New houses maxing out F.A.R. on small lots look like cruise ships going through ship locks. They are changing the character of our neighborhoods. The LDRs should encourage structures that are more congruent with neighborhood character.
The addition of ARUs to our quiet residential neighborhoods is a problem. This practice violates the explicit intent of the Comp plan to maintain the status quo density level within stable neighborhoods. ARUs add the potential for double or triple density. They should be confined to high density areas, and they absolutely should count against the valley-wide build out cap.
I vehemently oppose the suggestion that we should eliminate single family zoning altogether. This would totally undermine the Comp Plan’s character districts, and radically subvert our Town Periphery neighborhoods which are specifically designated to provide a less dense interface with the wildlands that we border.
Spreading density throughout Town’s residential neighborhoods is also bad planning from a transportation perspective. Development in the periphery is car-centric. The smart place to increase density is in the urban, commercial corridor of Jackson on investment properties through mixed use development. Density in this corridor could provide new residents with the opportunity to easily walk to work, services, and transit – eliminating the necessity of owning a car. The worker shortage is a problem for employers that should be solved by employers either on site or in the commercial district.
Lasty, I’m extremely concerned about a particularly neglected demographic – Working Class Free Market Homeowners. These are people who have invested their life savings in their homes. They have made innumerable sacrifices to pay their mortgages and maintain their homes. Most have supported and worked in our community for decades. Reengineering their residential neighborhoods in contravention of the Comp Plan is pulling the rug out from under these residents – all in the name of providing new workers for the insatiable commercial machine that is devouring Jackson Hole. Providing more workers for high end restaurants and 5 star hotels, providing public housing subsidies for lawyers, PHDs, and other elites should not be done at the expense of the quality of life of long time working class property owners. There is no moral high ground in destroying quiet neighborhoods or using taxpayer subsidies in order to bring in new workers to suppress wages so that rich people can have less expensive servants.
It’s also important to note that the proposals to increase the minimum rental period from 30 days to 60, 90, or 180 days will put further pressure on working class homeowners. Given the skyrocketing, highly regressive property tax bills we face, increasingly the only way to stay in our homes may be to move in with family for a month while we rent out our houses to help pay the tax burden. Proposals to put additional restrictions on the ability of working class homeowners to rent their property is particularly infuriating given that in the rest of the county the wealthy class flaunts the short term rental laws, earning thousands of dollars per night.
You should be protecting our beloved residential neighborhoods, not urbanizing them. You should be honoring the Comp Plan character districts, not undermining them. You shouldn’t be placing undue burdens on working class homeowners in order to cater to the wealthy class’ desires.