself, to what degree are we willing to subsidize it?
° ° ° ° Do we like where Jackson Hole is heading? If not, are we willing to do the hard work necessary to forge a new path?
Let me expand on each.
What are the cumulative effects of our growth?
The Covid pandemic accelerated our region's already-rapid growth and change. As a result, going forward Jackson Hole will face a lot of difficult choices. About housing versus traffic. About housing and traffic versus wildlife habitat and migration corridors. About how growth affects infrastructure, cost of living, and quality of life.
But asking such questions is not how we currently frame issues. Instead, as with The Loop, we tend to look at projects in a siloed, stand-alone fashion, paying little attention to issues like future growth, wildlife, and the like. As a result, we rarely have a clear understanding of how a given project might affect things beyond its specific lot lines.
Mountain Journal cartoonist John Potter created this satire with Bozeman in mind,. Many readers beyond southwest Montana responded that it also describes the boomtown attitude toward development in their towns, too, including Jackson, Wyoming.
To meet our broader, interconnected community goals, we need a different decision-making process, one based on the most complete, holistic understanding possible of trade-offs and cumulative effects. So instead of simply asking "Does The Loop provide more housing?" we instead need to ask questions like "How does The Loop affect the community's overall future?" Once we have those answers, we can understand the trade-offs facing us, and decide whether they are worth it.
Because growth doesn't pay for itself, to what degree are we willing to subsidize it?
Looking to the future, the Town of Jackson faces a stark financial reality: We are increasingly unable to afford our current "Champagne tastes on a beer budget" level of local government services.
There are two reasons for this. Both apply not just to Jackson Hole, but every other community in our rapidly-growing region.
First, it’s well-documented that growth doesn’t pay for itself. Second, there is a large and growing misalignment between our economy and how we fund government. Add the two together and Jackson faces a situation where the cost of basic services such as snow plowing, law enforcement, and fire/EMS is growing faster than government revenue. As a result, we are quickly approaching a day of reckoning, one where the town will either have to find more revenues or reduce services. It's that simple.
If we don't want fewer and/or lower-quality services, we need to find more revenue. How? Eventually, we need Wyoming’s legislature to give us more local control; to allow us to better-align the local economy and local government funding.
Until then, one thing we can do is urge developers to voluntarily build a deed restriction into new projects; a restriction requiring that a small percentage of each sale helps fund community needs. In essence an on-going, developer-imposed real estate transfer tax.
The idea is easy, effective, and community-minded. Further, it doesn't cost developers a dime. It's also already in place in at least three Jackson Hole developments: Shooting Star, Granite Ridge, and the Snake River Sporting Club.
So here's my ask of all developers: Please help the community cover its costs by voluntarily adding this cost-offset mechanism to each of your projects. It will help all of us continue to enjoy a high level of government services, and in so doing help protect the value of the properties you're developing.
Do we like where Jackson Hole is heading? If not, are we willing to do the hard work necessary to forge a new path?
While I was campaigning for re-election last fall, person after person shared their concerns and fears about the future. Not just Jackson Hole’s future, but that of our entire region – the issues affecting our little valley are also playing out in communities throughout the Greater Yellowstone.
Business owners are worried about finding employees. Long-time residents worry about property taxes and seeing their friends leave. Everyone is worried about issues ranging from affordable housing and traffic to deteriorating quality of life and ecosystem health.
What is clear is that we need to ask ourselves a simple but remarkably challenging question: Do we like where our community is going? If we don't— if Jackson Hole is becoming a place we don't like— then we need to ask an equally simple, equally challenging follow-up: Are we willing to do the hard work necessary to forge a new path?
Most importantly, we're all worried that Jackson Hole is losing its soul. That our character is falling victim to the socio-economic forces so rapidly and profoundly crashing into the valley. Over Teton Pass and into Idaho. Down the Snake River Canyon into Wyoming’s Star Valley.
Just as with The Loop, there are no easy answers to these larger questions. No black-and-white solutions to questions that are themselves anything but black-and-white.
What is clear, however, is that we need to ask ourselves a simple but remarkably challenging question: Do we like where our community is going?
If we don't— if Jackson Hole is becoming a place we don't like— then we need to ask an equally simple, equally challenging follow-up: Are we willing to do the hard work necessary to forge a new path?
These fundamental questions underlay The Loop debate. They'll also underlie every major issue facing us the next several years. How we answer them will shape the Tetons region for generations to come. The same is true for every special place in our region
NOTE: Below is a time-lapse progression showing how development southwest of the town of Jackson, Wyoming has been rapidly filling in with sprawl over time as former farms and ranches have been developed. The development has resulted in skyrocketing costs to provide services, led to traffic problems and the extirpation of wildlife from former prime habitat.
About Jonathan Schechter
Jonathan Schechter has a diverse background. Most of his civic and professional life revolves around answering the question of what makes communities thrive in ways that benefit local citizens while maintaining healthy environments and economies. Schechter currently holds an elected position on the Jackson (Wyo) Town Council and recently he served on the St. John's Hospital Board of Trustees. As the founder of CoThrive, a project of the Charture Institute, he has been a big picture thinker and writer. He's been an organizer of 1 Percent for the Tetons and Silicon Couloir and he has hosted a number of 22 in 21 conferences that explore the intersection of public and private land. (22 is the number of Teton County license plates; 21 stands for this century).
