For Release: 02-27-2006

Judge’s Ruling Permits Land Disconnection from Bluffdale City

Ruling requires Bluffdale city officials to allow a group of Bluffdale property owners—one of whom negotiated with the city for 13 years over zoning regulations without being able to reach a single agreement—to disconnect from Bluffdale. Judge rules Bluffdale city’s planning process has become dysfunctional due to official foot-dragging and a contentious referendum and stop-the-rezoning campaign. Landowners intend to petition neighboring Herriman for annexation.

SALT LAKE CITY (February 27, 2006) – Third District Judge Anthony Quinn today ruled that a group of property owners who have negotiated with the city of Bluffdale for years without being able to reach any zoning regulation agreements, are entitled to de-annex their land from Bluffdale, a small city on Salt Lake Valley’s southwest bench.

The land-use dispute centered around whether the group of Bluffdale property owners would be allowed to build higher density master-planned neighborhoods that preserve large areas of open space on their approximately 3,900 acres of land in Bluffdale, a city that traditionally required a minimum size lot of one-acre for each single-family dwelling.

“The judge’s ruling is bittersweet for us,” said Don Wallace, vice president and COO of South Farm, one of the two largest property owners who brought the lawsuit. “For 13-years we’ve been struggling with Bluffdale over this issue. We can honestly say we tried as hard as we could to work with Bluffdale, but Bluffdale never approved anything on any of the 4,000 acres in question and has never provided services. So, it is time for all of us to move on.”

Wallace places the fault squarely in the lap of a group of militant residents calling itself Bluffdale United, who initiated a petition drive and a stop-the-rezoning campaign that overruled a compromise agreement made in October by Bluffdale elected officials and the property owners. “Bluffdale United divided the city and in the end is solely responsible for loss of the land,” said Wallace.

Judge Quinn’s ruling strongly stated, “In the current climate, it is simply not possible to negotiate with the city. The city’s administration has in effect become an agent with no authority, who can say no, but can never say yes, and provide a reliable decision, not likely to be attacked by referendum. Leaving the property in the city will only prolong this dysfunctional and contentious process.”

The judge wrote further, “While justice and equity do not require any specific outcome from a planning and zoning process, they do require that the planning process be fair, expeditious and consistent. The Bluffdale process as applied to South Farm lacks these elements.”

Wallace was appreciative of many people in Bluffdale. “We’d like to thank the many good people of Bluffdale who tried to plan for the changes that are coming and who tried do the right thing. To city council member Craig Briggs, former mayor Wayne Mortimer, former council members Morris Clark and Laurie Maxfield, and the city staff who worked with us on community planning, we say thank you.”

The lawsuit itself is more than eighteen months old and was put on hold in the fall of last year when Bluffdale city officials worked out a mutually agreeable compromise with the two largest property owners, South Farm and Development Associates. That agreement—nixed by a petition for a referendum—would have balanced preserving the mainly rural ambiance of Bluffdale with the new master-planned communities that help build a viable local tax base that pays for the expensive infrastructure low-density housing requires. Under the agreement, South Farm and Development Associates would have built or added on to major Bluffdale infrastructure projects such as water storage, sewers, storm drains and roads, to the benefit of current residents. New roads were designed that would route traffic away from and around historic Bluffdale.

A major new highway, the Mountain View Transportation Corridor, is already scheduled by the Utah Department of Transportation to go through the area of Bluffdale that is the subject of the disconnect suit. The agreement between Bluffdale and the property owners that was killed by the stop-the-rezoning campaign would have placed the higher density housing west of the new highway and away from current Bluffdale residences. New apartments and townhomes would have been built at the center of the neighborhoods near transportation hubs and commercial and retail services. The overall density was to be a maximum of 2.6 units per acre. The new neighborhoods would have provided Bluffdale with a variety of housing to serve each age demographic, including the young adults and retirees, something one-acre single-family dwelling zoning does not provide. Eighty acres of commercial development near the Mountain View Transportation Corridor would have provided Bluffdale with sales tax revenues, retail shopping and employment opportunities.

In addition, South Farm and Development Associates plans call for preserving large tracts of open space in the foothills, building regional parks and constructing miles of foot trails and equestrian and bicycle paths. No home would have been sited farther than one-half mile from a trailhead or park. Architectural guidelines for the communities would have maintained a consistent theme in harmony with Bluffdale’s country atmosphere, including rail fencing and landscaping.

When a group of activist Bluffdale residents made clear their intention to block any agreement between Bluffdale and the property owners, South Farm and Development Associates went back to Third District Court seeking a ruling on their lawsuit from Judge Quinn.

“We are grateful for the wisdom of the judge’s decision. We have complied with every single legal requirement of Bluffdale City, despite significant obstacles put in our way over the years,” said Dave Millheim, Development Associates partner. “We are sorry Bluffdale’s back-tracking, foot-dragging and obstructionism forced us to go to court to implement our private property prerogatives and we look forward to working with the forward-thinking city of Herriman.”

Millheim said court appeals would only waste more time and money. “We are fully committed to defending Judge Quinn’s ruling. However, I’m sure the thoughtful citizens of Bluffdale know their hard-earned tax dollars would be better spent planning for the future and figuring out how to fund the public services that Bluffdale citizens demand but that residential property taxes from one-acre-lot zoning cannot pay for.”

The landowners said they intend to immediately petition neighboring Herriman for annexation of their property.