The Wyoming Supreme Court has rejected appeals filed by a grassroots group challenging plans to build a Latter-day Saint temple in Cody.
Justices ruled Friday that a lower court was correct to reject a lawsuit brought by Preserve Our Cody Neighborhoods, effectively ending the challenge and clearing that construction hurdle for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
The residents had sought to overturn the city’s zoning approval of plans from the Utah-based church to build the 10,000-square-foot temple and towering steeple on a 4.69-acre parcel on Skyline Drive.
The community of 10,000 residents has been divided over the proposal, including the height of the 101-foot-tall building (when counting the 77-foot spire) and its locale overlooking the small tourist town about 50 miles from Yellowstone National Park.
The neighborhood group appealed the city’s approval of the church’s site plan to Wyoming’s top court after a district court judge ruled its petitions challenging the approval were untimely and that the court lacked jurisdiction to decide them.
Debra Wendtland, lead counsel for Preserve Our Cody Neighborhoods, told the Cowboy State Daily that Friday’s ruling was “unfortunate,” adding, “we respect the decision of our Supreme Court.”
(The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints) With Heart Mountain as a backdrop, general authority Seventy Kevin R. Duncan, executive director of the Temple Department of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, speaks during the Cody Wyoming Temple groundbreaking ceremony in September 2024.
Andy Jacobsen, who as president of the Cody Stake oversees a number of Latter-day Saint congregations, welcomed the outcome.
“For local members...it is a significant day and another step forward to the completion of the temple where we can practice our faith in a House of the Lord in this area,” he told The Salt Lake Tribune in an email. “The church follows the law, and this Wyoming Supreme Court decision reaffirmed a previous ruling, which demonstrates the approval process for the Cody Wyoming Temple followed the law.”
The global faith of 17.5 million members has clashed with irate neighbors from time to time over other planned temples — in Nevada, Texas and even Utah — especially in regards to the height of proposed steeples.
The Cody Temple will be Wyoming’s third Latter-day Saint temple — to go with operating ones in Casper and Star Valley.
Unlike the faith’s more common meetinghouses, temples are places where devout members participate in their highest religious rites such as eternal marriage.
