Hutchings, however, does not believe county leaders have taken low-income housing seriously, even after a 1996 state statute requiring counties to establish an affordable housing plan. Summit County leaders are still working on theirs.

"They have something they're calling a moderate-income housing plan that's not quacking like a duck or walking like a duck," he said.

The "unique, elitist and special" zoning is particularly egregious in Summit County, Hutchings added, because the area's many Hispanic and low-income laborers are forced to commute daily from affordable housing areas in the Salt Lake Valley.

High-priced homes and few low-income housing options have made it impossible for construction workers and service industry employees to afford to live where they work, said Archie Archuleta, chairman of the Utah Coalition of La Raza.

"Summit County has for years engaged in exclusionary and discriminatory housing policies that violate laws and injure people," said Jeanetta Williams, president of the Salt Lake branch of the NAACP.

Williams noted this is the third lawsuit over "housing segregation" in Utah backed by the NAACP. A similar suit over Bluffdale's zoning of one unit per acre ended in court mandates for more affordable housing, and another suit against Fruit Heights is pending.

Park City, the southern neighbor of unincorporated Snyderville Basin, has done a commendable job of making low-income and handicapped accessible housing a priority, Hutchings said. That effort accounts for the recent influx of minority groups into the resort town, he added.

According to the 2000 U.S. Census, Park City's population is 80.5 percent white, with about 19.6 percent of the population from Hispanic or Latino origin. Unincorporated Summit County, however, is 95.5 percent white with only 4 percent of residents of Hispanic or Latino origin.

"Summit County is one of the worst, if not the worst in the state of Utah of making available the dream of affordable housing for all," Hutchings said. "It affects real people who are raising their families and trying to be included in our society."

Plaintiffs in the case have set up a Web site, www.summitcountycheatedme.com, for residents who want to read or express concern over affordable housing.

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E-mail: estewart@desnews.com