Commissioners Unanimously Approve Smallwood Event Barn

DRIGGS — Teton County commissioners unanimously approved a special use permit Oct. 13 for an event barn on the Smallwood family's 80-acre farm on West 2500 North, capping most events at 250 guests.

The event barn, which has not been built, is designed to hold up to 383 people, according to the county staff report. The commissioners' motion limited events to 250 people, with two events a year allowed up to the building's maximum, and barred commercial events on Sundays and Mondays. It also requires the owner to treat West 2500 North for dust with magnesium chloride once a year, from Highway 33 to the barn, and adds seven recommendations from the applicant's traffic study that the county Planning and Zoning Commission did not have when it voted. Those join the 14 conditions the commission attached when it recommended approval 5-2 on July 14.

Applicant Mavanee Smallwood told commissioners the building and surrounding infrastructure would have "a 2-acre footprint" and that "the remaining acres will continue to be used for farming purposes, for hay and for livestock." She said, "Most events will host 25 to 50 guests," and listed family reunions, recitals, memorial services, fundraisers and business conferences alongside weddings.

In 1993 the family partnership that held her grandmother Edith Little's farm was dissolved and the land divided among Edith's three children, under deeds that barred selling or mortgaging any of it, during the lifetimes of Edith's children and their heirs then living, except to the other two branches of the family. Smallwood and other heirs sued their Little relatives, and in January the Idaho Supreme Court held the restrictions to be "unreasonable restraints on alienation," noting that owners "are unable to obtain an operating loan or secure other financing to allow them to farm, ranch, or improve the land." On remand, the Teton County district court entered a judgment, recorded April 3, saying the restrictions on all three family parcels "are void and have no effect."

In her presentation, Smallwood said, "I want to honor my grandmother's intention to retain the land as well as do something with it that will benefit the residents of Teton Valley." In her rebuttal she added, "I could put a subdivision on there if we needed to, but that's not what I want to do, and that's not what my family had planned to do either."

Six people spoke against the permit and two in favor; one spoke from a neutral position. Two of the opponents live in the Highland Meadows subdivision. The first said they live in "Highland Meadows neighborhood, which is adjacent to the proposed event barn," and the second said, "We live on, like I said, the adjacent property." On the county's GIS parcel map, the nearest Highland Meadows lot is 2,089 feet from the nearest corner of the Smallwood parcel and 3,547 feet from its middle.

The first Highland Meadows resident told commissioners "there are many, many places to meet in the valley. I don't, I don't see the need." Later in the same comment, the resident said, "This area is growing, and yes, for the time being, maybe we have events of a certain size around here, but with the growth that brings more, more, more, more people."

Of the applicant's noise study, the second Highland Meadows resident said, "I don't know how in the world they could have done that survey without coming onto our property and actually testing. ... I promise you we can hear you." The study measured 45 decibels of ambient noise in the field and found a speaker played outdoors at 100 to 120 decibels dropped to 50 to 55 decibels at the property lines, according to the staff report. The noise plan adopted with the conditions caps sound at 60 decibels at the property line and keeps event sound systems inside.

A resident of Tetonia Highlands Lane called the barn "a commercial use thrust in the midst of a residential area." The parcel is zoned Lowland Agriculture.

Niki Richards of Valley Advocates for Responsible Development (VARD) said, "We wholeheartedly support a denial on this one." Failing that, Richards asked commissioners to borrow the 12-events-a-year cap the county applies to guest ranches, with no more than four events over 150 guests.

A commenter who joined by Zoom predicted guests would leave events drunk and "wander around until they think they can get to their homes without getting picked up for a DUI," called the idea that lights would go off at 10 p.m. "poppycock," and said the property "will be sold the moment it's built." She asked Commissioners Brad Wolfe and Dan Powers to vote no "because, of course, Commissioner James has a distinct conflict in that he is a caterer."

Smallwood's daughter told commissioners that the cows and horses on the property "are actually ours" and that "it's expensive to pay the taxes here." A wedding planner "with 95% of my work in Jackson Hole" said, "I would love to have something local," and that at events with alcohol "we want to make sure that there is transportation provided for the guests."

When the board took up the application, Commissioner Ron James began by answering the caterer remark. "I plan on being retired by the time this place is built," he said.

James then read the noise limits in the county's land development code, which he said allow 85 decibels from 8 to 10 p.m., and said the 60 decibels the applicant agreed to "is way under that. So let's just take that off the board." Citing "over 100 weddings in this county," he said "a third of them use buses when there's alcohol being served" and that "the sweet spot for weddings in this county is 100 to 150 people."

"The folks to be saying it's gonna be 400 people 365 days a year is ridiculous," James said. "You couldn't even keep up with that business. I've done weddings back to back in days, and it's almost impossible. It almost kills you." He called the testimony "a lot of speculation. It's always on the very high end to the extreme, and that bothers me," and said, "This county needs a place like this."

To the argument that approval would set a template, James said a special use permit applicant has to "come up here before the board and give us a reason, a very good reason, for us to approve it," and that the board decides each one "on their own merit." Of the idea that "everybody's going to come out in Teton County and build a party barn," he said, "Little ludicrous in my opinion."

Wolfe, the board's chair, raised a capacity limit "because there's been lots of comments about the maximum number of people there," noting the traffic study was done for about 200 guests. James objected: "I got a real problem with government interfering with private business." Smallwood said, "I would be happy to limit the number of big events. I don't think that you should be limiting how many I can have in here." She added, "I don't really want to have a 400-person event or 383 or whatever the square footage is."

County Public Works Director Darryl Johnson told commissioners, "We reconstructed the road about 2 years ago, 3 years ago," and put the cost of a contractor's magnesium chloride treatment at "about $4,000 per mile." Asked whether she would treat the road once a year, Smallwood said, "Yeah, I think that's reasonable."

What to watch: The event barn's septic system still needs approval from Eastern Idaho Public Health, and a review by the Idaho Department of Environmental Quality if it crosses the large-system threshold. The staff report says the system is "right on the verge" of that threshold.

'This County Needs a Place Like This': Commissioners Approve Smallwood Event Barn

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