Commissioners Deny Corner Fox Amendment

DRIGGS — Teton County commissioners voted 3-0 August 24 to deny the Corner Fox industrial redesignation, reversing the approval they granted the same application six weeks earlier.

Commissioner Dan Powers moved to deny. Commissioner Ron James seconded. Chairman Brad Wolfe read the result into the record: "Motion carries unanimously."

The board approved the redesignation 2-1 on July 13, with James moving approval and Commissioner Powers casting the only no vote. It then reopened the decision on July 27 after learning its packet had omitted a City of Driggs objection. The board did not sign the July approval into a resolution, and the August hearing replaced it.

"Having concluded that the criteria for an approval of a comprehensive plan amendment found in LDC 4-4 F have not been satisfied, specifically criteria H, D, and F," Commissioner Powers read from the motion, "and in light of the long-term planning efforts that are underway, I move to deny." Under the county's Land Development Code, those three criteria ask whether an amendment harms existing development patterns, whether it benefits the county as a whole and not one landowner alone, and whether it conforms to the code's stated purpose.

Corner Fox LLC had asked the county to change 14.25 acres at Highway 33 and 5000 South, about three and a half miles north of Victor, from a rural designation to Industrial Research on the comprehensive plan's future land use map. County planning staff reported they could find no instance of that map being amended since the plan was adopted.

Between the two hearings, Driggs, Victor and Tetonia sent a joint letter opposing the change, with all three mayors signing on. The county attached to the August agenda a document the July packet did not carry: a January 2015 letter from then-County Prosecutor Kathy Spitzer to Aaron Powers, who represents Corner Fox LLC, titled "Illegal Uses." That letter told Aaron Powers his operation violated county code, listed four violations, and stated that "the processing of material does not qualify as a non-conforming use on your property."

The application argues the redesignation returns the site to a historic industrial use dating to about 1930. Anna Trentadue, appearing for two nearby property owners whose letter 15 neighbors joined, told the board that history does not support the claim. "This was an illegally expanded, previously cited by the county nonconforming use," she said. "No conditional use permit was ever granted to this property." She called the application the third attempt on the parcels since 2007.

Brad Cramer, the planner representing Corner Fox LLC, said he had not seen the 2015 letter before it appeared in the packet. Aaron Powers addressed it himself after public comment closed. He said he applied for a conditional use permit in 2016 and pulled it when he learned the permit could be revoked after three violations of its conditions. "That's why I withdrew my application in 2015 or '16," he said, "because there was no way I was going to risk that nonconforming use that I had."

"The alternative to this will be us continuing to operate what we're doing currently, having a loaded dump truck merging on the highway," Aaron Powers told the board. "That's a use that we currently have that we're not going to give up."

No commissioner mentioned the enforcement history in deliberation.

"The biggest issue I have is the traffic," James said. "We can't handle what we got." He said the valley needs businesses that keep young people from leaving, "but I just don't think this is the right time for this."

Commissioner Powers said the idea of small commercial nodes serving outlying parts of the county has merit and belongs in the comprehensive plan rewrite, not a single parcel's application. He said the Idaho Transportation Department's congestion study on Highway 33 is "literally going to be starting in the next few weeks," and that the Industrial Research zone's own description in county code says it does not belong in a scenic byway.

Wolfe said the comprehensive plan is "a living document" meant to be amended when the county needs it amended, and that the question was whether this was such a case. He said he is an advocate for property owners' rights. "I've seen overwhelming opposition to this," he said. "Today, zero in favor of."

County Planning Administrator Joshua Chase explained the same morning how the July error happened. "We had it saved in two different places on our drive," he told the board. "We had parallel files with different information. That was where we ran into the problem the first hearing, that we'd put it in one of these and loaded it from another one."

What to watch: Corner Fox LLC's application to rezone the parcels from RN-5 to Industrial Research is already on file with the county, Cramer told the board, and awaits a Planning and Zoning Commission hearing. That request needs the comprehensive plan designation the commissioners declined to grant. The county's comprehensive plan rewrite has funding allocated and has not yet begun.

Commissioners Deny the Corner Fox Industrial Amendment, Reversing Their Own Approval

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