Land Use Planning board holds public hearing to discuss land use change

During their September 15, meeting, the Hot Springs County Land Use Planning Commission continued to review an application from Elyse Dufour. Dufour is requesting a land use change from the Residential category to the Commercial category to allow short-term rental of a duplex unit, two existing RV spaces and three tent campsites. The property is Lot 1 of the Kirby Creek Subdivision.

During the meeting, a public hearing was held with a quorum that included Chairman Adam Estenson, Harvey Seidel and Jerry Langbehn. Bo Bowman is staff for the Commission and for the County Commissioners. The applicant Elyse Dufour and her fiance, Ryan Collins, were present remotely via Zoom. They could not attend in person due to a family emergency.

The first person to speak during the public hearing was John Winter, a neighbor of the Dufour property. Winter said, “I’m a neighbor out there to this particular operation that you’re talking about. And I don’t really have any issue with people doing things that they want to do on their own private property.”

He added, “The problem I have is that it seems like this has already been discussed and a decision was made in 2017 that this was not legal to be there. So my main concern is that this whole process had gone through the planning effort and the rules were made, and people should abide by them. And it doesn’t appear that they are. So I don’t know where the commission is at on this, but it seems to me that before we go any further, maybe the rules should be explained to that applicant. And if they have any questions, we can answer them, but I do not understand why they are continuing to do what they wish, and nobody seems to be questioning that. So that’s my bottom line, I guess. Thank you.”

The second person to speak was Dee Hillberry, the original owner of the property. Hillberry explained some of the history about the property and how he worked with Bowman to change it from an agriculture zone into a residential area and that they created a subdivision to accomplish that. Hillberry added that he doesn’t have it in writing, but he believed the property was supposed to be a single family residential property.

Hillberry said he was opposed to the property being changed to commercial because he said they lack the infrastructure there. He asked that the planning commission maintain its use as a single family residential zone. Hillberry added, “I think we’ve got plenty of spots in the country that are better suited for this type of operation than in the middle of an agricultural community.”

The third person to speak was attorney Jerry Williams, representing Dufour. However, Williams deferred to the applicant to speak. Fiance to property owner Elyse Dufour, Ryan Collins started off and said, “Well, kind of like we outlined last time, we have been operating since the middle of June, and we’ve been primarily renting out one side of the existing two unit house, which would be eight hundred square feet total, and each unit is four hundred square feet.”

“So we’ve been renting out, working with Bo [Bowman] out of good faith, renting out one side on Airbnb, and then we are renting out the two existing RV spots on Hipcamp and also we have currently one tent spot that we have been renting out to the occasional tent camper.”

Collins added, “Now, within the existing structure, we have water hookups for the RV and sewer hookups. We have the washroom there, it has a bathroom and a sink. And then we have two bathrooms that are in the apartment complexes. So our proposal is pretty simple to run a small time [business] which would be considered as a commercial campground at this point. I think that we are not looking to add to the existing structures.”

Collins continued and explained how they were managing their septic tank and how their water usage is significantly lower than their allotted amount for the year. Collins added that he spoke with DEQ and they said their business does not fall under their commercial jurisdiction because they do not have 15 or more water hookups. Collins also said he talked to WYDOT and they said they would pass, as is, their request pending county approval. 

Collins continued and said, “And I’d like the commission to also keep in mind that this isn’t a year-round kind of endeavor. We really are going to cater to the response during peak season, which is, you know, can run anywhere from April to October before the snow flies. So we’re primarily six months out of the year. We would have our camp operation with RV’s and the tents, and then primarily during the winter would go to just the Airbnb of the usage…. We’re bringing in tax revenue through our customers. We have outstanding reviews all around. And a lot of them come back time and time again and have fallen in love with the community.”

Property owner Elyse Dufour then said, “I’m going to say one thing. One of the guests, one of the things that they really reiterated to me, because it was two weeks ago and every restaurant in town was closed due to Covid. The guests really were very thankful that they had a kitchen and they were able to cook their food in a safe environment, you know, reach into these extra cleaning precautions that I had to sign an agreement with Airbnb to have a certain level of cleanliness and have actually talked to the health inspector in Thermopolis and gotten her opinion on the situation and having an Airbnb with a kitchen is important to these guests, especially if, you know, the restaurants are closed. This is providing them an opportunity to still come and be a part of our community. And when there is a certain amount of shutdown happening, that’s not always the case. And they were very, very thankful for that. And I want to share that because we’re in a unique time right now and it seems important to support each other.”

Chairman Estenson then asked if attorney Jerry Williams had any comment. Williams said, “Hot Springs County is a great place and people want to come here. I lived here. I wasn’t born here. I wasn’t raised here. I mean, I’ve been in Wyoming. I think there’s six generations of us now in Wyoming, but it’s a nice place and people want to move here.”

“And when they move here, they need a way of making an income. We don’t have tons and tons of good paying jobs. And one of the other good things is that we’re not one of those states that have so many restrictions.”

“California has so many restrictions. You can’t even build a house next to the coastline anymore. And so they moved here for the freedom. They move here because of people’s beliefs, and you’re allowed to do what you’re allowed to do.”

“And the rules for the county planning have been here forever. We attempted, I shouldn’t say we attempted. It was brought up to try to do zoning within the county back in, oh, I think it was the late 80s, early 90s.”

“Pretty much the county showed up with pitchforks and tar and feathers and said, we’re not doing zoning. Everyone should get to do what they want to do with their land. And so we stayed with the system that we have now, which is permits.”

Williams went on to say “This system was actually written back in the 1980s and has been used successfully since then. And the big thing about the permit system is it was set up for a lot of things. Number one, they did not want to lose the agriculture in the county.”

“So they set up a lot of things. You’re going to get negative ratings when you start taking land out of production, and the biggest negatives on those ratings were for irrigated land. Now, Mr. Hilberry here is an amazingly good farmer. I mean, he has farms all over the USA and he knows what he’s doing. He sold that off because it wasn’t usable for agriculture. What we don’t want is people pulling out here in the middle of a 30, 40, 50 acre field and turning them into some type of commercial use that takes it out of production in our county. That’s a big thing. You get negatives if you do it and you have positives if you don’t,.This doesn’t interfere with any agricultural lease or use whatsoever. I mean, even the subdivisions on East and West Sunnyside, they take a fair amount of land out of production.”

“Yes, a lot of them still do it, but they’re dotted with houses up and down there. There’s a lot of it that is not being used for agriculture. The other thing is whether or not it’s going to help the county.”

Williams went on to ask some questions for consideration. “Does it increase the tax base of the county? Does it increase the value because of the buildings on it and it increases the tax revenue by the people coming here and buying things? I have Airbnbs myself and mine is a little bitty duplex. And in my duplex, one unit is bigger than what you’re calling their two units together.”

“They’re not the only ones. It’s my understanding who built this started off in violation. They bought it not that long ago and want to use it for an Airbnb.”

Williams added “You know they aren’t the ones who did this, but the permit that was done for this property was for the two units that were set up for that and for the two RVs. The only difference that they’re talking about now is for the two tent units that were all disclosed to the original people who applied for the septic system.”

“So that was part of the septic system. The only changes are adding two campsites, you know, for tents. And they’ve agreed that if the county wants to put a restriction, they’d be glad to have a porta potty or some kind of portable thing for them to use if they think that’s the issue.”

“But the rating that they got was for 450 gallons a day. This was a thousand gallons tank. So the tank is easily up to the rating for what they’re suggesting. They also have an agreement with Laird Septic that if there is any issue, they’ll run out and pump it right away. They did have it pumped a while back and he said that it was in good shape. They just had it done because they didn’t know how long it had been in use or all the other things they just wanted to be careful of. The water, I think they’ve already addressed, they’re not going to use a thousand gallons a day there.”

Williams pointed out, “This brings money to the community. I get that if you have a nice view and you want to look out and see the fields and see wildlife and see the mountains, that you don’t want other people moving out there with you.”

“But part of the freedom to do what you want is also the freedom for other people to do what they want, as long as they’re within the requirements. They should be allowed to do this.”

Dusty Mills also spoke during public comment. He expressed his concerns about the traffic the applicants are bringing in. Mills said that he has had many vehicles turn into his property mistakenly and then turn around to come to the applicant’s property. Mills said it has been disruptive. 

Chairman Adam Estenson then closed the public hearing and moved onto discussion.

Commission member Harvey Seidel then asked for comment about how the previous applicant in 2017 was denied by the commissioners. 

County Planner Bo Bowman said, “The major issues when the county commissioners denied that request were the septic, the well and the highway access. Of the septic, the well and the highway access, they are unchanged from them, but some of the information that’s been received may be different.”

Bowman added, “I want to see this proposal stand or fail on its own merits, and not as a reflection of what Leslie Brown did in 2016-17. There was a good faith problem where she misrepresented what she was doing on the property until the building was built. That is not to say that because we feel sorry for these guys, that we should approve this because they bought what Leslie built. I think we just look at it on its own merits. Today, information may have changed. It may not. Their proposal is not the same proposal she was making at the time because she was talking about two duplex buildings, so four units plus the RVs. Other factors might be different as well.”

Chairman Adam Estenson expressed there are some differences between Dufour’s application and the 2017 application.

Estenson added that there is an expectation of doing one’s due diligence when buying a property.

Estenson then focused on the checklist of absolutes for Dufour’s application. There was much discussion about the items on the list and the focus came upon two items: the well and the septic tank.

The commission also wanted to separate their decision making from the 2017 property owner and address Dufour on its current status and make a clean decision.

After further discussion, the commission motioned to table the decision and give Dufour time to have a Wyoming-certified civil engineer determine that the existing septic system has the capacity to accommodate the proposed uses.

Also, the applicant must amend the State Engineers’ Office permit for the existing well to reflect the change from the single-family residential use to commercial campground.

They also asked Dufour to create a new application for their land use change request to make it a clean start. Additionally, because of precedence and out of good faith upon the applicant, Dufour will be able to continue operation of the business on the property as they address the matters.