Hearing on special exemption for ambulance station Monday

WORLAND — The Worland Board of Adjustment and Planning Commission (BAPC) will hear comments from Washakie County and from the public regarding a special exemption to have an ambulance station at 603 North Road 11.

The county initially appeared before the BAPC on May 9. Building Official Randy Adams told the board at the May 9 meeting that the ambulance service is allowed as a special exemption use in the high-density residential zone where the property is located.

He said under the new matrix the special exemption does not require a public hearing or notification of neighbors.

With about a dozen people in attendance at the meeting the board opted to require the county to go through the formal public hearing process with notices in the newspaper and certified letters to neighbors.

The hearing will be at noon at the Worland Community Center on Monday, June 6. The meeting location was changed to accommodate the public who may attend.

COUNTY PLANS

During the May 9 meeting, Commissioner Aaron Anderson outlined the process the county went through to get to the point of entering into a purchase agreement for the property on Road 11.

Washakie County reached a purchase agreement for the home with an attached garage and bay, contingent up on the county receiving the special exemption, he explained.

The application for the special exemption was filed by the county with the owners of the property on the application listed as Kurt and Meridee Piel of Sheridan. According to the special exemption application, “the house would be used as office space, overnight stay accommodations for on-call personnel and occasional training opportunities for emergency services personnel. Ambulance and related equipment would also be parked and stored on the property.”

Funding for the purchase of the property is being provided by one-time money from the American Rescue Plan Act.

Anderson said due to the failure of volunteer of ambulance service after the COVID pandemic, there was a point that shifts were not able to be covered with volunteers. The county looked into a paid service with costs estimated at $750,000 to $1 million and only bringing in $300,000 in revenue, something the county could not afford.

He said the Cody Regional Health ambulance service proposal was far less expensive at $203,000 per year. They are in the second year of a three-year contract with Cody Regional Health.

The current ambulance facility is housed with Washakie County Public Health in the 1000 block of Robertson with no room for training and no housing. The county is renting a house in the 800 block of Robertson Avenue for housing the ambulance crew that is on duty.

Anderson said after the county purchased the building at 801 Big Horn Avenue for the new library, they also purchased the building behind the library for a possible ambulance station. They realized it would not work and traded the property for the empty lot across the street with King’s Carpet One and Kathy Mercado.

Engineer’s estimates came in at $2.6 million to build the ambulance station on the property and after modifications to the design, cost was lower at $1.27 million.

He said the former ambulance director found the property on Road 11 and “the building meets our needs in a lot of ways.”

In an interview last week, Anderson said that the house on Road 11 that has one bedroom, would need some renovations, including the sprinkler system and additional living quarters in one portion of the double-car garage. The costs of those renovations are unknown at this time, Anderson said. However, he said it is anticipated that the purchase of the home (with the agreement at $530,000), and the renovations should be less than the $1.27 million for a new facility at Eighth and Robertson.

He said there could be a savings of $250,000 to $500,000 allowing the county to use the leftover ARPA funding for other projects. (The county has received $750,000 with another $750,000 expected).

He said the savings are based on using some cost figures for the library including the sprinkler system and cost per square foot.

Anderson said, “We want a service that when you call for an ambulance somebody responds there quickly. When you talk about an essential service, I think you would struggle to find anything that is more essential.”

CONCERNS

Anderson told the BAPC in May, “We have heard a lot of concerns raised by neighbors. We want this to be a positive thing,” Anderson said. Ambulance crews will not turn on sirens until they reach U.S. 16. He said they are also looking into the ability to shut off backup beepers when they arrive at the station.

“Any other accommodations we can make to minimize impact we would be open to that,” Anderson said. He said they may need to put up a privacy fence on the back side at the alley.

During the May meeting some residents expressed concern about the traffic from the ambulance responding to calls.

Anderson said they had the Wyoming Department of Transportation look at traffic on North Road 11 and there were 1,600 vehicles traveling on North Road 11 per day.

In an interview earlier this year with the Northern Wyoming News, Cody Regional Health Medical Services Director Phillip Franklin said for the first seven months of the contract, May 1 to Dec. 31, 2021, the ambulance crews responded to 754 calls, the majority 911 calls. The calls average to 107.7 calls per month or about three calls per day.

One opponent to the proposed location, Dick Kroger, a neighbor to the proposed ambulance station wrote in a letter to the board prior to the May meeting, “the Ambulance Station Garage at 603 North Road 11 will degrade the quality-of-life for everyone in the surrounding neighborhood, especially for us. I have never lived next door to an Ambulance Station/Garage, but I know there has to be 24/7 erratic activity and noise occurring. Such disruptions in a tranquil neighborhood have to be stressful to all the residents, especially those immediately next door to the Ambulance Station/Garage.”

He also noted in his letter that he believes “North Road 11 has more speeders and a higher percentage of speeders than any other densely occupied residential street in Worland.” He said he estimates that the average speed of vehicles on North Road 11 is 40 mph or greater.

Also located in the area along North Road 11 is the Children’s Resource Center, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the Comfort Inn and just off of Road 11 a dentist office.

PROPERTY VALUE

Another concern Kroger wrote in his letter is claiming a “broker” told him that his property value would decrease 20% to 40%.

Anderson said he has spoken to several Realtors and has been told that it would be hard to quantify the actual impact of the ambulance service on property value in the neighborhood.

Josh Clayson of Hillcrest Appraisers in Buffalo said without doing research it would not be possible to determine the impact of an ambulance station on neighboring property values. He said an appraiser would need to look at properties with a similar situation and compare to similar homes without the impact and then analyze sale price.

He emphasized that he would not be able to determine an impact, positive or negative, without doing the research.

Clayson noted that an ambulance station in a residential neighborhood is not unheard of as the one in Buffalo is among residential houses a block off of the main street.

The Cody Regional Health ambulance service in Basin is also in a residential area, located between two residences.

Clint Cook of Cook Appraisals in Cody said research would need to be conducted to determine whether the proposed use would cause external obsolescence to surrounding properties.

External obsolescence means "the diminished utility of a structure on a parcel due to negative influences exterior to subject parcel, and which conditions are usually incurable on the part of the land owner, landlord, or tenant,” according to lawinsider.com.

He said appraisers would look for sales of comparable properties with similar impact, such as increased traffic. The sales with similar impact would be compared to sales without the impact to determine whether the impact affects the property value.

Cook said, “The appraiser would identify the impact, then develop an opinion about whether that impact affects value. Just because there is a noticeable impact because of the change in use, it doesn’t necessarily affect value.”

He added, “One major factor in the current market, in most markets around the country, is the extreme shortage in inventory of houses for sale. When there is historically low inventory then there are few alternatives to the house that is impacted. If someone needs the house they may not discount the value of it, because of their housing needs. If there is oversupply and there are a multitude of alternative choices, an adverse condition may be more likely to have an impact upon value than when there is a shortage of housing supply.

“Value impact is dependent on the market factors not just the impact. You have to objectively evaluate that. Even though you observe an impact you have to research and evaluate whether that impact affects property value.”