Rural subdivision is causing division

BASIN, Wyo. (AP) — The scene has played out many times before across the West — a real estate developer facing pointed questions about plans for a housing development that would encroach on rural farmland.

But this time, the proposed 137 tightly clustered homes weren't part of suburban sprawl near Denver or Salt Lake City. These were planned for the wide-open spaces of Big Horn County, which has a population density of four people per square mile.

"This is driven by the concept that you can preserve farmland while creating housing, instead of just taking the land and chopping it up," said Bob Elliott, who is proposing the development. He is an organic-cattle rancher seeking to subdivide his Dorsey Creek Ranch.

Elliott's 750-acre property is situated along the banks of the Greybull River six miles west of Basin on a mostly flat expanse of wind-swept valley in the shadow of northwest Wyoming's Bighorn Mountains. Home to about 1,300 people, Basin is an agricultural community and the county seat for Big Horn County.

More than 30 people crowded into a cramped courthouse basement meeting room in mid-February for a tense and emotional public hearing on Elliott's proposal.

The issues that came up — housing density, water rights, wastewater treatment, wildlife habitat and property values — are hardly new to the West. But they are new to some in Big Horn County and reflect a growing trend of development reaching into isolated communities whose zoning regulations don't address such complex issues.

"We've never had any kind of proposal this big, ever," said county planner Jim Waller. "Just to give you an idea, in the last 18 months, we approved only two major subdivisions. One was 10 lots on a 40-acre parcel, and the other was four lots on a six-acre parcel."

An earnest and soft-spoken man with a professorial manner, Elliott grew up in upstate New York and started organic farming in Virginia in 1972.

He strikes an odd figure in a part of Wyoming where taciturn beet farmers and ranchers live in tight-knit but spread-out communities, places where outsiders are rare and most folks are relatives or lifelong friends.

His idea of creating rows of closely spaced homes, each on a lot of about one-third acre, has been met with quizzical indifference from some and outright hostility from others.

"I think it's a very good concept," Elliott said before the hearing. "It requires homeowners who really want to be part of something, instead of having their own enclave.