The Two-Week Ahead: Five County Hearings and a $9 Million Victor Budget

Five county hearings run back to back Tuesday evening in front of the Teton County Planning and Zoning Commission, on a drive-in theater, a private high school, two code amendments and a rezone. Tetonia holds its 2027 budget hearing the same night, and Victor holds its own the next evening on an appropriation of $9,023,870. The stretch closes with a 56-acre Victor rezone, the county's own budget hearing and the first day of school.

Tuesday, August 11 — five county hearings, and Tetonia takes up its budget

The county planning commission starts at 5 p.m. in the Commissioners' Meeting Room at 150 Courthouse Drive and works through five county hearings scheduled back to back through the evening.

The first is a code amendment from THH LLC, which does business as Moose Creek Ranch, and it arrives with the commission's own denial recommendation already attached. The request would raise the guest density allowed on a guest or dude ranch to three rooms or units per acre, capped at 60 units; let yurts, tiny homes, tents and tipis count as guest rooms; remove the numerical limits on on-site events; open food and beverage service to the public, which the code now limits to guests; and add the use as a limited use in the FH-20 zone, a lighter review than the special use permit the code requires now.

The commission recommended denial in March on a 5-2 vote, citing the density increase, the loss of open space, the absence of event limits and the shift from special use to limited use. Commissioners held their own hearing in April and directed the applicant and staff to work on changes. Tuesday's hearing is on the ordinance that came back.

At 5:30 the commission hears a special use permit for the Spud Drive-In. MD SPUD LLC wants to restore the historic drive-in footprint on Highway 33 and run it as an open-air theater for patrons seated in their cars. The county adopted a drive-in theater code in April that cleared the way for this application.

At 6 p.m., applicant Taylor Cook asks the county to create a new Residential 2.5 zoning district that would set density by surrounding development patterns and by how close a property sits to municipal sewer. At 6:30, the Wild Water and Teton West school request seeks a site-specific zoning change at 2301 N. Highway 33 in Driggs to establish a small four-year private high school. At 6:50, the Rodman-Wojas request would rezone two properties at 980 and 840 E. 350 S. from rural residential at 20-acre average density to Industrial Research. Staff write that the future land use map shows the area as suited for Industrial Research, and that land to the north was recently rezoned the same way. They also note the parcels abut homes to the south, and that zoning in the area "has not strictly respected approximate edges of these designations." The map dates to 2012; the current zoning was applied in 2022.

The commission also has a written decision in front of it on the Strange wetland variance, a request heard in June to build a residence inside a riparian wetland buffer near N. 5000 W.

Across town at 6:30 p.m., the Forest Service, Teton County Fire & Rescue, the sheriff's office and county emergency management hold a Ready, Set, Go! evacuation workshop at the Teton County Fairgrounds, a small-group session on building a household evacuation plan. Stage 1 fire restrictions took effect across Teton County on August 7 and run through September 30. They apply to federal, state and private land and exempt city limits. A separate Forest Service order closed the lower Lady Slipper trail and the Sherman Springs Road area on the Teton Basin district for active logging through September 4.

Tetonia's City Council meets at 7 p.m. at City Hall with a public hearing on the city's 2027 budget and an appropriation ordinance to follow. The same agenda carries a FEMA floodplain land use amendment, the Calder rezone ordinance, a revised Pinnacle Peaks ordinance, and separate action items on a wastewater facility planning study and a drinking water facility planning study. The agenda does not print a budget total. The meeting ends in executive session.

Wednesday, August 12 — Victor's budget, a council seat, and a Driggs rezone

The council takes up the open seat Wednesday, the one that came free when Sue Muncaster became interim mayor and the city opened applications in late July. Applications closed August 10. The council interviews applicants at a special meeting at 10 a.m., the time the city noticed. Public interviews are the fifth step in the seven-step process the city set out, and the mayor's nomination and the council's confirmation are expected at the August 26 meeting.

At 6 p.m. at 138 N. Main the council holds its public hearing on Ordinance O653, the annual appropriation for the fiscal year running October through next September, at $9,023,870. Written comments are due by 1 p.m. that day. The council also has two ordinances in work session, one amending sewer user charges and one amending the design review committee code, and its consent calendar carries a continued item on the city's wastewater reclamation facility plan amendment. Council members are scheduled to debrief the joint meeting with Driggs held in late July.

The Driggs Planning and Zoning Commission meets the same evening at 6 p.m. at City Hall on ZC26-1, a request from the Price family to rezone 1.87 acres on East Ross Avenue from single- and two-family residential to multi-family. The applicant intends fourplexes.

Saturday, August 15 — the Felt dam deadline

Anyone who wants a public hearing on Idaho's draft water-quality certification for the Felt Hydroelectric Project must request one in writing by August 15. Without a request there is no hearing, and written comment becomes the only channel. The certification is tied to Fall River Rural Electric's federal relicensing of the dam on the Teton River about nine miles northwest of Tetonia. Comments run through September 14 and go to the Department of Environmental Quality's Idaho Falls office.

Thursday, August 20 — a 56-acre rezone in Victor

Victor's Planning and Zoning Commission meets at 7 p.m. at 138 N. Main on three applications. The largest is a request from applicant Kunz to rezone 56.04 acres at 8235 Baseline Road and Aspen Street from RS-16 to RS-7, cutting the minimum lot size across seven parcels from 16,000 square feet to 7,000. The notice attaches no project or subdivision name to it.

The commission also takes up a 2.8-acre annexation at 930 W. 7800 S. and a variance on 1.26 acres at 222 W. Center Street. On the variance, the commission is the decision maker and there is no council step.

Monday, August 24 — the county budget hearing, and school starts

The county commission set August 24 as the hearing date for its 2027 budget when it approved the budget for noticing in late July, and the clerk's notice runs in the newspaper August 12 and 19. The hearing has not yet appeared on the county's online meeting calendar. Readers who plan to attend should confirm the time before going.

Teton School District 401 starts the school year the same day, with classes at the high school, middle school and Basin and open houses at the four elementary schools.

Calendar

What We're Watching

The guest-ranch amendment leads the county hearings, and it comes back to the same commission that recommended denying it in March. Commissioners took their own hearing in April and sent it back with direction, and the staff report tells the planning commission it is "free to make any recommendations they choose to, regardless of the direction the BoCC provided." A second recommendation against it would put the two bodies at odds on the same application twice.

Victor's posted agenda prints the appropriation total the hearing notice left out, putting a public number on the city's 2027 spending. The county spent the summer asking Victor and Driggs to raise what they pay toward sheriff's deputies, and the county's own 2027 budget goes to hearing twelve days after Victor's.

What to watch: Whether the planning commission holds its denial recommendation on the guest-ranch amendment now that the ordinance has come back rewritten, or treats the commissioners' direction as having settled it.

Sources

• Teton County meeting agendas
• Tetonia City Council agendas
• Victor City Council meetings and agendas
• Victor Planning and Zoning August 20 hearing notice
• Driggs Planning and Zoning August 12 rezone notice
• Driggs City Council meetings
• Idaho DEQ draft Felt Hydroelectric certification
• Caribou-Targhee National Forest Stage 1 fire restrictions
• Teton Basin Ranger District area and trail closure
• Teton School District 401
• Music on Main
• Teton County adopts drive-in theater code, clearing the LDC path for a Spud rebuild
• Victor opens applications to fill a vacant council seat
• Victor and Driggs councils take no votes in first joint wastewater session
• Teton County's FY27 budget grows, shifting toward dispatch and the jail