The Cody Planning, Zoning, and Adjustment Board is announcing a new date for a special meeting and public hearing on Thursday, June 15, 2023 at 6:00 PM (or as soon thereafter) at the Cody Auditorium, located at 1240 Beck Avenue, to consider a Conditional Use Permit application to construct a temple and ancillary building on Skyline Drive in Cody.
Cody P&Z will also consider an associated Special Exemption to exceed the 30-foot height limit of the zoning district, as requested by Haskell Architecture & Engineering, who are designing the structure as well as representing the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.
The proposal is to construct a temple, auxiliary building, street, and associated improvements on a 4.69-acre parcel, as well as an entrance road on an adjacent right-of-way. The property is located just west of Skyline Drive and north of the Cody Canal, about 400 feet north of the Olive Glenn Drive intersection.
This meeting, open to the public, will be to consider the new applications; however, all prior comments that have been received regarding the temple project will be carried forward to the current applications.
The meeting was scheduled to take place on May 24th at the Cody auditorium, but was canceled only days before the meeting was scheduled. No reason was given by the LDS church nor did Todd Stowell from City of Cody P&Z offer any information as to why the cancellation. Stowell just indicated that the Church would be re-submitting their request for a Conditional Use Permit application and a meeting date would be assigned at a later time.
Opinions on social media have been varied, some voicing their thoughts on why the temple would be an asset to the Big Horn Basin, others, who are against the temple being built, says the design doesn’t fit within the Cody Master Plan and its guidelines.
