Changes to Sporting Club win approval

It would seem there's truth to the saying that time heals all wounds, especially when it comes to the Snake River Sporting Club.

Though one of the most controversial developments to come before the Teton County Board of Commissioners during the past four years, no one from public or commission spoke during a meeting Tuesday about changes proposed for the 68-lot subdivision south of town on the Snake River. The commission voted 5-0 to approve those amendments, with Commissioner Larry Jorgenson calling the lack of comments “ironic.”

“Four years ago in campaigning for this position, this development commanded a lot of attention,” he said.

Now during the last meeting of his term on the board, no one was talking about it, Jorgenson said. The change within four years speaks to the Sporting Club’s efforts at being “forth-right,” Jorgenson said.

Originally, commissioners attached 77 conditions to the project, first called Canyon Club, when the board awarded a final development permit in 2003. The club can have up to 68 home sites on its 359-acre riverside parcel located about 15 miles south of Jackson on the east side of the Snake River.

In October 2005, commissioners approved the final plat plan for 63 of the 68 single family lots along common area and golf course parcels. The five lots at the southern portion were reserved for future submittal and approval provided the Sporting Club could show it met certain conditions. Those lots received approval in May.

Phase one of the project contains 62 of the 68 single-family lots, and 38 are still available.

This week the Sporting Club asked commissioners to approve relocation on four of those lots, so that they can be combined with two previously approved lots. These will be the Lodge Cottage neighborhood.

The Sporting Club also asked for revisions to road alignments and utility configurations for those new lots and for changes to the building envelopes, impervious surface allocations and maximum floor area calculations for those selected lots. Finally, the developers also asked for the previously approved Wagon Road alignment from within the planned residential development to be moved to new locations across U.S. Forest Service property.

“The Lodge Cottage neighborhood and the overall number of lots will not change from what was previously approved,” said Jen Bodine a county staff planner, in a report.

She also said even with the increase in impervious surface coverage, the property would still be ‘well below” the total allowed during the original approval. They also meet setback requirements and are smaller than the square-footage allowed when first approved, she said.

Further, the cottages are better clustered with the proposed golf course clubhouse and lots 12 and 13, Bodine said.

“The lodge cottages were originally approved in a location farther away from other platted lots and more within the open space of the golf course,” she said.

Regarding Wagon Road, the Forest Service sent the Sporting Club a “decision memo” granting the club the right to reconstruct, use and maintain the two road sections that cross Forest Service property.

The original proposed alignment at these two points would have required road cuts on steep hillsides that “would have an adverse visual impact,” Bodine said.

Now, the amended roads design is a “great improvement,” she said.

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