Move it or lose it

Wednesday, May 27, 2009

By Judd Grossman

Jackson Hole, Wyo.-As the update to the Comprehensive Plan crawls inexorably forward on the public process conveyor belt, residents are starting to pay more attention, and voices are becoming shriller. The plan is heading in the right direction, but it will take some bold leadership by elected officials.

The Plan’s Community Vision and Themes eloquently articulate the core values of our community, describing a set of reasonable, though conflicting, priorities foremost of which is preserving “the unique natural environment.”  Of course, the devil is in the details. As the plan moves past visioning, and starts to present more specific future land uses, the uncomfortable trade-offs hinted at in the Community Vision come into focus.

The update’s core strategy is to redirect intense development into existing nodes rather than allow it to sprawl. This is a no-brainer. Reduce the negative impacts of growth while reaping the commercial and transportation benefits of critical mass density. The danger is that the outlying nodes will get too big, or even worse that we end up with both dense nodes and sprawl.

Town planner Jeff Noffsinger confirmed the obvious when he told me the planning process doesn’t happen in a vacuum. The future land use plan must take into account the current facts on the ground and the desire on the part of elected officials to avoid “stripping away” development rights from current landowners by dramatically reducing their development potential. But, as the Conservation Alliance’s Franz Camenzind points out, there is a danger that without firm reductions in overall commercial build-out, potentially the numbers may not add up, and we may continue to be haunted by extreme imbalances between the number of jobs we create and the number of workers we house.

The delicate process of refocusing residential development closer to existing services while respecting property rights is successfully achieved in the plan for long disputed South Park which places new development within three-quarters-of-mile of High School Road.

Unfortunately, the plan update seems to have gone off course with the dramatic increase of the residential footprint of Wilson; and especially with the expansion of town level densities at the Aspens.

Wilson has a long history as a cohesive settlement, but broad expansion of town level densities to the south and the north of Wilson may overwhelm the low-key, village-like character of the GORPer-come-TONY enclave.

The Aspens is one of those late 70s suburban sprawl mistakes that should not be compounded with a dramatic expansion.  By elevating the Aspens to the level of a quasi-town, the plan update is just giving us more of a bad thing. We don’t need more soulless town-like entities to compete with the real town.

The prominence of the “town as heart” theme in this plan update is welcome, but we need an even bigger focus on town, and a de-emphasis on the Wilson and Aspens nodes.

 I’ll admit that it’s a tricky business to redevelop our beloved town, and I will grudgingly agree with the protections found in the draft’s labeling of the square and East Jackson as “stable” areas, but the rest of town could benefit from a great big tear-it-down-and-start-all-over-again. A vibrant urbanization of town with, God forbid, four- and five- story buildings would be a brilliant focus of densities into the most appropriate location.

With continued vigilance and input from the public, I’m hopeful we can map out a future for Jackson Hole that reflects our common vision, but it’s going to take some guts, brains and bold leadership on the part of electeds to keep this process on track. JHW
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