Public hearing on the issue held Tuesday, Sept. 11

Everywhere in Star Valley, it seems, growth is taking place. For the Afton Town Council, that growth presents some difficult questions.
This week at the regular town council meeting the town discussed the possibility of incorporating the proposed Bruce Davis subdivision. The subdivision is located near the Lincoln County Fairgrounds and has been “in the works” for over a year. The town has been working with developers Bruce and Betty Davis, as well as Lincoln County to map the progress of the project.
“This subdivision caught the town’s attention for several reason,” Mayor Alan Stauffer told council members Tuesday. “One reason was the the subdivision called for a water treatment plant. That plant would be built in an area where the Town of Afton would like to have a water treatment plant in the future.”
According to Mayor Stauffer, the county and town have been working together to make sure that land is set aside for an Afton water treatment plant. The county made it very clear that two treatment plants in the same area would not be an option.
An additional reason the Davis subdivision concerned the Town of Afton was the fact that there was a possibility that the homes in that area would be on enhanced septic tanks.
“We just didn’t like the idea of having 130 septic tanks right on our borders,” said Mayor Stauffer.
The Davis’ have been working with the Town of Afton to resolve the issues of the water treatment plant and septic tanks for several months. For both the Davis’ and the Town of Afton, annexation seemed to be the answer.
At the public hearing on Tuesday, the Town of Afton made the decision to move forward with the annexation process. The next step in the process is to create an annexation ordinance. That ordinance must pass three readings before it can be adopted. The public hearing was scheduled to determine if residents of Afton wanted the town to move in that direction. At any point during the ordinance reading process, the Town of Afton can make the decision not to annex the property.
“What we are looking at is whether or not we want to be able to have some say in the development of that property,” said Town Administrator Jim Sanderson. “Is it better to have a say from the beginning and make sure the project meets the kind of standards we would like to see? Or, is is better for us to let the development go in and in a few years deal with the issue as we continue to grow?”
Those are the types of questions town council members and the developers of the property will be answering over the next several weeks.