Why this reaches community associations in Teton County

Teton County is the only Wyoming local government charging housing mitigation fees, and the program dates to 1995. The county budgeted $1.4 million in mitigation-fee revenue for FY2026 and has put $5.5 million of fee money into acquiring the Virginian RV Park for affordable housing, according to commission chair Mark Newcomb. Reporting puts the program’s output at more than 400 homes over 30 years.

Those homes are deed-restricted. A deed restriction limiting occupancy to a qualifying local worker, capping resale price, or requiring employment in the county is a recorded covenant, and in Teton County it very often sits inside or alongside a homeowners association’s own declaration. The mitigation fee is the funding mechanism that produces those restrictions in the first place, so the durability of the fee and the durability of the deed-restricted inventory are the same question.

What the exemption threshold means in practice

The fee attaches above 2,500 square feet, and the credit for an existing historic structure is what the county got wrong. After the settlement, Commissioner Luther Propst said he was open to exempting moderately sized homes, and Representative Andrew Byron (R-Hoback) has argued for raising the exemption from 2,500 to 3,000–3,500 square feet. Neither change has been adopted.

The legislative attempt, and how it died

Wyoming lawmakers tried to ban the fees outright in the 2026 Budget Session. HB0141, the “Fifth Amendment Protection Act,” sponsored by Representative John Bear (R-Gillette), passed the House on February 23, 2026. On March 2 the Senate voted 24–7 to block it.³

The reasons given had nothing to do with takings law. Senate President Bo Biteman (R-Ranchester) said the bill was “tainted by a cloud of suspicion and mistrust.” Majority Floor Leader Tara Nethercott (R-Cheyenne) said: “The bill is now about threats, and intimidation, and money.” Both were referring to a campaign-check incident on the House floor on the first day of the session that produced new chamber rules, a governor’s executive order, a House Special Investigative Committee and a law-enforcement inquiry.

The introduced and engrossed versions of HB0141 exist on the Legislature’s site; there is no enrolled version, which is what a Senate defeat looks like in the record.

What remains unresolved

Four things are open, and it is worth being precise about which is which:

• The constitutional question was not answered. No court has ruled on whether Teton County’s mitigation fee is a taking under Sheetz. The settlement resolved one family’s bill.
• The fee is still in force, at the same threshold, funding the same programme.
• The statutory ban failed, and for reasons unconnected to its merits, which leaves the subject available to a future session.
• The exemption threshold is under discussion at the county and in the Legislature, with no adopted change.

Wyoming has no statute governing how local governments impose housing exactions and no comprehensive common-interest-community act, so the deed restrictions the programme generates are governed entirely by the recorded instruments themselves.