Smash Recreation Center Clears Zoning

DRIGGS — Teton County commissioners on Monday ruled that Smash Recreation Center's indoor batting cages and soccer field fit a use the county's code already allows, settling the zoning question that has held the facility up since August. It still cannot open. The same motion says the facility must still meet building and fire codes. County staff found no building permit on file for the structure, so it has no certificate of occupancy, and it needs one from the county building official, along with the fire marshal's sign-off, before anyone can use it.

The facility, in a former potato warehouse at 2540 South 5000 West, was set to open Sept. 4. In August, Planning Administrator Joshua Chase found it "not sufficiently similar to an Outdoor Recreation Field" and wrote that "the use is not permitted except by adding a new use to the table." Jason and Sidney Wilcox appealed. The county planning commission split 3-3 twice on Sept. 22 and sent the appeal to the commissioners without ruling on it.

Commissioner Dan Powers made the motion Monday afternoon, "to overturn the planning administrator determination that the Smash… indoor batting cage soccer facility is not similar to the park and rec fields category on the grounds that this site-specific use is of lower intensity" than the outdoor uses the category allows. His motion added that "this ruling does not eliminate the need for the indoor use to meet all building, fire or other applicable code requirements." Three ayes followed; the chair did not call for opposing votes.

When the item first came up, a little before 3 p.m., Commissioner Ron James asked the county's contract attorney, Andrew Rawlings, what would happen if the board ruled anyway. "It would be a blatant violation for the board, so there could be issues for the commissioners individually," Rawlings said. "The decision could be voided." "And so as commissioners, we could be found in violation of state statute?" Powers asked. Wolfe said yes. "Yeah, I'm not doing that," Powers said.

The board tabled the item and returned to it about 4:10 p.m. Chair Brad Wolfe said the commissioners had decided "to consider the tied decision from the Planning and Zoning Commission as a denial… of the motion," which returned the matter to Chase, "and the applicants have paid and asked for us to hear an appeal. And so we are now doing that."

Powers read aloud from Chase's determination, which cited differences in "building intensity, operational characteristics, staffing, traffic generation, and commercial nature." "In some ways it feels, for the most part, like this is a lower intensity use," he said. "And the one inside doesn't have the outside light pollution or the noise," Wolfe said. Earlier in the afternoon, James had put it more bluntly: "We're stifling a business over a word that was left out of an ordinance. If they had put the word indoor in there… this would be a moot point."

Chase said he had "actually wanted a broader body than myself" to take the question up. "I'm having a hard time shoehorning this in to say this is the same, but that's why we have an appeal procedure for a diverse group of people to take up that question… I don't see myself as a king making these… decisions." What had set the indoor use apart for him was that outdoors "you don't have to deal with fire codes." Under zoning, "it looks like you need to get permits from other entities, but it's a use permitted by right."

Chase said before the vote that it was "not really clear" whether the board was deciding one site or deciding that indoor recreation fits the category countywide. He called it "this intersection of… a quasi-judicial… site-specific decision versus a code change, a legislative decision." The commissioners told him to keep drafting a code amendment that would add indoor recreation as a use, work Wolfe said Chase expected could be done by December. Chase said about three other people had approached the county with indoor recreation proposals.

The building and fire officials had held off until the land-use question was answered. At an earlier meeting with the applicants, Chase told the board, the building official and the fire chief "were hesitant to… try to say, yeah, we're gonna give you all this information on an uncertainty."

Kevin Brown, deputy chief of prevention and fire marshal for Teton County Fire & Rescue, described that review in an email to the Signal last week. If the county allowed the use, "the next step would be for them to contract with a licensed architect," who would look at "use, occupant load, changes to exiting, fire resistive materials, fire suppression, etc." Idaho law, Brown wrote, requires an architect to determine the life-safety changes when a building's occupancy moves to a higher hazard classification. "These stamped plans would then be submitted to the county building official and the fire marshal to be checked for code compliance." His department's preliminary research found "it is possible that the building would require some work to be code compliant."

What to watch: whether the Wilcoxes file stamped plans with the county building official, and the indoor recreation code amendment.

Smash Recreation Center Clears Zoning; Code Review Is Next

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