Sheridan City Council Study Session: Housing Grant, Liquor Licenses, PUD Amendment – January 12, 2026
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Sheridan City Council Study Session – January 12, 2026
The Sheridan City Council held a study session on Monday, January 12, 2026, starting at 5:30 PM. Six items were discussed: a housing land trust grant sponsorship request, three liquor license matters, a major PUD amendment for the Teal Springs subdivision, and general council business. No formal votes were taken; these items are scheduled for action at future council meetings.
Housing Land Trust Grant Request
- Christine Dietrich, executive director of Habitat for Humanity, presented on behalf of the Sheridan County Housing Land Trust, accompanied by Johnny Law and Meredith Saca. She requested the City of Sheridan sponsor an application for the Wyoming Unmet Housing Needs Grant in the amount of $1.6 million for land acquisition.
- The property is the Vendor Lane/Vendor West subdivision. The front lot is zoned R3 and could accommodate seven fourplexes; the back lot is zoned M1 for a minimum of 30 single-family lots. The project is expected to serve at least 58 households.
- The grant application is due at the end of January 2026, and funds must be encumbered by June 30, 2026. The State Loan and Investment Board (SLIB) will review applications in early February, with awards anticipated at the April 2, 2026 SLIB meeting.
- As a nonprofit, the land trust cannot apply directly; a city, town, county, or tribe must sponsor. The city would submit the application and receive funds on a reimbursement basis, meaning the city would need to front the land purchase cost. City staff noted that cash reserves could be used via a budget revision.
- Council discussions: A council member asked why the county was not involved; Dietrich explained only one sponsor was needed and the city was approached first. Another council member questioned the city's financial exposure and the status of the first project. Dietrich reported that in the Weston Village project, 10 homes have been sold, 10 are under contract, and the remaining 10 are scheduled for completion by December 2026.
- Funding questions: The organization has a $300,000 match from the Standish Family Fund over three years. If the city's pending ARPA interest request (approximately $56,828.60) is approved, the remaining shortfall would be just over $50,000; without it, the shortfall is about $130,000.
- Several council members expressed appreciation for the organization's work and support for the request, while one council member said they would not support it until they better understood the city's role and previous funding. No action was taken.
Liquor License Items
- Smith Alley Brewing: Ashley Foster presented a request for a new bar and grill liquor license (No. 8). Smith Alley currently has a microbrewery license and would hold a dual license, allowing it to serve hard alcohol, wine, and other spirits. The license requires an active food permit and 60% of sales from food. The fee is $10,500 for year one (corrected from an earlier $10,000), then $1,500 per year thereafter. The city has 10 bar and grill licenses; this would be the fifth. A council member was told that state statute requires paying only the higher fee when holding a dual license.
- Cowboy Cafe: Administrative transfer of restaurant liquor license No. 12 from KMR Enterprises LLC to KIMR Enterprises LLC. The change is needed because the federal government shutdown delayed the LLC conversion. The same entity, applicant, and ownership are retained; KMR will dissolve after the transfer.
- The Ice House: Administrative transfer of retail liquor license No. 7 from Pental Panel Hebox LLC to The Ice House LLC. The transfer consolidates ownership under one entity for tax and accounting purposes; owner Christ Medved is the same for both LLCs, and the current lease between the two will be nullified.
Teal Springs PUD Amendment
- City Planner Kelly Schroeder presented a major amendment (PO-25-37 / Ordinance 2302) to the Teal Springs PUD phase one master plan. The amendment affects all lots in the subdivision, located south of Brendage Lane and west of Coffeen Avenue.
- Two changes are proposed to Section 7.1 of the PUD Design Report: (1) reduce the minimum dwelling size from 2,400 square feet to 1,800 square feet; (2) remove the slab-on-grade-only requirement and instead require a geotechnical investigation report for each lot before construction.
- The developer requested the changes to address market demand for smaller, more affordable homes and to allow foundation flexibility. The subdivision has been removed from the floodplain through a Letter of Map Revision (LOMR-F) process, but high groundwater remains a concern.
- City Engineer Tom Warner explained that crawl-space foundations are more likely than basements, and the geotechnical report will guide foundation design. Any lot still in the floodplain must be built two feet above base flood elevation.
- All property owners in the subdivision signed letters authorizing the proposed changes. Notification was sent to 23 surrounding property owners and a legal ad was published; no public comments were received. Staff recommends the Planning Commission approve the application for consideration by the governing body.
- Council comments included: one council member questioned how the governing body could change approved rules when it has previously said rules are fixed; another expressed strong support for the smaller minimum square footage as an affordability measure; a third noted that existing property owners' expectations were considered, but acknowledged the signed authorization letters.
General Discussion & Future Agenda Items
- City Administrator Stuart reported that the city-county quarterly session will be held the next morning (January 13, 2026) at 9:00 AM.
- The city transitioned to a new payroll system in the current pay period; there are some minor issues that HR is resolving.
- The elevator in the city building is still malfunctioning despite a circuit board replacement, and further repairs are planned.
- Stuart will resend the housing land trust's request for $56,828.60 in ARPA interest funds to the council and mayor.
Key Outcomes
- No formal votes were taken at this study session.
- The housing land trust grant request, liquor license items, and PUD amendment are expected to return to the council for action in upcoming meetings (liquor licenses next week; the PUD amendment will go to the Planning Commission and then to the governing body).
- The city administrator will resend the ARPA interest fund request memo.
Meeting Transcript
Good evening, everyone, and welcome to the January 12, 2026 uh study session. We're starting at 5 30. There's six items on the agenda for tonight. So we'll just get rolling. Our first one is item number one discussion of Sheridan County Housing Land Trust request for city support for the Wyoming Unmet Housing Needs Grant. And with us tonight is Christine Dietrich, executive director of Habitat for Humanities. Welcome, Christine. Thank you. Good evening. I also have Johnny Law and Meredith Saca with me, the rest of our team to just try to help answer any questions that you may have about what this application looks like or the project that we are seeking funding for. But real quickly before I try to navigate the slides up here, I know the question's been asked for an update on where we're at with the letter of support that the city gave for Weston Village for the exemption request. Those letters were submitted. A second interview was held, received very positively, so we do expect a positive outcome. They did ask for a second letter showing that we meet the IRS guidelines for for housing, and that has been secured and submitted. So it's pending legal review, and then I actually fly out tomorrow to meet with them in person. So hoping to have an actual answer by the end of the week. We'll see how the trip goes. But tonight is for something different. The question gets asked all the time about where our next project is, and this opportunity is going to come and go pretty quickly for this unmet housing needs grant. So in 2023, it actually was appropriated $5 million from the general fund. The legislator did that. And initially it was restricted for infrastructure, but in 2024 was amended to include land acquisition. So the challenge that we have and why we didn't ask for the city support to apply previously, is you have to have the land before you can install the infrastructure. So we're excited at this opportunity to purchase land with these funds and have the city sponsor an application. The funds do have to be encumbered by June 30th of 2026. The actual grant is due the end of this month. So it is a very, very quick turnaround. So we are requesting that the City of Sheridan sponsor this application to submit an application on behalf of the land trust for 1.6 million. So how this process works and the reason why we're asking you to sponsor is that us as a nonprofit cannot apply directly for these funds. Cities, towns, counties, tribal governments may apply, and the city of Sheridan would submit an application on our behalf. SLIB would issue these funds to the city on a reimbursement basis for the approved expenses, which would be outlined in the application. And then again, the funding must be encumbered by June 30th. Applications will be reviewed the first week of February, and then recommendations given to SLIP for review, and we would assume then final awards at the April 2nd SLIB meeting. We have a lot of really good documents ready to support that application already. So and we already have a project or a piece of land identified. So we're looking at vendor lane and vendor west subdivision. It's a 1.6 million dollar land purchase. The first lot is zoned R3. It has a potential for seven fourplexes. And then the back lot is zoned M1. Um, a minimum of 30 single family lots is what the discussion was with the current land uh owner. But we can do high density, so we would explore the possibility possibility to do 30 plus units. So we'll look at how we can max out the density there and minimum serve 58 households, which is almost twice as much as the Weston Village subdivision. So if you can see this here, or if you have copy of slides, you can kind of see the rough outline here. Uh that front half is where those seven fourplexes would go, and that back half there is where the 30 single family at minimum could go. We do have this plat was given to us as part of the documents from the landowner, but this plat is expired, so we would have to redo that plat, but this kind of shows you the rough sketch of what it would have looked like with those seven lots on the front side for those fourplexes. There has been a lot of legwork already done by the current landowner. We have a whole list of documents that he's provided to us, including the soils report, a parking report, a traffic study, the expired plat, so we have something to go off of flood insurance study, and then our team has already identified additional funding sources which would move the project forward after you were able to purchase the land. So we feel like this is a really solid project and a really solid land purchase that would just continue just the success that we've seen in Weston Village with serving our workforce. So again, just a recap we would ask that the city of Sheridan sponsor an application on our behalf for this unspent housing needs fund application in the amount of 1.6 million dollars for land acquisition.
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