Density Limit Out, Family Land Division Vote Delayed

DRIGGS — Teton County commissioners struck the average-density requirement from their family land division ordinance Monday, then stopped short of adopting it and continued the vote to Nov. 9 to ask the county's attorney whether the change needs another public hearing.

The ordinance would create a new section of the Land Development Code. As it now stands, an owner of at least five acres could convey as many as three parcels to a parent, child, sibling, grandparent or grandchild without going through subdivision review. Each new parcel would run between one and five acres, and the land would have to have been in the same ownership for ten years. The planning administrator would approve the splits, in writing, without a hearing.

County Administrator Billie Siddoway made the edits at the board's direction. "So I made 3 changes," she said. Asked what was left of the zoning limit: "You could do 3 splits, and there's no requirement to conform to underlying zoning. I just struck that entire paragraph."

Board Chairman Brad Wolfe had pushed for that earlier in the item. "The reason this whole thing came up is because the land lot size changed two years ago, and prevented families from being able to do this," he said. "I don't want to go to the underlying rules because I think they're unfair for a family split." Later: "I just wanted to go back to what it was before the last code change."

The county used to zone agricultural ground by minimum lot size, and its largest agricultural district carried a 20-acre minimum. The Land Development Code that took effect Aug. 3, 2022 repealed that system and replaced it with average density, which now determines how many houses a parcel can hold: 35 acres per dwelling unit in the two largest agricultural districts, with a one-acre minimum lot. The code has been amended at least twice since, most recently on May 27, 2026.

The same code repealed a short plat ordinance the county adopted in May 2019, and that ordinance closely matches what the board says it wants back. In the 20-acre district, it required "at least 40 acres for 2 parcels, 60 acres for 3 parcels, or 80 acres for 4 parcels."

"If someone has forty acres and they want to split it into four lots, maybe we put some size things on there, minimums and maximums," Wolfe said. He "wouldn't even care if it was more than four, but I understand there's the subdivision rule and things like that we want to steer clear of."

Commissioner Dan Powers wanted the narrower version. "If they used to be 20-acre zoning and now they're 35 and they've got a 40-acre parcel, let's at least kind of get them back to" one exempt lot, he said, which "gets them 2 lots out of that 40-acre parcel." Commissioner Ron James sided with Wolfe.

When the previous commissioners adopted the last round of code amendments in October 2024, they approved them on the Planning and Zoning Commission's recommendation "to advance further conversation on defensible space and heritage land splits." All three of those commissioners are gone, and the conversation resumed at a county work meeting in February.

A working draft from May set a flat five-acre average density "regardless of the underlying zoning" and barred a quick resale. The version the Planning and Zoning Commission recommended 7-0 on Sept. 8 dropped all of that and restored base zoning instead.

An Oct. 11 memo to the board put the resale limit back as a deed restriction, running ten years after the conveyance and payable if the recipient sells to anyone outside the family. The ordinance estimates the damages at $100,000 and does not set a final figure.

The recipient would also have two years to pull a building permit, with two one-year extensions available before the split could be voided.

At the commission's September hearing, Trevor Ricks said he was "in favor of being able to sell a corner off to somebody who's not my family," and Lan Hertz wanted the same option. Penny Vasquez said that if she got "cancer or some medical handicap, the ability to sell an acre would pay for that issue." Ida Hansen, who said her family has owned its ranch for 127 years, told the commission it had "a lot of guardrails on it already that don't make a lot of sense to me."

Planning Administrator Joshua Chase told the board the planning commission had seen that idea. "They did look at a version that varied from just following zoning," he said, "and there they recommended, no, let's just stick with zoning." The board's own October hearing had taken comment on the one-lot version. "If you want to do something different than that, I think that is a significant change, in my opinion, that you might want to get more public input on." Asked again later, he was flatter: "I don't think we've had a version in front of the public that looks like that to get comment on."

Powers put the question to the county's outside counsel, Andrew Rawlings, relaying an argument made at open mic that morning: that cutting the splits loose from underlying density amounts to changing the density countywide, "and therefore we should have a public hearing to address that change."

Rawlings gave the board both answers. "If you're comfortable that P&Z had its public hearing on that, and the board had its public hearing 2 weeks ago nearly, so if you're comfortable that the public has had its opportunity to voice on that, then you're okay to proceed," he said. "If you think that the change is something that the public wasn't aware of before, or that P&Z hasn't considered and was able to make a recommendation on, then the process is there to go through again. So not to answer a question undefinitively, but that's my answer."

Rawlings left the meeting after that. By late afternoon, Siddoway had tried through Chase. "I messaged Joshua too and asked if he talked to him today," she said. "He says he hasn't been able to talk to Andrew."

"According to Joshua, this item was discussed," Wolfe said. "We haven't changed it significantly enough to require another public hearing. If we have, we will."

The county's own action memo lists density as the single provision that "remains unsettled," and concludes that "the density requirement is an quick fix [sic], and staff should be able to make any desired changes during the meeting." It ends with a motion to adopt, written out and ready.

Wolfe opened the board's hearing on the family land division Oct. 13 and asked for anyone opposed, then for anyone neutral. "Seeing none," he said both times. Four people spoke, all of them in favor.

Lori Ringel, who had also spoken in September and is settling her mother's estate with her younger brother, has spent two years trying to pass about 18 acres each to two older brothers. "One wants to farm it, one wants to sell," she told the board, and by her reading, the one who sells would have to pay the county back. She had read what was posted and sent the commissioners a letter. "I have not seen any of the amendments, so I don't know what's in there or if any of them will even help us."

One of the four was a farmer who had been trying for a long time to get his son a parcel to build on. "I guess I don't understand why it is so hard to put this together so that I can do that," he said. Wolfe asked what he was working with. "We have about 800 acres, and I can't give him 2 acres to put a house on," he said, and James finished the sentence for him: "Unless you go through the subdivision process." Farming, the farmer said, is "tight enough that it's not like I'm trying to make money developing a subdivision."

What to watch: The board returns to the family land division Nov. 9. The agenda posts to the county's meeting portal ahead of the meeting, and the item is not currently noticed as a public hearing.