A lawsuit accusing Summit County of passing an unlawful zoning ordinance nine years ago has been dismissed by a 3rd District judge.

Judge Bruce Lubeck ruled against a group of Snyderville Basin landowners and land-use attorneys in a 40-page decision this month.

The complaint was one of several filed against the county in 2004 and 2005 by Anderson Development, Evergreen Development and eight landowners and trusts. The landowners and developers charged that a zoning ordinance passed in 1998 was illegal, discriminatory, unfair and incomprehensible.

That 1998 ordinance allowed for incentive density zoning, which lets developers increase the units-per-acre on a piece of property if they add certain amenities to the community, such as affordable housing or trails. The ordinance was later amended in 2004 to include mostly hard zones and take the emphasis off the incentive program, said Dave Thomas, chief deputy county attorney.

Current code is zoned as one unit (or home) per 20 acres. But most developers seek higher density for the increased profits.

Lubeck said the Snyderville Basin landowners' lawsuit was untimely and that ordinances cannot be challenged beyond a certain time limit.

"Any applicant could file for development permission and when rejected, no matter how improper or faulty the application, or no matter what weakness were in the sought-for development, claim at any time that the ordinance was invalid," the judge wrote in his March 5 ruling. "No one could ever rely on the ordinance framework."

Sandy-based Anderson Development has sued the county at least a dozen times in the past five years. Most of the cases are still pending. The rest have been dropped.

According to the ruling in the Snyderville Basin lawsuit, the applications that the plaintiffs had submitted for rezoning were "merely challenges to the legality of the ordinance." Thomas added that the plaintiffs had never officially applied to develop within the county and instead had just sued.

"We think if they go through the process, they will find it's a very reasonable process," he said. "Hopefully, the fact that the county continues to prevail will convince Anderson Development to go through the development approval process."

The plaintiffs' complaints began in 2004, when Snyderville Basin landowner Nadine Gillmor sued the county for $10 million after the county denied home-development plans on her 300-acre property. She said she donated land to the county for a school and road and was told by the then-commissioners that she could develop at four units per acre.

In 2005, neighboring landowners and two developers, who have options on the pieces of property, joined the lawsuit, seeking up to $150 million in damages. Together, the developers and landowners have nearly 2,000 acres in the Basin.

Now the county will battle another lawsuit from the same group of attorneys who challenged the 2004 zoning-code amendment.

"We think this kind of shows that these lawsuits have not been meritorious lawsuits, (and have been filed) mainly with the purpose of trying to settle," Thomas said. "We're not going to cut some special deal just because someone sues the county."

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