Judge not ready to sign off on Bluffdale land deal

BLUFFDALE — The protracted battle over a planned development in this rural hamlet is playing out not only in city politics but also in the courts, and on Wednesday a judge told the city and developers he wasn't ready to sign off on their recent agreement.

Third District Judge Anthony Quinn had been asked to approve a settlement agreement approved 4-1 by the City Council on Tuesday, but after a citizens' group attempted to intervene, the judge said he still has some legal questions about the agreement's legality.

"I don't want to be rushed into making a decision I'm not comfortable with," he said. "Do I have the right to dictate the course of development" that would normally be determined by a public zoning process?

So Quinn put the issue on hold until a Nov. 10 hearing, asking the attorneys for the city, the developers and the citizens' group, Bluffdale United, to file briefs in the meantime addressing that question.

The issue was in the courts because landowners in Area 4, about 4,000 acres on Bluffdale's southwest corner, were seeking to disconnect from Bluffdale and join nearby Herriman after a December 2003 council decision that denied their application for a zoning change.

After the suit was filed, the council created the so-called special development plan, a zoning category that would have allowed the city to deal with the 4,000 acres as a large parcel and begin negotiating with the developers accordingly. Residents opposed to the development formed Bluffdale United and started a petition drive to get the SDP on the ballot.

Now, with enough signatures gathered, they say that referendum was sidestepped by Tuesday's vote. So on Wednesday they filed a new referendum petition, this time calling for a public vote on the settlement's consent decrees, which would clear the way for the development if the developers build the infrastructure at no cost to the city.

The opposition is tied closely to November's municipal election. Among the group's members are mayoral candidate Claudia Anderson and two City Council candidates, Nancy Lord and Bill Maxwell. Their slogan: "Keep Bluffdale Rural."