Lack of bridge access has county looking at Sporting Club plan | Town & County
Balancing public safety against the potential cost of rescuing a private developer, Teton County Commissioners are investigating how a golf club and luxury housing development along the Snake River south of Hoback meet their own master plan.
If the commissioners find a violation or other solid legal basis, they may consider changing the requirements for entering and exiting the enclave.
The order comes after damage to the historic red Astoria Bridge made the route to the Snake River Sporting Club more dangerous, diverting residents and workers along a narrow route that meanders steeply along the Snake River. The forest trail was never intended to be the primary gateway to golf club development.
Although it was not on Monday’s agenda, Commissioner Mark Newcomb raised the issue of a re-examination of the Sporting Club’s master plan.
Does the master plan adequately protect residents and visitors? asked Newcomb. If not, Newcomb said commissioners should ask how to reduce reliance on county and forest service routes that are “really not intended for access to sprawling resort development.”
After recently driving the forest route known as the Johnny Counts Road, Commissioner Luther Propst said he was concerned about the avalanche danger and “what happens when it’s mud time”.
Other commissioners were quick to agree with Newcomb’s idea of investigating whether the Sporting Club had taken “reasonable steps” to get people safely in and out of the settlement.
But Commissioner Greg Epstein balked at the idea of using public time and money to “help” the club’s service district, which is responsible for maintaining access.
The Astoria Bridge is owned by the Snake River Sporting Club Improvement and Service District, whose members are part of private development.
“The developer needs to step up,” Epstein said.
On December 8, a semi truck drove into the Astoria Bridge, the second time in 18 months that a truck had overestimated the bridge height, rendering the bridge temporarily unusable. Both times, the trucks transported materials for the club’s construction projects.
Therefore, the only other route to reach the club and adjacent Astoria Hot Springs was the emergency dirt access route, large enough for only a single lane of traffic and built into a steep hillside. Usually the route is closed with a locked gate blocking access. On one side is an unguarded slope to the river, on the other snow is accumulating without regular avalanche control.
In both cases, the Bridger-Teton National Forest has allowed the Sporting Club to mark traffic on this route, including trucks heading to the more than 70 homes still under construction.
When the bridge was first closed, Fire Chief Stephen Jellie warned it would take up to 20 minutes longer to respond to a fire in the remote part of Teton County without the bridge open.
Thanks to a temporary patch, the bridge reopened to light vehicles weighing up to 10,000 pounds and up to 8 feet, 2 inches high in early February. But neighbors along the emergency route have sent letters to the commissioners saying they are still being exposed to the larger, more dangerous trucks making blind turns in a popular walking area with no sidewalks.
Earlier this month, that escape route was blocked when a pickup truck towing a Bobcat backhoe caught fire. There were no injuries and the route was only temporarily closed.
Sporting Club owner Christopher Swann and other members of the ISD board sent a letter to the commissioners in December asking for help repairing the bridge.
The board is responsible for repairing the bridge, but none of the members are civil engineers or bridge design experts, Swann told News&Guide in December. The county has also relied on the bridge in reverse fortune cases, he said, so the bridge is arguably a county asset even though it’s not county-owned.
The commissioners did not respond to the request. The tone seemed to misrepresent some.
“I don’t really want to use the public sector or public sector dollars, not even $1, to help them figure this out,” Epstein said Monday, adding that the club “didn’t want his end of the deal.” reached” hold the bridge.
But Newcomb countered that leaving emergency security solely in the hands of the private sector was “just not the way the world works”.
Developments that mix with wild lands are at greater risk of catastrophic fires, the US Forest Service says. Taxpayers shoulder disaster response at the “wildland-city interface,” Newcomb said.
“We can make a simple, probably fairly simple, fix to the master plan,” Newcomb said, “to ensure the private sector steps up.”
Commissioner Propst agreed.
“I’m not interested in socializing the cost of this bridge,” Propst said, “but I do think there are implications for South Hoback residents [road] that embroils us.”
As the conversation rolled into details, Assistant District Attorney Keith Gingery stepped in with a suggestion.
The district planning department should address two issues, Gingery said: first, whether the bridge owners are violating the current master plan, and if not, whether that plan could still be changed.
“There are certain deliverables that must be met in order to reopen a master plan,” Gingery said.
Commissioner Natalia Macker acknowledged the extra burden the planning staff would bring and suggested the analysis be limited to Gingery’s points without “going in full depth”.
Commissioner Propst asked for a report from the planning staff during next Monday’s voucher meeting. There may be an opportunity to bring the forest service into this discussion, he said, a request neighbors have made more than once.
In response to Monday’s discussion, Swann urged commissioners “not to waste planning staff time reviewing the master plan” because he said it doesn’t include all of the land south of the Astoria Bridge.
Instead, Swann’s letter, which was also signed by four other members of the ISD, proposed the formation of a “community working group” to develop long-term emergency management plans, including options for repairing and replacing the Astoria Bridge.
The ISD is examining the bridge’s underwater piers, which are more than 60 years old, and evaluating federal funding opportunities.
“This community working group would be led by the ISD but would include everyone involved in the facility [sic] appropriate short- and long-term solutions,” the letter reads. Swann added in a text that the ISD board and manager “have been in video and phone calls with concerned Hoback residents over the past few weeks for input and will continue to do so.”
April 1 is the upcoming deadline for the Forest Service to renew or not renew its permit allowing the Sporting Club to use Johnny Counts Road.
Aside from the bridge, the District Planning Department has sent notices to the Sporting Club of violations at 19 sites for cutting vegetation around wetlands and building without a permit in a floodplain. This is the second time in five years that Teton County has asked the club to apply for retrospective permits to work in sensitive ecological areas.
Since its inception in 2002, the Sporting Club project has changed hands several times, but has remained a source of controversy due to its location adjacent to the Snake River, a headwaters prized for its recreational opportunities, fish and wildlife.
Recent violations are not as dramatic as in 2018, when Swann County called for permits to build an unauthorized levee, berm, ponds and bridge.
This time, the violation reports focus on golf course maintenance violating wetlands and other developments in a flood hazard zone that the planning department said were not allowed. Addressing this will require an environmental analysis update, which the club must submit by July 1st.