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Attorney For Richardson Flat Developers Does Not Expect a Repeal of House Bill 359

A special session of the Utah State Legislature is set to convene later this month and a potential repeal of controversial House Bill 359 is on the agenda. House Bill 359 is the legislation that allowed the town of Hideout to begin annexing 655 acres of land, known as Richardson Flat, without the consent of Summit County. An attorney representing the developers who hope to build on the Richardson Flat land says he is confident the bill will not be repealed.

 

Allegations of questionable lobbying and a misrepresentation of House Bill 359 to the Utah State Legislature have plagued the discussion around the town of Hideout’s controversial move to annex Richardson Flat since their town council voted to begin annexing the land on July 9.

 

Richardson Flat is located East of the Victory Highway and SR248 interchange. Nate Brockbank and Josh Romney are the developers involved with the proposal and the two hope to build a mixed-use development on the land called “North Park.” The development plans include 200,000 square feet of commercial area, 100,000 square feet of office space, and 3,500 residential units.

 

Bruce Baird has served as legal council for Brockbank and Romney for the last three years and said even though they were involved in the passing of House Bill 359, he claims the bill was not misrepresented to the legislature during the 2020 general session. He said the bill is designed to give the power over municipal development to cities as opposed to counties.

 

“Not in any way," Baird said. "The amendment is pretty clear in what it does and we think it implements a good public policy that lets local governments, cities, determine their municipal growth and where they can and want to provide services. Municipal development should be done in cities not in counties and it’s the city that provides the services. We think it’s actually quite clear and we think it’s a quite good public policy.”

 

An amendment was added to the original bill allowing municipalities in the state to annex unincorporated land without consent from the affected counties. The amended House Bill 359 passed the Utah House and Senate with near unanimous support on March 11 and was signed into law by Governor Gary Herbert on March 28.

 

Hideout took advantage of the amended legislation when they voted to begin annexing Richardson Flat on July 9.

 

Summit County filed a lawsuit against Hideout over the annexation move last Friday and was granted a temporary restraining order blocking any further action by Hideout on Tuesday. Baird claims Summit County filed the suit because the county is under the control of officials who are opposed to any development efforts outside of Summit County’s direct control. 

 

“Summit County doesn’t want any development anywhere unless it’s in their absolute control and this takes some power away from Summit County which is, frankly, in the control of an anti-development, anti-growth minority,” he said.

 

Summit County Manager Tom Fisher told KPCW last week that the land in question has already been through a public vetting process as part of Summit County’s general plan. He said the county’s interest in repealing the legislation comes from both a pro- and anti-development point of view.

 

“You could also imagine the opposite where a city who doesn’t agree with, perhaps, some type of development proposal that’s happening across the county border, they could possibly annex in order to stop development," Fisher said. "The issue could happen both ways.”

 

Fisher went on to say that Summit County will do everything in its power to keep the Richardson Flat area under county jurisdiction.

 

A court hearing is scheduled for Monday August 10 at 9:00 a.m. to determine whether Summit County’s temporary restraining order against Hideout should be dissolved or converted to a preliminary injunction. If the restraining order is upheld, Hideout will be unable to move forward with the annexation plans until the State Legislature votes on House Bill 359 during the August special session.

 

Baird told KPCW he and his clients fully expect the legislature to uphold House Bill 359 and allow the annexation to move forward. He added he would not speculate on a hypothetical repeal of the bill but says a compromise between the developers and Summit County is not off the table.

 

“No one ever says anything is off the table but Hideout is our preferred alternative because we think they’re more reasonable," he said. "I’ve dealt a lot with Park City and Summit County and they are, shall we say, difficult to deal with. Especially Summit County.”

 

The Utah State Legislature is scheduled to convene their special session to review House Bill 359 on August 20.

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.