'Area 4' fate up to court

First the Bluffdale City Council created a new zoning category. Then some residents held a petition drive to get rid of the new zone. Then would-be developers filed their lawsuit and, finally, a judge approved the disconnection of about 4,000 acres from the city of Bluffdale.

Now, when it might be too late, the city this past week held a referendum vote, which came out 424-416 in favor of keeping the new zoning category on the books.

The special-development-plan zone (SDP) was created by the City Council after landowners of about 4,000 acres in Bluffdale's southwest corner filed a lawsuit seeking to disconnect from Bluffdale and join nearby Herriman. That move was in response to a December 2003 council decision that denied their application for a zoning change that would have allowed the extension of Herriman's high-density Rosecrest development into Bluffdale.

The special zone would have allowed the city to deal with Area 4 — about 40 percent of the city's land — as a large parcel and begin negotiating with the developers accordingly. Residents opposed to the development formed an activist group called Bluffdale United and started a petition drive to get the special zone on the ballot, in hopes of doing away with it.

Residents voted Tuesday, and the vote was so close that results weren't finalized until Thursday evening.

The result may indicate a change in residents' attitudes since the November 2005 election, in which they ousted Mayor Wayne Mortimer in favor of Bluffdale United's preferred candidate, Claudia Anderson, said Donald Wallace, real-estate division president for South Farm, one of the landowners seeking to develop Area 4.

"It shows that the City Council members and the mayor aren't necessarily in sync with the citizenry out there," he said.

Between the time petitioners gathered enough signatures to put the issue on the ballot and Tuesday's vote, the landowners won the disconnect lawsuit in 3rd District Court. Unless the state Supreme Court overturns that decision, Area 4 will no longer be part of Bluffdale, meaning Tuesday's results may be a moot point.

"It kind of was a meaningless vote in terms of what it means to the disconnect lawsuit," Wallace said.

But Volma Heaton, one of the founding members of a new group called Bluffdale Accord, which wants to keep Bluffdale intact, said he remains hopeful the city can heal from the divide the disconnect caused and that Area 4's landowners may still agree to stay with Bluffdale.

"We're trying to get everybody together," he said.

However, Wallace said that even with the victory for the special zone, he has no reason to believe the City Council would apply it to Area 4. At this point, he said landowners still have their eyes solely on defending the disconnection before the Supreme Court.

Anderson could not be reached for comment Friday.

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