Summit County prevailed once again in 4th District Court against Hideout’s efforts to annex hundreds of acres of Richardson Flat, apparently paving the way for an appeal that could finally settle the land dispute that has simmered — and sometimes boiled over — since last year.
Judge Jennifer Brown on Tuesday morning upheld her previous ruling in response to Hideout’s request to reconsider her order barring the town from pursuing the annexation.
She said the annexation was enacted and certified after a key deadline when legislation allowing the move expired in October.
The judge and attorneys from both sides indicated the case would eventually be settled in appellate court.
Summit County Attorney Margaret Olson was confident the county would successfully stop the annexation, which is being spearheaded by Hideout officials and developer Nate Brockbank, as well as what the county alleges is an illegal subdivision of land pursued by Wells Fargo Bank.
“Summit County continues to prevail on the law and on the facts,” she said. “Hideout and Brockbank and Wells Fargo’s ill-conceived effort to usurp Summit County’s land use authority shall not stand.”
Hideout attorney Polly McLean said the town was disappointed by Tuesday’s ruling.
“As the Judge noted, this motion (to reconsider) raises issues of first impression and the Utah appellate courts will have the final say,” she wrote in an email to The Park Record. “We are hopeful these issues can be presented to the appellate courts as quickly as possible.”
Hideout officials are seeking to annex 350 acres northwest of the town in Summit County on the far side of a set of rolling hills from the town’s current housing developments. If the land is annexed into Hideout, the town would control how and whether it is developed.
The land is uninhabited. It borders a site containing soil with Superfund levels of contamination left over from Park City’s historical mining industry. Summit County and Park City plan for the land to remain open space or have very low density development, perhaps with recreational trails.
Hideout intends to build a new town center there and officials appear enticed by the prospect of commercial development that could bolster town tax revenues and offer residents services like a gas station or grocery store closer than in Park City, Kamas or Heber. The commercial component is significantly smaller by square footage than the hundreds of homes Brockbank plans for the area.
Summit County and Park City have opposed the move, calling it a land grab and suing multiple times to stop it.
Brockbank is paying the town’s legal fees.
Brown ruled on several other motions Tuesday, including allowing Summit County to proceed in securing depositions from Brockbank; his former business partner Josh Romney, son of U.S. Sen. Mitt Romney; Brockbank’s attorney, Bruce Baird; and another prominent local development attorney, Wade Budge.
Brown also allowed another deposition to go forward, that of lobbyist Mike Ostermiller. Summit County alleges that Ostermiller was heavily involved in the passage of the legislation that allowed for Hideout’s attempted annexation.
Brown instructed the county to limit the deposition to information germane to the litigation and not to focus on how the legislation was created.
Before the legislation was passed, cross-county annexations required the approval of the county where the land is located. That and other provisions were modified by the Legislature to allow Hideout’s unusually shaped annexation proposal, which includes a long, narrow “cherry-stem” of land along S.R. 248 to connect Hideout to the proposed area.
The Legislature later repealed the law, though it declined to make the repeal effective immediately. That’s what allowed Hideout to continue to pursue its annexation even after a botched public hearing that was derailed by technical issues using video-conferencing software.
A since-retired town councilor said at the time it felt like the Legislature had closed a door but left a window open for Hideout to annex the land. He later voted to support the annexation.
The court has agreed with Summit County’s contention that the annexation was not completed by the deadline, but the county also has two other motions pending it believes could prevent the annexation should an appeal from Hideout be successful.
After Brown’s ruling, the opposing attorneys were set to find a way to put those two other motions aside to allow the case to move to an appellate court quickly without preventing the county from pursuing those other motions if the appellate court were to side with Hideout.
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Hideout is rebuffed again in court as judge sides with Summit County in annexation battle - The Park Record
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