CALL TO ACTION MONDAY 2/28: Legacy Lodge
Tomorrow evening, the County Planning Commission will consider approving a change of use for Legacy Lodge to be used for apartment buildings for Workforce deed restrictions.
We think that allowing Legacy Lodge to be changed into apartments could be a huge win-win as long as there are permanent deed restrictions in place: the owners can make $ and local workers can unlock new places to live.
- If you are a Rafter J resident, please speak up and let your Commissioners know that you would love to have more local worker neighbors! Since a lot of the resistance is coming from Rafter J, residents weighing in is especially powerful.
- Even if you’re not a Rafter J resident, please weigh in and say that you SUPPORT allowing workers to live in Legacy Lodge.
Email: cneubecker@tetoncountywy.gov
Better yet: call into the meeting on Monday, 2/28 at 6pm to give your comment! Zoom link here.
RET Bill Fails… for now!
House Bill 35 would have given counties in Wyoming the option to put a real estate tax on a county ballot. Unfortunately, the bill failed in the state legislature. We need to celebrate the small victories along the way (like the bill passing out of the Revenue Committee in the first place and making it to the House Floor)!
It’s not over. It took decades to get the lodging tax passed, and we never thought it would be easy to get a bill like HB 35 signed into law. A HUGE thanks to our local delegation for working so hard to get this bill through. The fight continues!
400 W. Snow King
GREAT NEWS: The upcoming housing development at 400 W. Snow King just received additional funding from the WCDA, which means that 48 of these units will be Affordable for local workers! As a reminder: Affordable deed-restricted homes are income-linked, meaning that you need to make under 120% Median Family Income (MFI) to live in these homes. The current MFI for a single-person household in Teton County is hovering around $80k. Workforce homes, on the other hand, have no asset or income limits for occupants.
The Preservation Program Perseveres!
More great news: all Town Councilors and County Commissioners (except for Councilor Rooks) voted to continue the Preservation Program, which provides down payment/mortgage assistance to locals in exchange for placing a permanent deed restriction on their home.
This tool alone won’t solve the problem: we cannot build our way out of the housing crisis, so we need to think of ways to “unlock” housing units that already exist and make them exclusively available to full-time community members in perpetuity. Read the article here.
Federal Funding
Thanks to federal acts like ARPA, we need to make sure that community leaders are making a deliberate effort to access as much federal funding as possible. We wrote a letter to our representatives to ensure they are dedicating resources to pursuing these opportunities. We also organized a meeting with local electeds and a consultant who specializes in accessing these funds. The Town Council is now looking into working with this consultant—stay tuned!
Hot Topics in Housing
ShelterJH members share relevant articles with one another through our Google Group. Here are what our conversations have been about this month:
- Missed the 2/3 Housing BOB? Check it out here.
- Denver Post: Naturally-occurring affordable housing is going extinct
- NY Times: YIMBY and mountain lions
- Time: “Two Bills” decide to fund a failing city
- Deseret News: Wealth inequality in ski towns as a harbinger for national problems
- Forbes: How the wealthy defeated an affordable housing development in Whitefish
- Guest Shot (JH News and Guide): Say yes to housing solutions
