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Hideout Town Council Votes to Repeal July 9th Annexation Resolution

Hideout Town

On Friday afternoon, the Hideout Town Council voted to repeal their pre-annexation resolution that was originally passed on July 9th to annex the 655 acres of Summit County land known as Richardson Flat. Hideout had hoped to use the land as a commercial development area. 

 

 The 4-1 vote was taken just before 1pm and rolled back the town’s plans to annex Richardson Flat.

 

The town council’s decision to repeal the pre-annexation resolution stems from Hideout’s planned town meeting on August 12th. That meeting was intended to be a chance for the public to comment on the proposed annexation but the meeting was derailed due to technical issues with the town’s Zoom account. Well over 130 participants attempted to join the call before town attorney Daniel Dansie advised the meeting be rescheduled. 

 

In reading the repeal, Hideout Mayor Phil Rubin said the town felt it would be inappropriate to move forward with the annexation process without ample feedback from the public.

 

“Whereas in light of the inability to hold the hearing, the town council finds it appropriate to repeal 2020-05,” he said.

 

Hideout was originally able to pursue this annexation under a new state law passed earlier this year, called House Bill 359. House Bill 359 allowed Hideout to annex the Richardson Flat land without the consent of Summit County. There have been allegations that House Bill 359 was misrepresented to the legislature when it was originally passed and it may be repealed at a special session of the Utah Legislature on August 20th.

 

Councilmember Kurt Shadle added he would like the State Legislature to clarify their position on the law before the town takes any further action.

 

“Given the controversy surrounding the passage of the legislation allowing for annexation across county lines, I believe that Hideout and our neighbors would be best served by pausing on our examination of the annexation of Richardson flat to wait to see what actions are taken by the legislature,” said Shadle. “I think all parties would be best served by letting the legislature tell us what they intended or didn’t intend with the passage of SB 5004/HB 359.”

 

Despite repealing their original annexation resolution, several Hideout town counselors did express their desire to eventually provide commercial services to the growing Jordanelle area. Wasatch County Councilor Kendall Crittenden and Park City Mayor Andy Beerman both spoke at the meeting and expressed a willingness to work together with the town on future regional planning.

 

Councilmember Chris Baier expressed her desire to continue the vision laid out in the town’s annexation policy plan, which includes annexing land in and around Richardson Flat into Hideout.

 

“I just want to say that our, in my opinion, our ideal of pursuing a lawful annexation is still important for the town as stated in our general plan,” Baer said.

 

Hideout was sued by Summit County over the annexation move on July 31st and a restraining order has been in place since August 4th, preventing any further action by Hideout. A decision on whether or not to dissolve the restraining order was originally scheduled for Friday afternoon in Utah’s 4th District Court but was moved to August 21st earlier on Friday. The likely fate of any future annexation of the Richardson Flat land is now in the hands of state lawmakers. 

 

The developer behind the Richardson Flat project, Nate Brockbank, did say if House Bill 359 is not repealed, he would like to approach Hideout again in the future.

Sean Higgins covers all things Park City and is the Saturday Weekend Edition host at KPCW. Sean spent the first five years of his journalism career covering World Cup skiing for Ski Racing Media here in Utah and served as Senior Editor until January 2020. As Senior Editor, he managed the day-to-day news section of skiracing.com, as well as produced and hosted Ski Racing’s weekly podcast. During his tenure with Ski Racing Media, he was also a field reporter for NBC Sports, covering events in Europe.