 - A 90-acre conveyance of Wyoming Life Resource Center property for housing in Lander was restored to a legislative bill draft last week.){kind=link}
(Cheyenne, WY) – A 90-acre conveyance of Wyoming Life Resource Center property for housing in Lander was restored to a legislative bill draft last week.
The amendment came from Wyoming Sen. Cale Case, R-Lander, who said he wouldn’t be able to support House Bill 69 without the housing element – even though he is a co-sponsor of the legislation.
“This bill that arrives in our Senate is different than the bill that I signed on to,” Case said when HB 69 came up on first reading last week. “I do not support this bill right now. …
“I agree with the part about the Wyoming Department of Transportation receiving 30 acres for their facilities, but I only agree to that with the caveat that another portion of land be made available for residential purposes.”
The residential piece of HB 69 is “important,” Case said, explaining that the WLRC – which provides “high-level intermediate and long-term care and services to individuals in Wyoming,” according to its website – strives to create an environment in which its clients can “interact with the community” instead of feeling “isolated” on a far-flung campus.
“This (amendment) achieves the dream, for me, of kind of protecting the Life Resource Center from being encroached by non-compatible uses,” Case said. “Just having the Wyoming Department of Transportation put one of their facilities right there in the middle of it and not having any other kind of buffer with respect to the residential does not achieve that – and in fact would make me want to vote against this entire bill. I just don’t think that’s appropriate. It’s not a balanced approach to move forward.”
Case did acknowledge, however, that the original language facilitating the residential property transfer in HB 69 “wasn’t as well thought out as it could have been.”
“The original bill essentially suggested that the land be given to the City of Lander,” he said. “That doesn’t seem like a very good way when you reflect on it, (because) we have an obligation to dispose of state property at market value or some kind of an auction.”
The amendment Case proposed last week outlines a “better” process for the property, he said – authorizing the Wyoming Department of Health, in consultation with the Board of Land Commissioners and the Office of State Lands and Investments, to convey the 90 acres in question to a purchaser who “agrees that the sole use of the (property) shall be for residential housing.”
The amendment doesn’t specify “what kind of residential” housing would be built on the land, Case noted.
“I’m hoping it’s a broad spectrum of residential within the city limits of Lander, but I think we’ll let developers make proposals and put their money where their mouth is,” he said. “Let the private sector work.”
The Senate approved the amendment and HB 69 on first reading Feb. 27.
The bill was approved on third reading Tuesday, with Case and Wyoming Sen. Ed Cooper, R-Ten Sleep, voting “ay” and Wyoming Sen. Tim Salazar, R-Riverton, voting “no.”
HB 69 was received for concurrence in the Wyoming House of Representatives on Tuesday and was on the agenda for potential consideration Wednesday.