Drive south out of Jackson on Highway 89 and the transition feels immediate. Town falls away, the road opens, and the ranch land on either side looks like it has looked for a century. Buyers touring acreage further south, toward the Snake River Bridge, often point to that first stretch as proof the character down here is settled. It isn't. The single intersection every one of those buyers passes through, where High School Road meets South Park Loop Road, sits at the center of an approved zoning change that could bring hundreds of new homes to what is currently ranch pasture, and the family that owns the land is still fighting over who pays for the road.
This matters even if your target parcel is miles south of that intersection. The corridor you drive to reach it, and the traffic pattern you'll live with for as long as you own property down here, is not fixed. It is being negotiated right now.
The 35-Acre Rule Isn't a Promise
Most buyers evaluating land south of town anchor their expectations to Rural zoning, which by right allows one home per 35 acres. That number reads like a ceiling. It's actually a starting point. Teton County has two well-worn paths for adding density to Rural-zoned land: a landowner can trade a conservation easement for additional floor area on a case-by-case basis, or the county can approve a formal neighborhood plan that rewrites the zoning entirely for a specific parcel. The second path is what happened at Northern South Park, and it's the largest example of it in county history.
The land in question sits on more than 200 acres at the southern edge of the Town of Jackson, split between two families: the Gills and the Lockharts. Both trace back to Robert Bruce Porter, who started the ranch in 1928. Ralph Gill took it over in 1961, and Robert Gill has run it since 1994. The families still hold significant acreage beyond the rezoned parcel and own commercial property downtown, including the Teton Theater and Jackson Drug. This is not an absentee owner cashing out. It's a multi-generational ranching family navigating a zoning decision the county spent years building.
What's Already Approved, and What's Still Stuck
Not everything at Northern South Park is waiting on a resolution. A 26-acre Suburban-zoned parcel in the northwest corner of the Gill property already has an approved sketch plan for 84 free-market homes, priced in the multimillion-dollar range, and that piece can move independent of the larger fight. The bigger picture looks different.
| Track | Status | Scale |
|---|---|---|
| 26-acre Suburban parcel (Gill, northwest corner) | Sketch plan approved | 84 free-market luxury homes |
| Northern South Park Neighborhood Plan | Approved Nov. 2022, LDRs adopted March 2024 | Framework for the broader village |
| Gill's Area 1 site plan (74 developable acres) | Submitted April 2026, traffic funding unresolved | 557 homes, 386 deed-restricted |
| East-west connector road | No easement granted by Lockhart family | Would link South Park Loop Road to Highway 89 |
The county's own Northern South Park project page confirms the plan's approval date and the regulatory framework built to implement it. What that framework doesn't guarantee is when, or how, the larger buildout actually breaks ground.
The Math Nobody Has Agreed To
Here's where the timeline gets interesting for anyone thinking about the corridor south of town. County officials calculated that the Gill family should contribute roughly $3.5 million toward off-site traffic infrastructure tied to the development, covering a widened High School Road and roundabouts at its intersections with South Park Loop Road, Gregory Lane, and Middle School Road, plus a pathway tunnel where the Highway 89 path crosses High School Road. Gill representatives asked for a 50 percent discount on that figure. A county traffic study, meanwhile, estimates that traffic on High School Road could double if the subdivision builds out and a separate project, the Tribal Trail connector, is also completed.
The proposed fix for some of that congestion was an "east-west connector" road running through the development to link South Park Loop Road directly to Highway 89, giving residents and construction vehicles a route that doesn't funnel through the already-busy school corridor on High School Road. That connector needs an easement across land owned by the Lockhart family, the Gills' neighbors and relatives, who have not agreed to grant it. Without that easement, a decade or more of construction traffic has one practical route in and out.
Amberley Baker, the attorney representing the Gill family, told county commissioners in March 2025 that a spring 2027 groundbreaking was the best-case scenario. That estimate predates the current standoff over who pays for the roads. As of the most recent reporting from the Jackson Hole News&Guide, published this summer, the fee dispute remains unresolved.
Why This Belongs in Your Due Diligence, Not the County's
If you're evaluating acreage further south, toward Munger Mountain, Indian Springs Ranch, or the corridor approaching the Snake River Bridge, none of this changes your parcel's zoning. What it changes is the drive you'll take to reach it and the construction window you might own through. A multi-decade buildout with an unresolved traffic fee and a contested connector road means the timeline for heavy equipment on High School Road, and the eventual doubling of traffic through that intersection, is still an open question rather than a fixed date on a calendar.
Three questions are worth asking before you write an offer on land south of town:
- How close is the parcel to the High School Road and South Park Loop Road intersection, and is it on the route you'd use for daily errands, school runs, or airport trips?
- Has the seller's agent disclosed the status of the Northern South Park traffic fee dispute and connector road easement, both of which remain unresolved as of this summer?
- If you're buying to hold for a decade or more, does your resale timeline overlap with the years when construction traffic through this corridor is heaviest?
None of this is a reason to avoid the area. Rural zoning still governs the vast majority of land south of town, and the ranch character that draws buyers here isn't disappearing overnight. It's a reason to ask sharper questions about a specific intersection rather than assuming the drive down Highway 89 will look the same in five years as it does today. Shelter JH, a local housing advocacy group tracking the plan closely, has published a running timeline of the project that's worth a look if you want the granular version.
A Few Questions Buyers Ask Us
Does this affect land already zoned Rural further south, past the Snake River Bridge corridor? Not directly. The Northern South Park rezone applies specifically to the Gill and Lockhart parcels at the town's southern boundary. Land further south retains its existing Rural zoning unless a landowner pursues the same easement-for-density or neighborhood-plan process independently.
Is the luxury home development the same project as the affordable housing plan? No. The 26-acre Suburban parcel with 84 approved free-market homes is a separate, already-approved track from the larger 557-home Area 1 plan, which is mostly deed-restricted workforce and affordable housing and still working through traffic funding.
When will construction actually start? The best-case estimate from the Gill family's attorney was spring 2027, given in March 2025. That estimate was made before the current traffic fee standoff, so it should be treated as optimistic rather than confirmed.
Land south of Jackson still trades on privacy, acreage, and proximity to the Snake River, and that fundamentals haven't shifted. What has shifted is how much homework belongs at the gateway before you commit further south. If you're weighing a parcel in this corridor and want the current read on access, timing, and what a specific listing sits close to, Jake Kilgrow can walk you through it property by property. Work with Jake.
