Nearly a year after the community weighed in on the first draft of the Jackson/Teton County Comprehensive Plan, the long-awaited second draft was released on April 13, 2009.

Since then, hundreds of people have voiced concerns similar to ours outlined below that this new draft plan will not protect what makes Jackson Hole world-renowned -- our rural landscape and the irreplaceable wildlife that it sustains. (Click here for our 8-page special report about the draft Comp Plan.)

Despite concerns that problems with the draft plan may be beyond the scope of the public hearing process to fix, officials are proceeding with a review of the draft. (Click here for a rundown of key recent Comp Plan meetings.) The town and county planning commissioners resumed public hearings on July 30, and are meeting each Thursday, 5:30 to 8:30 p.m. in the county chambers, 200 S. Willow, through the winter to work their way through the plan, making recommendations to improve it. (Click here for a link to the list of the planning commissioners' recommendations to date, and click here for this month's Alliance Action item on the Comp Plan.)

The Conservation Alliance will continue to work to ensure that both planning commissions incorporate the majority of public comments to date to come up with a Comp Plan that will actually protect Jackson Hole’s wildlife, open spaces and community character. Please check back for updates.

Click here for links to all of our comments regarding the Comp Plan rewrite.
Click here for the Alliance's detailed comments on the draft plan's Introduction and Vision chapters.
Click here for our detailed comments on Theme One (Promote Stewardship of Wildlife and Natural Resources) and Theme Two (Manage Growth Responsibly).
Click here for our detailed comments on Theme Three ( Uphold Jackson as Heart of the Region).
Click here for our detailed comments on Theme Four (Meet Our Community's Housing Needs).
Click here for our detailed comments on Theme Five (Provide for a Diverse and Balanced Economy).

MAJOR CONCERNS:

Without fundamental changes, the draft Comp Plan released on April 13 will not protect what makes Jackson Hole world-renowned -- our rural landscape and the irreplaceable wildlife that it sustains. The draft does not represent the will of the community, and it fails to provide good, predictable planning in fundamental ways. (Click here for our special 8-page report that outlines our concerns and suggestions.)

The draft fails the community's mandate -- and the original intent of the Comp Plan update process -- to consider the implications of buildout and evaluate the consequences of overall growth in the valley.

Not only that, it appears that much of the draft plan is based on a misperception that our community wants more growth than what's already allowed under our current Comp Plan. This simply isn't true. Surveys conducted in 2008 and written public comments on the first draft of the Comp Plan indicate strong community support for limiting overall growth. (Click here for our April 20 letter to planners and electeds that gives details.)

The draft plan also:

- Proposes too much development overall and doesn’t evaluate the consequences of growth in the valley. The new draft proposes MORE THAN DOUBLING the amount of residential and commercial development that’s already on the ground today. Yet it does not analyze what effect this much growth would have on our natural resources (like wildlife and aquifers) or our built resources (such as roads and schools). Look around. Long-term trends show that the region’s moose and mule deer populations are already in decline (see the article at www.jhnewsandguide.com/article.php?art_id=4632 for state figures). We’re already facing traffic problems, higher property taxes, full parking lots at trailheads and a lack of solitude on crowded trails. It’s a safe bet that doubling the development we already have could permanently degrade what makes Jackson Hole unique.

- Implies that allowing significantly increased development in the Town of Jackson, Teton Village, The Aspens, Wilson and South Park won’t harm wildlife, but all these areas have wildlife values. Also, the draft provides no assurances that we’ll actually get permanent protection for wildlife and rural areas in return for increased density elsewhere.

- Lacks an integrated approach to land use planning decisions. For example, it fails to acknowledge that the amount of commercial development it proposes will worsen, not relieve, our workforce housing shortage. The fact is, we can’t grow our way out of growth-related problems.

- Has dropped critical language from the 1994 Comp Plan that was specifically meant to protect our valley’s rural character and scenic views.

Click here for the Alliance's other "big picture" concerns about the Comp Plan draft, and click here for our preliminary comments. Throughout this process, the Conservation Alliance will continue to work to bring forward constructive and specific suggestions to fix it.

Questions? Come to our weekly Comp Plan discussions, 4:30 to 5:30 p.m. each Tuesday through the winter at the Alliance office, 685 S. Cache. Or contact Alliance community planning director Kristy Bruner at (307) 733-9417 or Kristy@jhalliance.org.

PLEASE HELP:

Jackson Hole needs your help to get the plan back on track. Please read the draft plan and then comment online at www.jacksontetonplan.com to demand that it will do what our community has repeatedly said we want it to do -- protect Jackson Hole's wildlife, natural resources, scenery and character.

You may also submit comments to:
Jeff Noffsinger, Jackson principal planner, jnoffsinger@ci.jackson.wy.us
Town of Jackson, P.O. Box 1687, Jackson, WY 83001
Alex Norton, Teton County lead planner, anorton@tetonwyo.org
Teton County Planning Department, P.O. Box 1727, Jackson, WY 83001
Click here for a list of other people to share your comments with.

The complete 157-page draft, as well as about 480 pages of appendices, are available as chapter-by-chaper PDF downloads via the Comp Plan update website, www.jacksontetonplan.com.

Printed copies of the Comp Plan second draft are for sale at Staples, 520 W. Broadway. Staples is charging about $18 for a black and white copy of the draft alone; with the appendices, the cost is about $65. Since the draft includes maps that only make sense in color, Staples is offering a mostly black and white version of the 157-page draft with just the maps in color for about $27. A mostly black and white version of the appendices with key pages in color costs about $157.

You're also welcome to stop by our office at 685 S. Cache (click here for a map) any weekday between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. to read one of our copies here. Or, if you bring in a blank CD, we'll be happy to burn a copy of the whole thing for you to take home. The Teton County Library at 125 Virginian Lane also has a copy at the reference desk that you can read there.

Meanwhile, please see “A Comp Plan Update” below for additional specific concerns. Our detailed comments on the first draft of the Comprehensive Plan are available by clicking here. You might also want to check out our recent article on the Comp Plan and sustaining Jackson Hole, and “Balancing Act,” our publication on growth and the Comp Plan update. Pick up your copy at the Conservation Alliance office, 685 S. Cache, or download the PDF.

Encouragingly, a number of neighborhood groups are working to promote citizen involvement in the Comp Plan, making it easier to stay informed and providing opportunities to work together to bring good ideas to the process. Neighbors are getting together in South Park, East Jackson, Wilson, Cottonwood Park, North of Town, the Westbank and other areas. Given the Conservation Alliance’s mission to inspire citizens to stay engaged in this community process, we encourage you to get involved. If you’d like to be included in the email list of any of these groups, just email Kristy Bruner at kristy@jhalliance.org and she’ll forward your contact information to them.

A Comp Plan Update:

Old Versus the New -- Throughout 2009, the Conservation Alliance will continue to make recommendations for the new Comp Plan, through both written comments and at stakeholder group meetings. We'll continue to emphasize the importance of retaining relevant guidelines and language from the 1994 Comp Plan that still speak accurately to community input and issues. The 1994 plan is the one under which Jackson and Teton County are currently operating, and the revision is supposed to be an update, not a rewrite. We still want to see the protection of rural character, scenery and a small town environment as central elements of the plan. To date, the new draft has appeared to shift away from this underlying goal. For instance, the 1994 plan specifies that Jackson Hole's economic sustenance will not be dependent on population growth; the new draft states that "...the community recognizes that ecosystem preservation and protection does not preclude growth." More specifically, our 1994 plan is a character-based plan. Many have criticized it for lacking definition and specificity. While it certainly could use clarification in some areas, it actually provides clear, fundamental direction on what character means from a land-use planning approach. Through its focus on the preservation of rural character, it intended to promote the preservation of low-density characteristics throughout the valley. It clearly linked community values (preservation of open spaces, scenery and wildlife habitat) to allowable development potential. Less development on the landscape would result in fewer impacts on those key community values, which remain of the highest priority to local citizens. We will work to make sure that these concepts and language are not dropped, but rather clarified and strengthened at finer scales.

Smart Growth – Where are the Tradeoffs? -- Fundamentally, we will strive to make sure the revised Comp Plan implements ‘tradeoffs’ that truly work on the ground, and in action, rather than in theory. Many proponents of increased development and density in Jackson (who tout smart growth) say that taller buildings, upzones in town, and increasingly confined development footprints are good for the environment because they enable the preservation of open spaces and wildlife habitat in the county. However, a key element of this argument is missing. THERE IS NO LINK BETWEEN THE INTENSIFICATION OF TOWN AND THE PRESERVATION OF OPEN SPACES AND HABITAT IN THE COUNTY. To date, taller buildings in town do not have anything to do with open space and habitat protection. In addition, impacts, such as the increased demand for workforce housing generated by commercial development, extend well beyond the sites of developments. As a result, this argument tends to not recognize the numerous indirect impacts of further population increases in the valley. So, what’s the end result? As larger projects in Jackson are approved, density is permanently being added in town. But there's no corresponding protection happening for the county's important scenic areas and wildlife habitats.  Without some linkage, we could end up with both sprawl in the county and congestion in town -- clearly NOT ‘smart growth’ for Jackson Hole. It’s important to understand that what might sound good in theory, isn’t actually happening in reality.