Community begins to chime in on comp plan revisions

Wednesday, September 12, 2007

By Ben Cannon

Jackson Hole, Wyo.-Amid the many tents erected around the Town Square during Old Bill’s Fun Run 11 on Saturday, one was a little different from the rest. It was manned in part by Teton County principal planner Blair Leist.

Unlike all the other representatives of nonprofits who had set up tents and booths at the mega-fundraising event, Leist and other officials from the county and the Town of Jackson were not on hand to raise money, but were present to generate public awareness and involvement going into upcoming Comprehensive Plan revisions.
“This is our big push right now,” Leist said after the weekend, “and there’s been a deluge of information so far.”

Leist was referring not to a flood of information to the public – though there are tomes of analysis for it to digest – but to feedback the public is beginning to give to officials and Clarion Associates, the consulting firm that is helping to guide the joint elective body through revisions.

On Saturday, local government representatives handed out informational flyers directing Teton County residents to the recently launched Comp Plan website (www.JacksonTetonPlan.com). There, a user can access information, keep current on updates and meetings, and even voice opinions through a comment feature. Officials also distributed comment cards that ask, “Is the 1994 vision for our community still valid today?”

The current plan, adopted in ’94, is often criticized as being a disjointed document that is hard to translate to the real world. But it outlines many aspects of planning and development that are still important and relevant to the community, and so it is not being totally scrapped but merely reworked.

“If not [still valid today],” the handout continues, “what would you change or add to it to reflect your vision for the community?” Leist said about 100 of those comment cards had already been filled in and returned.

The cards, the tent, the website – all contribute to an effort on the part of officials to cull as much public input as possible to the revision process.

“Those are the people that drive it,” the county’s principal planner said. “We create the skeletal framework, but we really want the community to drive it.”

On Monday, government officials and Clarion representatives met with a technical advisory committee – mainly public works and health and service agencies – to begin to identify what seems to work and what needs to be addressed at those levels. A few dozen participants attended the evening workshop, among them a handful of government workers and elected officials.

“What did we hear today?” Ben Herman, a principal planner with Clarion said at a workshop later that evening. “I haven’t even had time to digest it.”

Herman did say that among the major issues that are beginning to reveal themselves is that the site-by-site management of natural resources practiced across Teton County has been effective to a point, but in the long run falls well short of a broader and more unified approach to identifying and preserving habitat.

Further, traffic is increasing rapidly, at a brisk (and potentially very unhealthy) 5 percent a year, a rate on par with and even exceeding the growth seen in major metropolitan areas. And (no surprise) that affordable housing issues should be weighed, and then weighed again.

“Where should it be and how do we fund it?” Herman asked. “How much do we need and how is the community changing” because of it?

After Clarion representatives – including planner Lesli Ellis and transportation specialist Carlos Hernandez – presented attendees with a timeline and short synopsis of the group’s preliminary findings, they asked the public, divided into small groups at round tables, to discuss and record their responses to a number survey-style questions.
One group of five said, “We felt the transportation component was the most critical” issue that needs to be addressed in an updated Comp Plan. Another group, indicating the economic and cultural change over the last 15 years, said, “We all felt that agriculture was not something that needs to be referenced in an entire chapter.”

There was, perhaps, some good news: Herman told workshop attendees that the current trend is seeing a decrease of second homes in the area. That figure is based on the number of homeowners having utility bills sent out of state, which is on the decline.
Later, Clarion executives asked the groups to prioritize what in Jackson Hole needs to be preserved. This prompted some spirited, if not quite heated dialogue. At one table, two strangers disagreed on their perception of the change facing Teton County with that already undergone in tony Aspen.

“Are you kidding me?” began one. “We have more art galleries than Aspen now.”
 “But we don’t have the Gucci and the Prada,” countered the other.
“Yet,” concluded the first.

PERMALINK:
Community begins to chime in on comp plan revisions | Planet JH News Article: County News

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