T-2021 at 6 p.m. This is a town hall meeting. And it's the first one we've done in quite some time,
but I will just need a motion from one of the other commissioners to approve the agenda.
I move to approve the agenda, as noticed.
And I will second that. It looks like we don't have commissioner Hennig with us yet, but there's
two of us here so all in favor just say aye. Aye.
And we are here to have a grand
target expansion virtual town hall. I'm gonna have to ask the people in the
room because you are we're broadcasting so you just have to be quiet so that
we're not getting any of that background noise into our Zoom.
So we are here to learn.
So the primary goal tonight is for the people involved
in the various aspects of the expansion of Grand Target
to present to both the Board of County Commissioners
and the public in order to learn about the complexities of what is approved on the private
land in the base area and what's being, well what's approved on the public land as well
currently and what's being proposed in the expansion plan that the Forest Service is
doing the EIS analysis on now and we will also be learning about the county, Teton
county Wyoming's involvement as well as Teton County Idaho's involvement. And I just want
to point out that we will have several opportunities in the future for public comment. And so this
is not, this is not that opportunity. We're just trying to clarify the complexities of
the project, the history of Grand Target Resort and what it might look like as we
move forward. So in order to do that I am going to open it up at the end for
questions and clarifications from the public as well as the board of county
commissioners. And that will be done through the question and answer, unless
you're a county commissioner, the question and answer option in Zoom. So
So all participants are able to ask a question,
type a question in, and as a facilitator,
I will be reviewing those questions
and asking them to the panelists at the end.
So hopefully we'll get most of the questions answered,
but I'm sure we won't get all of them answered.
There will be opportunities in the future
for additional questions,
but more importantly for public comment.
So the Board of County commissioners
planning a future town hall where members of the public can come and just
make their comments to the board on the expansion plan but really just what's
going on in the county. We want to be a little bit more open and we're
experimenting with Zoom and it's wonderful that I don't know what we're
up to now 96 participants so it's a great way to actually involve more
members of the public in, you know, conducting county business. There's about six people
in the audience here at the courthouse, but again, there will be opportunities in the
future to make your opinion heard. So here tonight is just for clarification. Panelists,
love for you to introduce yourselves and I'll just go in the order of that we'll
hear be hearing presentations tonight so let's start with Jordy Gillette from
Grand Target Resort thank thank you all for being here I know it's a busy time
of year so I want to acknowledge that you've all carved out a big chunk of
time for us thank you yeah thanks Cindy and thanks everybody for taking
in time. I'm George Ladd, Shadow Manager, Grand Study.
Thank you
so much. Let's hear from Don Dressler and the rest of the Forest Service team who's
here with us. Thanks again for being here.
Of course. Good evening. My name's Don Dressler. I am the Interdisciplinary Team Leader for
the Forest Service Analysis. And I am also the Regional Mountain Resort
for a program manager for the Rocky Mountain region.
Thanks.
And I'm Jay Pence.
I'm the district ranger for the Forest Service here in Driggs and I'm here to answer questions
if need be.
Hi.
Good evening.
My name is Mel Bowling.
I'm the Forest Supervisor for the Caribou Targi National Forest and Curlew National
Grassland.
For joining us, let's go to Teton County, Wyoming Planning Department.
Hi, everybody.
I'm Chris Mulekker.
I'm the Director of Planning and Building Services for Teton County, Wyoming.
Good evening.
I'm Hamilton Smith, a principal planner with excavated planning structures.
I'm the liaison to our board of county commissioners who are collaborating agency on the ESC process.
Why
don't you introduce yourself and the other commissioners from Teton County, Idaho.
Hi, I'm Rob Morin. I am the GIS Manager and Community Projects Coordinator for Teton County, Idaho.
I'm also the county's representative on the Forest Service Interdisciplinary Team for this project.
Hi there, I'm Mike Whitfield. I'm a Teton County Commissioner of Teton County, Idaho.
Now, Bob Manage, I am a county commissioner in Teton County, Idaho.
Introduce myself at the very beginning, I'm Cindy Regal, Teton County Commissioner,
and I am currently serving as the chair of the board.
Let's get started with a presentation from Grand Target Resort General Manager,
or owner, Jordy Gillette.
And just so you know, again, I might chime in
and ask questions for clarification.
Jordy, if you want to do screen sharing, go for it.
And thanks for going first.
That working?
OK, you got it in slideshow, right?
Looks great.
OK.
Yeah. All right.
Hey, Jordy, you are in, we do see the small slides to the left as
well as the bigger slide to the right.
Yeah, you could expand the screen if you want to
just show one slide at a time.
Did that do it?
Mm-mm. Yeah. Oh, now it is. Yeah. Okay.
Okay. You
can tell I do this quite a bit. So I tried to pull together some information
that I hope will be useful to people that are looking for constructive information and
and truly are looking for answers to things that are confusing
or frightening or maybe kind of complex.
Because we do have a base area that's
on private land in Teton County, Wyoming
that has its own master plan with Teton County, Wyoming.
And then we operate the bulk of the ski resort
on forest service lands, and so we have a master development plan on forest service lands.
And the two plans do consider each other, do take each other into account, but, you know, it's complicated.
And then we add in another complication of we're in Teton County, Wyoming, and, you know,
the bulk of our, like, our community is primarily Teton County, Idaho.
And it's where pretty much all of our workforce lives, a lot of the guests spend money there
and there's also impacts there. And so it's complicated, and it has been complicated for
this resort and this valley for a long time. But I'm going to do my best to try to maybe
Maybe draw some links between a couple of these plans in relative to at least how I'm understanding
people might be a little bit confused as to what is and isn't in place and how we can
mass address impacts to Teton Valley. So with that being said, I guess it's kind of weird
starting here, but I think it's needed because in the next history that I'm going to show
you, it's comfortable carrying capacity kind of runs through everything. And I think comfortable
capacity has been, I hope, genuinely misunderstood, not being, you know, intentionally misunderstood.
But it is not a reflection of this is what a day, an average day, is going to look like
at Grand Target.
It's not a reflection of our visitation.
You have to start with a design parameter, a design capacity, and work back from there
because, you know, are you building a church for Easter Sunday?
Are you building it for a random Tuesday in December?
I mean, you have to pick what you're trying to build it for.
And like everything with Targi, especially lately, you know, one of the things that we've really focused on and learned after all the madness of 2008 and 12 and really having to go into survival mode that our best plan and our best, you know, what we do best is we're on the ski area.
And so, comfortable carrying capacity drives all the different planning, capacity needs
on mountain, off mountain, and it's driven by the mountain, the ski area.
So I hate, I know that it's not good to read, you know, a big long thing on PowerPoint,
But I really can't say it any better than this.
This is from, it's kind of a summary, but this is from our master plan.
This came, this comes directly from SE Group, so I don't take credit for this.
It's not unique to us.
But you see it involves the establishment of a design capacity,
which represents the daily at one time guest population
to which everything up here is balanced.
you know, ski lifts, ski train, guest services, restaurants, building utilities, etc.
And what it's meant to represent is, like it says here, a pleasant recreational experience.
Another way of looking at it is what they talk about, you know, like,
what's your 10th to 20th busiest day of the year look like?
I kind of look at it like, you know, not, you know, huge awesome powder day, Saturday, sort
of, you know, like a January Saturday sort of experience up here and then you work back
from there and you look at trails, you look at type of trails, lifts, bathrooms, food
and beverage, parking, really everything.
CCC runs through it.
So I think it is a good place to start.
And it's all laid out in detail in our master plan.
And it's, again, at the core of what we're trying to do here.
So, again, I started with that because I'm not going through a history.
There's a lot of history and a broader sense of the word, but what I'm trying to express here
is grant
ID has been intended to be, it never has been intended to be like a marginally stable
resort catering primarily to Teton Valley people. And it's surprising how much the,
or I shouldn't say catering, it does cater, but it's not meant to just be like the locals best kept
secret. And, you know, we're up here struggling every year, like when we have a poor opening,
like we've had this year or, you know, plans don't go accordingly that were immediately
up against the wall.
So, 1969, the resort opens with the intention of it being an economic
benefit to Chiton Valley. MVPs, a lot of these master development plans, that's the plan
on the mountain. I assumed it didn't exist when Turkey opened because the first
MDP was prepared in 1971. And if you want to jump all the way to the end and look
at our current proposed comfortable carrying capacity, it's really remarkable
how they really had it right then. 6,000 skiers, 475 units, and you know
things that at that time were, you know, spoke to a year-round resort that, you know, there's
a lot of different things you've got to do to make, to be competitive and make, you know,
a place like this viable. So then 1990, much of the base area was destroyed in the fire.
really in early 1990, we began probably almost a, you know, 25-year period of being under
really intense scrutiny in one form or another publicly.
And at this time period, it's important to note, we didn't have a private base area in
a forest service on the mountain.
We were all forest service base area in the mountain.
So everything was governed by a forest service master plan.
So they were, you know, they were looking at units, they were looking at parking.
So the 1995 master development came out.
Skiert capacity was 5,130.
Talked about eight lifts, four new, primarily over on Peket
and four replacements, about 100,000 square feet of Skiert services,
notably Peket and Fred's on Mountain Restaurants,
686 lodging units, 9.2 acres of parking, and even then they realized a lot of our roads
needed quite a bit of work.
In 1997, the land exchange was initiated by the florist in an effort to secure 400 acres
of land at what's referred to as squirrel meadows kind of out near the it's
critical grizzly bear habitat kind of out near south of the feckler in that
area and we we agreed and we engaged I said we it was I wasn't really that
involved then. But you can see, again, in an intense, intense period of scrutiny, took
seven years. And finally, in 2004, Tuggy received 120 acres at the base area in exchange for
400 acres at School Meadows. And then we began the next phase of our kind of history of trying
to get to the point that we're in right now. So I moved here to the valley. I've been here
since and put together an application to Teton County Wyoming. So now at this point, private
land in the Bay Area, public land on the mountain, master plan with Teton County Wyoming in
the Bay Area, master development plan with the Forest Service on the mountain.
So that
That was four years of many, many very intense public meetings, lots of iterations, lots of
very hard work and very thoughtful work by Teton County, Wyoming commissioners and planning
staff and really very heavy involvement from Teton County, Idaho.
So 2008, it approved the Planear Development for Planned Resort.
Application was approved for 450 units, 150,000 square feet of commercial, among a lot of other things.
But that's kind of the big highlight items.
So now kind of focusing on, you know, the scale of what, you know, we've been putting out
there and primarily that I've been putting out there because, you know, this is the period
that, you know, I, you know, this is a direct reflection of what I would like to see.
And so our comfortable carrying capacity, the CCC in 2011 was 2,830 and in the MDP it was 5,420.
In 2017 we had an MDP.
The only thing that was really different was that we had upgraded the blacks of this.
So the CCC was a little bit different.
and the already approved CCC for taking into account the implementation of the peak at Lyft,
which is underway, it's 3720, and in that plan it was 5,730.
And then, my goal all along has been to have LyftServe skiing in South Bowl, and the 17
plan just had CAT skiing and guided service, and I, you know, I just wanted to kind of
of the chase and really reflect what I ultimately
want to see out there.
And so that's really, there were a couple other minor things.
And I don't want to imply that adding the search
scheme is how bold it's minor in any ways.
But that's the primary difference between 17 and 18.
And right around the same time,
right in 2017, we began an amendment of the 2008 base area
master plan that was completed in late 2018.
I'll get into some of the details of why we did that in just a minute.
it. But the 2018 MDP, that's what's on the table right now. Initially, it was proposed
with more terrain in South Pole and three lifts based on listening to feedback and patrol
and a number of other factors have reduced that and, you know, consequently, the CCC's
decline in, so, 6,017.
Fun
to let you know, roughly about like six or seven more minutes.
I mean, this is a good introduction,
and I think hopefully it's pretty clear to everyone
that your base area master plan is approved by Teton County, Wyoming,
and your master development plan is being –
your new master development plan is being proposed to the Caribou Target,
and they can talk a little bit more about the process involved in that.
But go ahead.
So hurry up.
Okay, so this slide basically says,
I like the density the way it is now.
I like the ski experience the way it is now.
I am here for a reason this resort is operated the way it is for reasons.
And, you know, if you want to take the time, it basically is, at full build-out, the density
is projected to be almost identical, and it's very much on the low end of the industry average.
I don't think, I wouldn't do this anyways, but I don't think our strength is jamming
this mountain full of people, and it's never been my goal.
Okay. Existing parking capacity. I'm going to kind of jump into more specific topics.
So I recognize this has been a hot topic. I really, really believe that last year there
was an anomaly. We had one terrible day, 14 inches on a Saturday, our plow, multiple
pieces of equipment broke at a terrible time. You know, we still have nightmares
parents about it up here, and me and all the employees that got screened at took it home
with us all, all remember that day very well, and we don't want to do that again.
Prior to last year, you know, we would have some, you know, there'd be busy days, but
you know, we were basically fairly, fairly balanced.
This is a way that the industry kind of looks at parking.
You can see the math of how we got there and we typically have enough spaces and we did have
a new lot this year and we haven't fully parked it yet so we're still estimating a bit but
Our existing parking last year was 1,130 vehicles announced, approximately 1,450.
This is in the Mountain Master Plan, but it also informs the Base Area Master Plan where
it looks at if the full upgrade plan is implemented and, you know, at its completion, we recognize
that we're going to need to create more spaces, and we have a plan to do that, but I think
we've got, you know, for quite a while we should have plenty of spaces.
So go through this really quickly.
My main point on this is my goal, my objective, the scale, what we're trying to accomplish
this year has been out in these master plans for quite a while, including South Pole.
I mean, South Pole was in the 2000 on Mountain MVP.
I didn't have the approval to do it.
It was accepted.
So there's a very big distinction.
But as far as what the intentions were, the scale, it has been out there since 2011.
and including on-mountain restaurants still at the top of Dreamcatcher and Sac-de-Lia.
2018, these numbers are all bigger, but these are all the main things.
I think the expansion areas get a lot of the attention, and I understandably so,
know, but I think there is a lot of items in here that really reflect, you know, how my
team and I really think that we can make the best experience possible. And, you know, that's
there's a lot of good information in there, but you see a lot of similarities, a lot of,
you know, scale similarities and areas of focus between the two on mountain MDPs.
So, now we're switching back to the base area.
Why did we amend the 2018 master plan? You can see in this summary that the big,
you know, the number of units, the size of the parcel, the commercial, the transportation
plan, the portable employee housing, we didn't propose changing any of that.
There were a lot of things that have changed since 2008 with the county, including the
adoption of a lot of new regulations over there.
We really wanted to make, you know, a lot of change between 2008 and 2018.
So this summarizes the, you know, really what changed between 8 and 18.
One of the specific items in there is we're governed by a transportation demand management
program.
The math is laid out in there.
It's above my pay grade to try to, you know, really sufficiently explain it, but there's
There's a way that, you know, you take into account the type of things that you can do
The type of road, the train of the road, you know, the conditions on the road, and the
rural nature of the road, and that you develop a level of service, and the level of services
is at the heart of this, and I need to have a travel demand management program presented
to Teton County, Wyoming regularly. And if, if I'm not meeting that plan, adjustments
need to be made and, and, you know, building permits can be laid, not moving on to new
phases of development. But you can see some of the elements in here that, that are
addressed in the program. How much time do I have, Cindy?
Well, take a few more minutes.
I'm not going to cut you off.
That's important.
Okay, another specific one that didn't change, and it's just straight up LDRs, Land Development Regulations.
Sorry for all the acronyms. Teton County, Wyoming, Land Development Regulations.
So I've got a little bit of a mix in here, but the additional employee housing, any additional employee housing
driven by commercial square footage development.
And there's a formula and it's laid out
in the county master plan.
And we didn't deviate from what the county provisions are.
And that affordable housing is driven
by residential development.
We also, you know, I'm really glad we,
I wish I could say we had a crystal ball.
I'm really glad we got on this when we did.
It's already become a huge asset and competitive advantage, and I hope Driggs sees it as an
advantage as well in the community because, you know, we've got 112 people that would
have been all out in the world competing for housing this last summer and this winter
if we didn't have this housing in place.
but we did recently complete the last couple of units and we have 16 units, about 112 employees
with shovel service and then we've also secured additional housing down in Victor. We're doing
everything that we can to try to carry our weight on this and going forward there is
You know, direct controls in the county plan.
All right, I know that I need to summarize this.
So in the county master plan, the county does not have purview over forest.
And forest doesn't have purview over county.
But the plan at the time was very thoughtful on this matter.
and the commissioners and the staff.
And they said, you know, we don't want this development
on the mountain to be kind of, you know, it's occurring,
but it's like, it doesn't exist from a county standpoint.
So they asked for, and we agreed to basically
let the county LDRs take into account
things that we do on the mountain.
And they had the 2017 master plan in front of them.
they knew exactly what we were contemplating, the scale of it, everything else and the change
is the South Bowl stuff and so if anything gets approved I need to go to them and they
apply the LDRs to it and it addresses parking, it addresses transportation, the things
on the mountain would generate employee housing needs as well. So I feel really good about
it and it's it's one of those things where I think we and the county went above and beyond
and and it just is it's a little twilight zone to be being kind of you know I I feel
like we went above and beyond on trying to consider our broader impact in the ways that
that we can in the county can.
So I have to do a monitoring report.
There's triggers, if I'm not meeting these things.
There's tons more detail, but I detailed out
some of the stuff that's in the transportation monitoring,
level of service, ridership, and traffic counts.
So that's detailed out.
And then, do you want me to come back to this later, maybe Cindy?
So I think, I mean, I think this is actually a really good introduction because we're going to talk about a little bit more in detail about what's happening on public land and what the status of the EIS is,
as well as, you know, Cheetown County and Wyoming planners
can get into more detail on some of the requirements.
But I think it would be good for everyone listening
and watching to see just kind of the overview
of that base area.
And then we can pass it on and talk about it.
So you want me to just hit on that really quick
and then go or?
I think that would be helpful.
OK, so
can you see my pointer thing here?
So you're not in full screen, so we're seeing your next slide.
So if you can expand, yeah, that might work.
No, that's subtitles.
If you can expand your main slide, it's going to be easier for everyone to see.
But I don't know if that's even an option.
Had it been that way through my whole thing?
Someone more familiar with this might know, like Rob.
I'm clicking the slideshow thing at the bottom.
It works.
It's just not as big as it can be.
So I think you're fine.
Go ahead.
I apologize.
I don't know.
It's working.
OK, so this represents, I mean,
I mean, it's changed a little bit, but this really represents my close-in focus, and this
next slide, it's already a bit outdated, but it represents kind of,
you know, some of this
stuff, like on the ski-in-ski-out part, isn't going to happen that way, the big building
that kind of is near where Sue is, is going to be a little bit different, but I think it's
still a good relevant, you know, this is kind of what, you know, what these entitlements
could look like up here.
And so, but this is the one that's much more current and, you know, is reflecting what
But my focus is on the first round of, well, the first and the second round of things that
we're going to be trying to do over the next three to four years.
So when I'm moving my pointer around, can you see that?
Okay.
Someone's saying you need to go into presenter mode.
Different what?
It's read mode. It looks like an open book down at the bottom there of your PowerPoint.
There you go.
We could see it before. It just was smaller, so this is better.
Okay. But when I'm pointing stuff out, you can't.
Yeah, now we can.
Okay.
All right. So this proposed rendezvous expansion is farther down the line.
Planning on keeping Sioux and renovating it.
we're underway with renovating T-Wanat but T-Wanat we're planning on you know
keeping in an upgraded fashion.
This orientation of this building like a new
Targi Lodge and in the activity center which is on the right when you walk up
the stairs that's all one building and so both of them need to be addressed
And we need to get our administration space out of here.
It would go down near, we're pointing down here where what we call our sprung structure is.
But we need to get that out of there and build a new flow at the resort to be much more convenient.
And we're really, you know, falling behind the times as far as, you know,
guess the expectations and how easy we are to do business with, but the flow of the whole thing.
So that's really what getting some new lodging rooms, hotbeds is 100% my focus.
Hotbeds mean, you know, it's not somebody just in town for a week during Christmas.
You know, that we want them rented as much as possible and they're configured that way.
they're designed that way. And it's part of being a sea resort. It's not a real estate
play, if that distinction hopefully makes sense. And then, so a new kind of admins face
down here, and then out in what I'm calling, what we call Lot 5, which is hopefully our
overflow a lot of the past, out near the end of that, we're looking at probably about
10 to 12 units of – you know, they'd be probably like a townhome configuration, but
rentable, consistent-type units, not like specialized on each one, meant to just – for
larger groups or families.
So that's my primary focus at that point – at this point, those three projects.
was
that your last slide well I had this one too but this is
again a better
reflection of what because you're focused in the main kind of gas services
area so the question on the next slide is is that just concept or is that
currently platted this is not platted this is concept and we've got to get
everything platted and so this is this is the area that I'm talking about like
our gate is right here so this is lot five right here and this is the very
end of it so we would be looking at a different unit configuration but but
meant to be hotbeds meant to be you know more of a you know a town home sort of
of setting. So that would be our first dip in there. And then this hotel and commercial
space, and then right in here, admin and employee, and we would get rid of this firm structure
and make this more of a snow front secondary arrival area.
Okay.
Awesome.
I thank you for that overview.
I think we should move on and hear about the master development plan that's being proposed
for the public lands and what that process looks like, where we're at, what alternatives
are being analyzed, and that is going to be coming from the Forest Service Interdisciplinary
team leader on the EIS, Don Dressler, and feel free to, you know, involve our district ranger,
Jay Pence, or for Supervisor Mel Bowling, as you see fit.
So if you want to take it away, Don, I think, Jordy, you have to stop your screen share,
and then I'm not sure if Don has slides or not, but...
I have a fairly brief update that I want to make sure that we're giving some thorough
information and background for folks that might not have been involved with this project
from the beginning.
So thanks again for the invitation to present.
The update on this NEPA process really starts with what is an EIS and what are our alternatives
and what is our timeline.
So I'm going to try to address all of that.
The Forest Service, and in this case specifically the Caribou Targi National Forest, is in the
process of preparing an environmental impact statement to consider and disclose environmental
effects of activities proposed on national forest system lands.
Process was started with a notice of intent to prepare an EIS.
This was published in the Federal Register on August 26, 2020, which initiated a 45-day
public scoping period.
I'm sure many folks that are tuning in may have participated in that process, and we
appreciate that.
an interjection.
Disciplinary team of four service specialists, aided by the third party contractor SE group,
as well as our cooperating agencies. We're using scoping information that was provided,
site surveys and resource analysis to guide the preparation of the draft EIS. That's
where we're at. And I should say, for all updates and further information, I'd really
encourage people to get familiar with the project website if you're not familiar with it already.
This is grandtargieresortes.org.
Now, as we start as we are in the preparation
of the draft EIS, the identification and evaluation of alternative ways of meeting
the purpose and need of the proposed action is really the heart of the NEPA analysis.
So alternatives being analyzed will meet the purpose and need, and they'll respond to the issues that have been identified throughout this process.
So the alternatives include those that are practical or feasible from a technical and an economic standpoint.
Providing detailed evaluation of the alternatives will allow the public to compare the environmental effects of the various potential components.
And then the deciding official here represented by Forest Supervisor Mel Bowling will ultimately
determine which alternative to proceed with, whether whole or in part.
Again, all of this information is on the project website.
So the next major step in this process that will provide the opportunity for public comment
is when the draft EIS is made available.
The Forest Service is currently working with our third-party contractor to finalize the specialist
reports that will inform the draft EIS.
So once the draft is ready, a notice of availability will be published in the Federal Register.
This will initiate a 90-day public comment period.
The goal is to produce a comprehensive document and not to piecemeal the analysis process.
us. We'll work with local news media, work with our partners and our stakeholders to
ensure this information is shared widely once it's available.
And then upon the close of that 90-day draft comment period, we'll begin work towards a
final EIS and a draft record of decision. So that's my real basic summary of where
we are in the NEPA process, what's coming next. I know a lot of people want me to
give a date of that, but really until the draft is ready to share, we really don't have a
date of when that's going. We're in the process of finalizing the specialist reports, which
as I said, will then inform the draft, which is what will be available for public comment.
Is there anything?
Oh, I think that's a pretty good update. I can answer some questions if you get
anything specific later on.
are
being analyzed or is that still something that is going to come out with the EIS?
Well, the alternatives being analyzed are not final until the draft is final.
Okay.
So it's a little premature to really dig in because as has been kind of pretty widely
shared and openly shared, there have been changes throughout this process.
And so as those changes come, we consider where those need to fit within the alternatives.
And again, alternatives are really to show the comparison between effects of the various
different components.
People who are familiar with the master development plan, so what's being proposed for the
expansion area and on mountain that isn't currently approved. Is that something
Geordie or the Forest Service, someone from the Forest Service can explain just
for people who aren't super familiar with the proposal. Again because we're
just trying to get everyone kind of up to speed on what's approved on the
the public or the private land and what's being proposed as additional amenities on public land?
So I'm not sure how to answer your question to the best of our ability.
I do know that if you go to that Grand Target Resort EIS, the scoping document and all the documentation on there
is pretty well the entire master development plan that was submitted to the Forest Service.
So that is what is being considered and that is the on-mountain proposal.
Okay, that's good, actually. So for people, there's a lot of detail in there.
Again, it's grandtargiresortes.org. Thanks for that.
Okay, let's go to Teton County, Wyoming Planning and Building Services Director Chris Newbecker
and Principal Planner Hamilton Smith.
I also see Teton County Wyoming Commissioner Luther Probst is on as a presenter, so he also
may have something to add when we kind of talk about that, private land approvals.
Thanks, Cindy.
This is Chris Newbecker, Director of Planning and Building Services.
I've got Hamilton Smith with me.
Hamilton is the Principal Planner, and he is most familiar with the Resort Master
Plan, so he will give a brief presentation.
Thank you.
Okay, good evening.
I'm going to jump into the screen share mode and just bear with me the minute of technological
heartaches that always accompany this effort.
I'm going to share screen one and then go into my slideshow.
Can
you guys confirm if you see simply a slide that says,
any building services being charged in reserve overview?
Yes.
And you're not seeing the next slide up.
Interestingly enough, I wasn't aware, just,
I don't think any of us really collaborated ahead of time,
so there was just a decent overlap with what Jordy presented.
But again, just for everyone's information, as principal planner, I will be handling many,
if not all, future applications in the short term there.
We try to do that as staff to consistency.
And as we delve into site-specific result master plans of this nature,
The reserve area is captured as 23rd in 120 acres. The distinctions that are identified in the master plan are essentially acronyms aside, the commercial core and which is all of your central
and resort amenities, short-term lodging, as well as residential units, which is an important
distinction to make, because then your periphery to the east, south, and west, the residential
and accommodations component of the master plan are constitutes about 84.3 acres, yet
a real minority of the residential units that are approved. I did see in the chat just a
discussion related to the distinction between Platt and approved entitlements. There have
been no formal development applications to our department since the 2019, so the Mass
The first plan amendment was approved in 2018. The master plan recorded early 2019. Since then, we've had one great application of permit issued for the parking area expansion majority alluded to, to handle this overcrowded parking need.
So, in essence, this 120 acres, we're familiar with, hopefully, this receives an entirely
new zoning distinction as a resort area, and so through that amendment process, the distinction
of resort and those findings for compliance with both our comprehensive plan as well as
our LDRs was highlighted. And the 120 acres is – this is probably borrowed from a first
sort of document, as my guess. But you can see how it situates between Rick's Basin
up to the west, the access road of Ski Hill Road from the southeast corner, and all of
your lift accessible. I think the acreage there is about 2,400 acres of specially
use permit area upslope. And it's very much the case that the operations and the approvals
in the 2,400 acres will completely happen outside of the jurisdiction of Teton County
Planning and Development. But I will speak a bit more as Jordy did to a bit of a nexus
this, and where there is those two processes are linked and such that we don't see these
things happening in a vacuum in either jurisdiction.
Jordan, you also present probably the identical chronology, but important to us in our distinctions
was in 2006 the zoning map amendment, which did amend the county zoning from rural to
to the resort zone that exists today from between, I don't know, initiated as early
as 2004, but finally completed and approved in 2008, is the first PUD which stands for
planned unit development, the type of development that underscores this resort standing for
the property. 2008 is when that first master plan was approved, and excuse me, I didn't
We see this sequencing with 2017 and the Forest Master Development Plan, and then subsequent
to that, the consideration and then final adoption in February 2019 of our current amended
master plan.
In discussing that, I want to really also echo what you said, which was the 2017 Forest
I picked up on a little concern whether our Board of Founding Commissioners were fully
aware of the potential and scope for special use permit area expansion.
And I will confirm that that was basically the first and primary key issue in the staff
a court from the then-plan of Revy Hurley to the board was exactly these expansions
to a T to say, here's what we see coming forward in the neighboring public lands, and
this is a point of consideration as we consider the amendment to the master plan. So just
Just for full transparency, there's no detail, really, that was not considered during the
master plan amendment process of 2018.
And just to quickly go into distinctions between the recreation, ephemeral plan area, or
CPA, as I mentioned, distinguished as the dense commercial with short-term lodging.
This is where the retail food, beverage services are approved, resort support services and
amenities and both residential as well as large in units.
To the perimeter then is the 84.3 acres of the residential accommodation plan area, single
family residence condominiums, townhouses and cabins, open space areas for trails.
And the looking at that sketch plan, this is a approved and adopted rendition of future development that is considered as the regulatory framework for which is codified in our amended master plan.
And to go into that process a little bit more, one of the expectations through the 2018 process
was just to bring the 08 approval into the modern day, our current LDR format.
So we have standards pertaining to the commercial core standards pertaining to the residential
accommodations area.
They're unique, they're different, but they are established, for instance, triggers.
What number of developed units then triggers a board-level review process, what they call
a development application?
And just so it's clearly stated, each development of 10 or more units constitutes a development
plan, and even less than that, if someone's going to come in and purchase and then plant
residential development, you're even going to be able to do that.
We're going to wind up in a board level approval process anyway. So, at each step, and I'll speak
to phasing next, but this is all going on under repeated and regular scrutiny and approval
by the board. The master plan in itself doesn't give an authorization to just simply move
forward and begin building. That's not how this is structured. In addition, the 2018
plan is provided. That's the sketch map in addition to that more detailed phasing plan.
I'll speak to that next. There was an update to our community services element. The Teton
Creek Corridor project, for instance, that the mechanisms to fund that as a community
duty service development, essentially transfer fee agreements, which are recorded after David's
that run with the land for transfers, basically sale or conveyance of properties that then
put percentages of those sale presses into funds available, or not only the Development
of the Teton Creek Corridor Project, but also to go into funds for purchase and conservation
in perpetuity. They required 300 acres of lands by build-out, essentially.
In addition, the intent in 2018 through the amendment was to codify a better coordination
between the improvements on the National Forest, especially use permit area and the
base area. So this is a distinction I'll speak to in the last slide. And I think Jordi also
had the language in his final slide. But just to repeat and make clear, because I think
there's some real concern in the public and misunderstanding perhaps. In 2018, no changes
to the shape or size of the resort parcel of private lands of 120 years. No change
change was adopted to the number of gluing units permitted. That's 450 gluing units.
No change to the commercial square footage allowance in the commercial core, 150,000
square feet. No change to the transportation demand management goals to build out the
70 percent rider use of the shuttle system. No change to the requirements for both
employee or affordable housing. In addition, no change to permitted allowed peak occupancy,
which is, I don't want to delve too much into APOs at the moment, but that's another mechanism
to establish the threshold maximum thresholds. It's also in place out at Chestnut Mountain
Resort. APOs are basically average peak occupancy of lodging units. There's calculations
for each and set a maximum or a threshold for the final build out in a very intensity of the development.
So other areas of key allocation characteristics, though there is no explicit for your ratio
or limitation on maximum floor of individual structures, the overall floor area,
This is every single type of habitable, nonhabitable structure in the core is 645,000 square feet
of development. There is an allowance for some transfer, some movement of approved floor area
from the residential into the commercial if so desired. The individual dwelling or lodging
units in the core are 10,000 square feet per unit as far as individual dwelling units.
The perimeter residential development area also phased in development as a maximum
plurial limit of 6,000 per unit.
And these can be residential and a mix of residential or lodging units.
And again, there's a cap on APOs for each type of unit.
This is part of the master plan and will be obviously a part of an analysis
of any development plan application.
I spoke to Phasing earlier, got a couple notes on Phasing,
that in essence this is what
links much of the monitoring plans
and how it controls how many,
and when the different bikes at the output take place, it's such that
there's control and
and iterative check-ins with how the process of development is proceeding.
When we're in phase one with the first applicable development plan, there are several key thresholds
that were expectations prior or synced up with these original development plans.
specific to Phaesian. If there's work to be able to change this tune, the Phaesian plan,
these would have to come up or actually come up with planning director first, potentially
the board, as a minor amendment.
I've also got the association of commitments for,
I'm sorry, I've got a note here, housing commitment generated for each phase of the
should be completed prior to the beginning construction of the subsequent phases.
So part of phasing is you can't get into Phase 2 or 3 or 4 without having established
and then completed those employee and affordable housing requirements for that phase.
And so just a couple of other items in summary just briefly.
Finally, to reference the Transportation Demand Management Plan, I spoke to this earlier,
but that the intent of ultimately having capacity for 70 percent ridership for employees and
approximately 30 percent visitor handled through public transportation shuttle services
is an expectation through the completion of the final buildout phase, and so there's
iterative steps up to those that expectation in the earlier phases.
We do have agreements where the Teton County Affordable Housing Department will collaborate
with the Teton County Idaho Board and work on accomplishing development of affordable
housing in the communities of Victor and Driggs. There's some scales as to, I think it's 80%
within a certain range of Driggs and then a remainder which can be developed in Victor.
That is a requisite prior to approval of the first development plan. So this system
must be in place and oversight provided both by Teton County, Idaho as well as our
affordable housing department. Other topics I think that folks are concerned about, for
instance, the emergency management plan that would be required within one year of approval
and recordation of a first final plat. So once you've got actual private property developed
on the ground, emergency management, let's see that I've tried to just a couple more
notes on that. This is also one of the other important topics such as the Wildland Urban
Interface Study, which would be required prior to construction of the first phase of development.
And there's also, depending upon the EIS, the waste water treatment capacity, water
usage, culinary water storage, those type of infrastructure requirements speak to the
final note in key takeaways, which is that once this EIS is complete, these entitlements
to whatever degree, whatever alternative is approved, as Jordy mentioned, that's when
Grand Target comes back to Teton County, indicates what the extent, the exact detail
of all, but mountain services that have been approved, and that opens up the opportunity
for a reassessment of the types of services such as, I mentioned, the infrastructure and
wastewater and culinary water, parking, transportation, all of those details, and that application
depending upon its scale, maybe processed as a minor amendment, or the master plan also
offers an opportunity for that to be elevated to a broad-level decision in the event that
carries a greater degree of significance.
But that's about the extent of what I prepared for this evening.
I'll let that sit on the screen for just a moment in case anyone wants to take down
more information.
my phone number here at the county and my email address and I'll be calling up for questions.
Speak to a board level decision that will always involve an opportunity for public comment, correct?
Absolutely. At a number of junctures both, you know, mailed, we take mail or e-mail comments
and those aren't weighted any differently than if someone doesn't,
me perhaps doesn't have the ability to attend either our planning commission hearings or
our county commissioner hearings. It all gets to the intended listening audience which
I would then approve is what the system in Mr. Brooks. So
I will, is it okay to stop
sharing this screen? Yes,
Teton County. He's serving as our representative,
Teton
Hamilton, you need to stop sharing there. There we go. Let me bring mine up.
Okay, so I'll try to get through this fairly quickly because we need to lead time to answer some questions.
As Cindy mentioned, I am representing county interests on the ID team. The other members of the team include Teton County, Wyoming, the Forest Service, of course, and the National Park Service.
I'm just going to make a few points here.
Just three main points, and I'm going to talk about the study that we commissioned.
Just to review, we talked about this throughout this presentation, but I just want to make it clear.
We're talking about two different master plans under two different jurisdictions.
The MDP on the left under Forest Service Jurisdiction, that's what's going through the NEPA process right now.
and of course the PUD base area approval from Teton County, Wyoming that took place in 2018-2019.
I want to point out that during that PUD approval process, there was a lot of complacency locally
and kind of a lack of awareness.
I think a lot of locals had heard all these base area master plans for years
or different iterations of a master development plan, and not much had happened because of
economic, you know, situation with the boom and the bust. And so I think a lot of folks
just didn't get engaged in that. Teton County, Idaho, was really never officially invited
into that process, although I'll put it on us for not actively engaging as well.
And so because there was no, I guess, public controversy over an expansion in front of the public, people didn't get really involved in that PUD renewal.
It was similar in scale to previous iterations, as Jordy pointed out, but nevertheless it does represent a major increase in development over what's there now.
And that's kind of where we're coming from and wanting to look at it and the on-mountain
development more carefully at this point in time.
So key point, too.
The two plans have been reviewed separately, but in practice they're totally interrelated.
I think this was mentioned previously, but it should be noted that the SE Group, the
NEPA contractor for the Forest Service, has indicated that a lot of the impacts
from the base area development are considered outside their scope in preparing the environmental
impact statement.
So we feel that the on-mountain development and the base area development needs to be
examined in a more holistic manner, given current economic conditions that the valley
is facing.
Yes, these plans have been around for a long time, but the situation has changed
in the valley quite a bit. And obviously, in the last couple of years, we've seen a huge real estate boom,
big influx of people, labor and housing shortages, all kinds of challenges.
The third point without stating the obvious here is the interstate problem.
Targets in Wyoming, but the impacts are largely going to flow toward the Idaho side of the Tetons.
The tax revenues from the development are going to go to Teton County, Wyoming, although
as Hamilton alluded to, some fees, like for real estate transfer fees, will be spent on
affordable housing in Idaho.
But nevertheless, the lion's share of revenues going to Teton County, Wyoming, while a lot
of the impacts are happening on our side.
So Teton County, Idaho's may be looking at.
Housing and employment impacts, public service, infrastructure needs, and all of this stuff is
going to be, you know, probably exacerbated by increased visitor demand if the resort is successful
in building out and attracting more customers.
So, we engage a consultant named Eco Northwest
to do a socioeconomic study, and the first step in that study is to compile and assess
us existing conditions here in Teton Valley. So taking a look at the labor situation and
our housing needs and availability, looking at what public services are offered and whether
they're adequately funded, looking at our traffic and our transportation infrastructure,
what's the shape of the roads, and looking at the county fiscal status. That graphic
over to the right is just demonstrating that almost 3,500 workers per day commute over to
Jackson from our county, about almost 1,900 live and work here, and we're already importing
about 1,200 workers from other East Idaho counties to come here.
So what we're experiencing in recent years is a lot like what you've seen in Colorado
where the workforce is increasingly being pushed down valley.
So here's some existing conditions that our consultant has already started to compile.
They talk about how county property tax is not kept up with budget needs.
State of Idaho limits the increase on property tax to 3% per year.
And of course, you know, valuations go up much more than that, but middle levy rates drop.
and so the actual property tax bills can only go up 3% per year, but of course different fees and
levies and whatnot can go up considerably more than that. The share of our budget funded from
property tax actually fell from 70% 2012 to just over half last year, or I guess almost two years
ago now. So basically the counties increasingly reliant on things like voter approved levies
and our various fees to actually make the budget balance out and meet the need for public services.
Also, our consultant is looking at some of the restrictions we have in terms of raising other types of revenue.
So our sales tax, for example, is shared with the state on a predetermined formula.
So it's not like we can really ramp that up locally.
and we can't tax short-term rentals out in the county.
So we really have our hands tied in a lot of ways in terms of generating more revenue.
So that's just one example of some of the current situation we're looking at here in the valley.
So the next step after assessing conditions for Eco Northwest will be to look at likely changes in demand
from visitors and locals, so looking at housing, labor needs, public services, et cetera.
The tricky part of that is going to be trying to figure out the demand that's driven independent of resort development
and what is resulting directly or indirectly from development up at Grand Target.
You know, we're not trying to pin everything that happened during COVID on Grand Targi.
That's certainly not fair.
But obviously some impacts are already happening and others may be exacerbated by bigger resort
operations and visitation.
So the next step will be looking at the positive and negative impacts on all these
different categories.
So looking at the rental market, looking at housing supply in general, how much could house costs,
looking at how much of the housing market is converting to short-term rentals, which is a big trend right now.
Looking at employment, so the available labor supply and what the likely increase in demand will be for labor
as businesses expand and as Targi expands, looking at wages, again, tax revenues and
how the county is going to be impacted, looking at traffic patterns and volume, looking how
public services will be affected, and also public infrastructure, especially roads.
Collector roads that feed into Ski Hill Road will be something we'll be taking a close
look at.
And finally, they'll be estimating the public service and capital costs directly
attributable to resort development. So this development that's happening in Wyoming, how
much is it really going to cost the taxpayers of Teton County and the city of Driggs?
Those are the two entities they'll be, are consultantly looking at most closely.
So actually, that's not the final point.
This is the final point, describing how the positive and negative effects are distributed.
Who are the winners? Who are the losers? Who bears the cost?
How much of this is going to fall on local taxpayers?
So that's the gist of the study there.
When the study comes out, it will be submitted by the county as an official comment on the draft EIS.
and certainly could be used by the Forest Service in their decision-making on what the
final chosen alternative is for grant targets on mountain development.
But even beyond that, I think the study is going to help inform local government, both
Teton County, Idaho, and Wyoming, on possible strategies for addressing these community
challenges that tend to be exacerbated by more commercial growth, whether it's Targi
or other businesses within the valley, or just increased tourist visitation. In other
words, we have a better idea of what's coming down the pike.
And so that's it in a nutshell. Cindy, I was going to hand it over to you just
to mention again about a future opportunity for public comment.
Teton
County are contributing about 50 percent of the costs of the Eco Northwest study.
The commissioners in Wyoming realized, you know, it is important information for Idaho
to understand not just, you know, potential impacts from Grand Tardis expansion, but just
generally what's happening on the Wyoming side of Teton Valley, but also in combination
with all the other growth that we're experiencing,
to try to look at that more holistically
and plan for the future in the best way we can
in terms of being efficient with the money we do have
and looking at other opportunities to fund some
of the services that might be needed for, you know,
what's happening in Wyoming.
So thanks for clarifying all that,
the reason behind why we're headed in this direction is beyond just grand
targi so and our so far consultant has been doing a fabulous job a ton of
research and lots of great information to analyze so this final slide is just
to make sure everyone knows what other opportunities there will be for
We're learning about what's happening on both sides of the pass, but also to very directly
speak with the commissioners, well, the decision makers in general.
So county commissioners from T-Tank County, Idaho, county commissioners from T-Tank County,
Wyoming, as well as the Forest Service decision makers.
So this is phase one for T-10 County, Idaho in kind of educating the public on grand
targi and what's been approved, what's being proposed, and how it might impact
our community. We plan to host another town hall meeting hopefully with our
consultant Eco Northwest down the road where we can be more of the
listeners and hear from the public about their concerns directly and incorporate them potentially
into our comments on the draft EIS.
Obviously anyone in the community or beyond will have an opportunity to provide public
comment to the Caribou Chargi National Forest during the 90-day period following publication
of the draft PIS and I'm sure it will be really obvious when that comes out, we'll make sure
to put it on the press and social media and everywhere else so that people can directly
comment on the draft PIS to the Teribu-Targi Delta Forest.
As we discussed earlier and Hamilton pointed out, the phases of development on the private
that land at the base area of Grand Target will happen in phases and will also in some
cases require board approval. So every time that happens, every time there's a trigger,
either with the Planning and Zoning Commission in Teton County, Wyoming, or the Board of
County Commissioners, there will be an opportunity for public review and comment as well.
And that's all I had to say about future opportunities.
We can focus on our question and answer session now.
I did want to ask that my colleagues, the county commissioners from Idaho,
to start us off if they had any specific questions for any of the presenters.
And then I'll go to questions that are coming in on paper and digitally through Zoom from the public.
So
Commissioner Whitfield or Hennich, did you have anything specific you wanted to ask at this time?
I had one question. I'll pose it to, I guess to Grant Hardy, one thing we've heard a lot of concerns about
are the impacts to wildlife in the two areas of extension for the terrain.
And I'm wondering if there's going to be any mitigation plan for those wildlife impacts
if those proposed expansions are allowed.
I don't know if that would come from Grand Target or the Forest Service or who should
respond.
But wondering if any of the wildlife impacts would be mitigated.
So, here, I can give you it.
I mean, Michael, you're fairly intimately familiar with the EIS and EA process.
and there's typically mitigations that are included in those projects.
As you are also aware, an EIS could have an irretrievable commitment of resources.
But I would say that there's typically some sort of medications that are done.
I'm not really sure where you're heading.
I mean, you know, if you could put a tree, you could put a tree.
I'm not really sure what you're hinting at.
But yes, that's typically what happens in an environmental process.
Respond to that before we move to the next question.
Okay.
Richard Hinnich.
Yeah, I'm really eager to see that Eco Northwest study.
You know, this is by no means a comprehensive list of my concerns.
But, you know, this is, I think, this is perhaps
an unanswerable question, how will Teton County be able to keep up with the increased demand
for services that we have to deliver, be it roads, be it fire protection, be it increased
law enforcement, increased solid waste, without some new revenue sources yet to be identified?
I just think we're in a tough situation. And at this point, I don't know that that question's
even answerable.
That's
what we're trying to get at with our consultant and understanding this proposal
in the context of what's happening in the rest of our county and how we're covering
those expenses, those increasing expenses. As commissioners, we're certainly in clerks
and employees and staff are certainly feeling that crunch right now.
You know, Doug's self is on here, so I wanted to give him an opportunity as well.
He's pretty familiar with the housing mitigation aspect of the base area development.
If you wanted to add anything, Doug, if you can hear me feel free to chime in.
He's also been working quite closely on the public transportation aspect of the whole
community, but specifically with Geordie and Grant Argyi and assisting with the shuttle
service.
Yeah, thanks, Cindy.
I see everything as just a tremendous opportunity to work together as a region on the two
to Teton counties in particular, to address housing, transportation, so I'll
Public ways, emergency services, all of the things that we have been partnering on for a
while but, you know, we haven't fully knitted together. And so there's a lot to do regardless
of what happens with the EIS. And I think it's great that we have brought the conversation
to this point. So I'm happy to answer any other questions in that regard.
Commissioner
Probes, did you have any specific questions?
Not at the moment.
Thank you.
I just want to express my gratitude to you and the other commissioners and to everyone
that's been providing us information and that's all.
I would like to add that I want to express my gratitude also to the also Solid Waste
Disposal District for their support for the Eco Northwest study as well.
Before
we go to questions, was there any clarifications you want to make from the other presentations?
Thanks for the opportunity to know and really appreciate the information, in particular from Hamilton.
I thought that was really well summarized.
I do have two relatively minor things from Rodman's presentation.
The 2008 and the 2018 were not similar in scale.
They were identical in scale.
Words matter in what they imply.
And then to say SE Group and the local ranger district or CTNF or however it was worded,
chose how to analyze the impacts. I don't think it's a really fair representation. I mean,
The EIS and NEPA is pretty well established, and they're doing it by the book.
So those were the two things I wanted to address.
Okay.
Can I respond to that, Cindy?
Yeah, let's go to questions.
Okay, sure.
I think it's time.
Okay.
Make sure we get
presenters can see these.
I'm going to start at the top.
I won't necessarily ask all of them if they're not relevant.
But the first one is, what is the difference between summer and winter impacts that the resort brings
compared to what the National Parks bring during the summer?
So I think this is really, this question is about, you know, we talked probably more about winter,
which always seems to be the case.
how maybe Geordie can answer, how is it different in the summer from winter in terms of number
of visitors and maybe, I don't know who else can speak to kind of the cumulative impact
of all the summer visitors that come to our national parks.
What are you expecting or anticipating growth in the summer to be, I guess, is really
question for Geordi, and then I'm not sure we can answer the rest of it.
I think much less driven by Targi and more just driven by much bigger influences outside
of a lot of our control.
I think summer is the much bigger growth area, and it's much more driven by things
primarily on the Jackson side, not to blame them, but, you know, the parks and the various
travel patterns and how people come and go, I think summer is, you know, by far the much
bigger increase in impacts.
impacts, but I do think the question is important, and it's been my biggest issue with the socioeconomic
study.
I mean, we're certainly a part of it, but, man, I really think it should look at, you
know, instead of just singling us out, you know, let's really have a regional conversation
in around all the impacts that come from areas or situations outside of Teton Valley's, Teton
County, Idaho's control and combine that with things that have been infrastructure issues
in the sense of things that come down to the county from Boise.
you know, that it makes it very, very hard in these resort communities to deal with, you
know, explosive growth or visitation and focus that much more around a more global conversation.
I
think this next one's for us, for the T-10 County commissioners.
If T-10 County IDO is a cooperating agency – actually, Rob can help with this one.
The T-10 County Idaho is a cooperating agency and socioeconomic impacts are a significant
concern.
Why is this study that is being funded by the county not going to be included in the EIS?
And then Rob mentioned that it would be a comment on the EIS.
Yes, that's right.
So again, our indication from SE Group was that certain aspects of development, especially
the base area development. We're just outside the scope of NEPA. They are doing it by the book,
and NEPA just kind of limits what they can cover. So we're looking into it on our own,
and we will submit it to as part of our comments during the 90-day comment period.
I think it'll help inform our comments. That's the other answer to that.
Is that the intention is that we have a little bit more information to share
when the study is complete on that really the socioeconomic, the fiscal impacts on our
community and our taxpayers.
And regardless of what happens with the EIS, I think it just gives us more information
to work with as, you know, we have more idea of what impacts we might be facing.
Yeah, for planning purposes.
Okay, here's one for Hamilton.
Can Hamilton provide some detail on which stakeholders would be involved in assessing
the effectiveness of the emergency management plan.
You know, I can take a quick amount of this, but it's a little early in all honesty, and
unfortunately that is a single sentence in this master plan.
So it's other than, I think it's in the glossary as well, defining what an emergency management
plan is, but it admittedly lacks much breadth in terms of a description requirement.
document. It is quite clear that that is going to be, because it would need to be implemented
within one year of the final plat of the first subdivision. It then enables us to require
that as a component of the submittal. So the original onus will be able to developer
to create that document as a component of the application that comes through for
development and plan. Our resources in the planning department, as it certainly is outside
of my expertise, would be, for instance, our emergency management coordinator in the county.
We also have our sheriff's department, certain contractual relationships with FIRE and EMS
and to jump in on Idaho. So we, during that review and analysis of the applications, would
certainly do what we call plan review or technical or plan review outreach. And those comments
and responses would inform the approval of the document.
For you, I'll just go skip to that one, which is, can T-10 County, Wyoming clarify
or re-iterate what the annual monitoring is.
I'm
still on unit, okay.
I apologize.
My ability to do that in a very complete and accurate way
is probably limited tonight.
There's monitoring of so many aspects of the base area development,
and they are a little bit random in terms of sequencing.
seen and is it a phase? Is it a development plan? Is it a – so I hesitate – anyone
can reach out to me and ask that question for a really formal and accurate answer, but it's
tough for me to do that over as a meeting.
Complicated.
Maybe some summary down the road in terms of what the – and again, it's
It's all tied to the LDRs, so it's not just Targi required to do monitoring.
It has to do with size of development.
Obviously, resort development is bigger than residential development in terms of what kind of monitoring
and requirements that the LDRs for Teton County or Wyoming have.
This is a good question that we can't answer, but I'm going to state it anyway.
What is the dollar amount of 100% of the tax revenue associated with the Targi development
that is projected to go to Teton County, Wyoming over the next, say, 10 years if all the
approvals are granted?
What is, I think, what the question is, and I'm not sure anyone can answer this,
but what's the anticipated tax revenue from development of the base area to Chitown County,
Wyoming? This is a question we have asked our consultant Econorthwest. I'm not sure they're
going to even be able to get at that, but is there anyone who wants to respond to that question
or is it a wait and see? The
next question I'm going to take one from the audience. This one
as for Mal, if you're so with us, how important is comfortable carrying capacity in your decision-making?
So I'm going to actually tip that over to Don, because I think he's going to have a
more cohesive answer as far as how we factor that into both the analysis as well as kind
of our decision-making process moving forward.
So let me give tip that over to Don, and then I will add on as he kind of answers
that.
I was responding to another question in the Q&A, so could you read that one more time?
Yeah, that one came from someone in the courthouse here.
So how important is comfortable carrying capacity in your decision-making?
So comfortable carrying capacity is a component of what we call and what Jordy described as the balance of facilities.
So you need to have an appropriate level of facilities that correspond to the comfortable
carrying capacity that's being provided and the services that are being provided.
So that number is a factor in making sure that any component of the decision that
is made is in support of the services that will be provided.
The
planers for Teton County Wyoming is the Grand Target Environmental Analysis Section
in the Teton County Wyoming Land Development Regulations.
Oh, sorry. It's saying in those regulations it states that no part of the 120 private acres of the base area is in the natural resource overlay or scenic resource overlay.
It is unclear why that is, as the NRO extends just below it, and the habitat in the base
area is an extension of what is inside the NRO. Will Wyoming Planning staff please explain
if
you can?
Well, I think it's a great question. These decisions preview my involvement, but it is
outside of both of those Indian overlays as indicated. The – I don't know whether
this – whether this process had any influence on decisions affecting the 120 acres or not,
but it's clearly stated in the adopted master plan amendment that UAs are not required for
or physical development within the PE zone.
So that's about all I can offer.
What's not required, did you say?
I missed that.
Environmental analysis.
So it's not just the NRO
that triggers a requirement for environmental analysis
at the county level,
but it is included in this master plan
that that step isn't required,
For instance, to pursue a DV,
what would that be a mitigation requirement for?
There are impacts, for instance, to vegetation or what could be construed as a wildlife habitat.
Was there some kind of agreement between GTR and the T-10 Creek corridor?
You know, in fact, natural resources overload line is a function of a much earlier decision in the 90s and 1994.
And subsequent to that there was an environmental analysis done. That date is also – that was in 2016, and that was when planning reviewed the concept of whether future EAs would be required or not.
There's
a history there that we can investigate potentially.
Definitely.
A question for Geordie. Thanks Hamilton. If Targi isn't meant to be a local secret,
can you share an example of a resort of a similar scale that you envisioned Targi growing into?
Or otherwise describe your vision for how the resort will continue to serve both locals and visitors?
an
example of that and but I my point was that it wasn't meant to be it wasn't
established as like a city park or a county park or like Bridget Bowl or the
Green Bed Hackers like this community humanity that that didn't really have
to look at necessarily like the P&L and the financial realities and there wasn't an owner
guaranteeing that on the hook if things didn't go right.
So that's what I meant.
It was established to, you know, be a resort and drive business here and, you know, I've
approached that that way every day to try to do the best job we can.
So, I mean, there's aspects of other resorts that, there's aspects of a lot of resorts that
I factor into what I would like to see happen here, but I think the unique opportunity is
that we can learn from a lot of that and do it differently, and that's my plan.
so the question I mean not to belabor this but is your vision to continue to
serve both locals and visitors yes of course okay and then I you've spoken a
little bit about sort of skier density and I think that is something that you
might want to touch on here as well like what what is the experience going
going to be like as a skier or a mountain biker going forward.
That's your vision for what that looks like.
Joked about this, and I'm increasingly thinking maybe
we should actually do this.
But I would love to load up a couple buses of people here
and take a field trip to see what other resorts are
providing locals, what the experience is like,
what they have to pay for it.
the quality of what we're presenting, the professionalism, etc.
And, you know, maybe in a slightly disingenuous way,
people actually do realize that and don't want it to be impacted.
But, you know, we really are putting out a,
you know,
I don't like to say a product, but we're putting out an experience that is completely embraceable
and manageable from a scale standpoint, but that's also, you know, we don't set our
sights to be like, hey, we want to be 40-second past at what we do, you know?
I mean, I think of the things that we like, or that are ski resort things, our goal is
to be the best that we can be and to provide the best experience.
And so, yeah, and as much as it hurts sometimes and gets really personal and all the rest
of it.
I mean at the end of the day I lived here too and I consider myself a local and I often get
very conflicted when I pull into the parking lot and my initial reaction is like, oh man
it's packed.
I'm like wait hold on, I think that's what we're trying to do here too.
or you know that there's more than like four cars at the Southern Valley Trailhead you know
for mountain biking or whatever or you know lots of people on the river but then at the same time
I do understand what all's gone into that and what our strengths are here and what a lot of
people have been trying to do to just get this entire area less boom and bust, bust.
And so, yeah.
On a different topic, but I've gotten a couple questions on this.
And again, it's majority, but now it just disappeared.
But it's basically how do you plan to protect the dark night sky with a restaurant
or other amenities on the mountain, additional amenities.
There's no such thing as an invisible ski resort
and I can see the light from one of our
hard-working groomers right now.
And, you know, there are impacts
when you put a chairlift in.
There are impacts when you put a road in or a restaurant.
All that being said, again, I live here.
I'm a resident.
that I appreciate what this area has to offer
and I have no intention and I don't think
I have any track record that suggests
that what I would wanna do is put a spotlight
at the top of the mountain.
We are subject to the LDRs.
That is one of the things that we agree to
that I think is, again, a real testament
to Teton County Wyoming trying to look out for the greater area. We are subject to the
LDRs. The LDRs do address lighting.
And, you know, I have no intention of wanting to just
light up the sky. But again, you can't make it invisible. But I think there's a lot of
things that you can do and a lot of strategies, and we intend to do that.
I'm
going to give you a little break. This question is for Rob.
It looks like he's already prepared to answer it.
It has been described that Eco Northwest will report on all the challenges
and limitations related to generating tax revenue to cover cost of impacts.
Will Eco Northwest also thoroughly investigate existing opportunities
use for potential tax revenue, such as local option tax revenue.
We'd like them to look into that, but the reality is that the cities can have some different
options on localized taxes, but the county is much more limited, and maybe actually
you could speak better to that, Cindy.
So...
Just throw the lateral over to you.
I mean, the answer to the question is absolutely, we've had a lot of conversations with
the Econorth West about our current constraints.
With tax revenue, they've also contacted
people who work for the Idaho State's Tax Commission
to better understand what those limitations are
and why they're in place, what laws
that we're basically operating under as a county.
And it's obviously political,
so is there anything we can do about it?
And from my perspective, being a commissioner for almost seven years, every single year there's a legislative session,
you know, we discuss as Idaho Association of Counties how to get the legislature to think more open-mindedly about local option taxes.
So local option taxes are when the voters go to the polls and they say we want to tax
ourselves either through property tax or in Idaho it's more the cities have the opportunity
to do a local option sales tax.
But counties do not currently, no counties in Idaho are allowed to do that.
Only resort cities are allowed to do it, so it's not every city, it's certain resort
communities which we are one of, the cities have that ability to do a local option sales tax and a
local option launching tax. We are working on that as a board with our association and our lobbyists but
it's you know the chances are slim that we can get this done and anytime soon given the current
make up on the legislature and their opposition to any kind of new taxes even if they require
voter approval.
Next question. This one goes back to the same question, it's revenue related.
Is there anyone who can answer the prior tax revenue question in terms of what Wyoming,
I mean, T-10 County, Wyoming might be looking at
for revenue from this development.
And maybe there's a comparison to T-10 Village.
Luther, I mean, I don't know if you're a good one for this,
but is there any estimate
on that base area development revenue?
I have no idea.
Sorry, I hate to speculate.
Good question for you.
Good Northwest, I just don't know.
Okay, thanks.
Cindy, I would say the same. I have no idea what projected revenues would be. They would
be certainly based upon the actual sales, when development happens and what the actual
sales volume is. County sales tax in Teton County is 6%, 4% is to the state, 2% to county.
If Eco Northwest can project what those sales would be, I think that's a very easy
calculation from there, speculating about what the actual sales would be, I don't
know that I could do that. We could probably get that information for a
tea time village by talking to our treasurer, but I don't have that
information right now. Okay.
One
more question.
This one is for the Forest
Service. I think we've done pretty well with most of these questions. It might
be reiterating a little bit of – and clarifying a little bit of what was said earlier, but
will a representative from the U.S. Forest Service explain whether the base area development
is being analyzed as a connected action in the draft EIS?
So I'll start, and Jay can fill in the blanks here, too, but the proposed action that's
part of this analysis is only for actions on federal land. So the decision will only
apply to actions on federal land. Connected actions is a term that we also use when it
relates to other authorities. So, you know, many people in your community are familiar
with the Endangered Species Act. That is an authority that will consider connected
actions on – regardless of land ownership. The decision space that we're looking
at is strictly for the federal land piece.
That
was a good final clarification because one of the main goals of this town hall was
really to help people understand the difference between the public land and the private land
and how those two different areas are connected and separate in terms of their analysis.
So thank you.
I just want to thank everyone who's offered their time to help educate our community tonight.
The panelists did a great job.
Thank you all for being here.
We had, I think at one point up to maybe 130 participants, so we've certainly educated
a lot more people than we probably would have done had we done it in person.
They were able to do it from home.
I plan to do more of these in the future.
I think we as a county can do a much better job
about educating our community
on all sorts of issues we're dealing with at the county,
not just Grand Turkeys.
So thanks for kind of being Argani Pigs.
And for everyone who has participated, we will have a recording of this, I believe.
I'm not sure if we'll be able to upload it. Again, this is kind of a test run.
Hopefully, for those who are asking for a recording, we'll be able to provide that.
But I can't guarantee it at this point.
Anything that anyone wants to add before we close our meeting, any of the panelists?
Hey Cindy, this is Mel Bowley. I just want to say thank you for the venue tonight and thanks for the opportunity to be part of the panel.
Thanks for joining us. Really appreciate it.
All right.
Thanks to our presenters. We appreciate it.
Motion to adjourn.
I'll move to adjourn.
I'll second that.
have a good night, good
out and see you this weekend.