Two lawsuits related to the town of Hideout’s controversial attempt to annex the Richardson Flat Land East of Park City are scheduled to be heard in Utah courts in the coming days.
Summit County has filed two lawsuits related to the attempted annexation of 655 acres of land in the county in an effort to prevent it from becoming a large commercial development area.
Summit County sued the town of Hideout over their attempt to annex Richardson Flat on July 31st and also filed a second lawsuit against the developers hoping to build on the land, Nate Brockbank and Josh Romney, in late August.
Summit County Manager Tom Fisher tells KPCW the county is alleging Brockbank and Romney attempted to purchase two parcels of land in Richardson Flat in an illegal foreclosure sale involving Wells Fargo Bank. Summit County says the sale was done improperly and should be invalidated by the court.
“The lawsuit alleges that the foreclosure sale was done improperly because of how it was handled by a constable, a constable that is not authorized in Summit County and was from a different county, as well as the deeds that were prepared to memorialize that sale, we feel are illegal because they were prepared by this constable and that’s not allowed in law,” said Fisher.
Fisher said only a sheriff can conduct foreclosure sales in Summit County. He says constables are typically only used to serve court papers, such as a summons or subpoena to appear in court. Fisher says there is no authorized constable in Summit County.
The county alleges Wells Fargo and the developer’s attempt to use an unauthorized constable to push through the sale is evidence of Brockbank and Romney’s effort to sidestep Summit County’s zoning laws and regulations to obtain the property.
Brockbank and Romney have also been tied to the lobbying effort behind the passage of a now-repealed state law which paved the way for Hideout to begin the annexation of Richardson Flat in July, known as House Bill 359.
The two parcels in question lie just East of the U.S. 189 and SR 248 interchange and are listed as SS-87 and SS-88 on the Summit County parcel map. According to the county’s map, the parcels are currently still owned by the United Park City Mines Company.
Fisher said the parcels were part of an agreement between Park City and the United Park City Mines Company during the development of Empire Pass in the early 2000s. That agreement says the parcels would remain development free. However, different ownership of the parcels could change that.
Summit County also alleges the two parcels were illegally subdivided into several smaller parcels surrounding an EPA-designated hazardous waste zone left over from Park City’s mining town era. Fisher said subdividing the parcels around the waste zone would leave Summit County, the State, and the EPA the bill for the cleanup efforts.
“They illegally subdivided that property through the sale into several different parcels, carving out the soils repository and leaving that to the EPA, Summit County, and the State to clean up without having the rest of the property available to fund some of that,” he said. “A couple of issues there, big issues there to Summit County and the citizens of Summit County.”
A hearing for Summit County’s lawsuit against Wells Fargo, Brockbank, and Romney is scheduled for 9:30am on September 9th in Utah’s 3rd District Court. A decision on Summit County’s lawsuit against the town of Hideout over their attempt to annex Richardson Flat is scheduled to be handed down in Utah’s 4th District Court at 3pm on September 3rd.
