Yesterday morning was one of the last meetings of the Land Use Task Force before the start of the 2026 legislative session (there are two more meetings scheduled to try and finalize some bill language recommendations), and in the afternoon, Utah APA held a legislative workshop to help planners get up to speed on what is coming down the pipes in new legislation. I want to start posting about all this to get everybody up to speed, but before I do that, I want to take note of a particularly interesting legal and political issue stirring up one Utah community – changes to the land use code in Spring City.
A story last week the The Trib outlined the issue quite well – the town, which pins much of its identity on the character of the original pioneer layout, with lots that are 1.06 acres in size and that is mostly covered by a National Historic District designation for that pioneer-era character, recently adopted a change to its land use code that would allow one-half acre lots.
Many in the community are upset by this, as they feel this would result in the deterioration of the historic character of the community. Such a move has been tried before, and failed:
Two referendums have already reversed attempts to reduce the 1.06-acre lot size, Mayor Anderson said, most recently in 2004. And a more recent survey conducted by the planning commission in 2023 also showed 76% of residents wanted to keep the city’s traditional 1.06-acre lots.
This time around, residents opposed to the lot size reduction authorization are doing a couple of things. First, they are pointing out that there is an alternative for those who may want to divide their lots:
But residents who need to subdivide their lots already have a path to do so, Rudman said. The Spring City Board of Adjustments can allow for an exception to the minimum lot size if a property owner can demonstrate “undue hardship” beyond purely economic reasons.
To those of us steeped and marinated in land use law and process, we know this is not a valid method for getting around existing land use regulations, rather it is a rare exception that can only be allowed if an applicant can meet all of the conditions listed in state code for variances (10-20-1102 (2) (a))
Second, the opponents are pursuing a lawsuit against the city:
Thirteen property owners in Spring City are listed as plaintiffs in the suit, with many being members of Friends of Historic Spring City. The nonprofit is also listed as a plaintiff in the lawsuit.
The suit alleges that the council did not go through the proper state processes or adhere to federal historic preservation requirements in its plan to subdivide historic lots, and requests that a judge reverse previous council land use actions and prohibit the body from reducing lot sizes.
Again, while I am not an attorney, I’ve been around this stuff long enough to suspect that this suit will likely not succeed in trying to overturn the council’s action on anything other than procedural grounds. That is, if the council did not follow procedural steps to amend a land use code properly, they may be required to go back and do it again. But to overturn it on the grounds that some (even a lot) of the citizens don’t like it? Even if the planning commission recommended against it (note: the PC action is a recommendation only, the council can take whatever action it deems appropriate!)? Not very likely.
So why don’t the citizens try a referendum again, like they apparently done have a couple of times before (and succeeded)? Here’s the mayor’s response to that:
The ordinance’s unanimous approval came after (Mayor) Anderson pushed for more time to craft a different compromise, and the city’s planning and zoning commission voted against embracing the council’s plan. Because all council members voted for it, Anderson said, residents won’t be able to pursue a referendum.
The mayor is correct. In 2023, the state legislature passed a bill, SB199 by Sen. Mike McKell, that says:
a proposed referendum is not legally referable to voters for a municipal land use law, … if the land use law was passed by a unanimous vote of the local legislative body.
There was a lot of churn in the legislature over this bill, as noted in this DesNews story at the time, and this one later. In that second story, Sen. Lincoln Fillmore, a co-chair of the Commission on Housing Affordability, said:
… he didn’t support because he thought it was “unconstitutional and tilted too far away from public involvement, where I’m trying to strike a balance.”
I remember the discussions about this bill at the time it was being considered, and most of my land-use attorney friends (can they really be “friends?” 😊) said that this provision, if it were to be challenged legally, would likely not stand up under the state constitution’s referendum rights provisions and past rulings on referenda by the state supreme court.
So, if the Spring City residents feel so strongly about this issue and are willing to file lawsuits, why not one in which they would likely have a greater chance of success, that is, overturning the prohibition on being able to do a referendum? Just askin’! Someday someone will, I think.
It just goes to show how much “fun” all this land use stuff is, right?