August 7, 2025
Utah Supreme Court
2025 UT 30 (click for full text of opinion)
The Utah Supreme Court held that a citizen referendum on a county rezone was moot because the property had since been incorporated into Erda city and county no longer had land use authority.
In 2020, Tooele County passed a zoning ordinance that rezoned a 22-acre agricultural parcel of land to a “planned community” zone, allowing it to be developed. A group of residents sponsored a referendum petition to place the rezone ordinance to a citizen vote. The County Clerk, however, rejected the petition, stating the Sponsors failed to gather the required number of signatures. The Sponsors then sued the County and the Governor to challenge the signature count and get the measure on the ballot.
While the lawsuit was ongoing, however, the unincorporated area where the property was located was incorporated into the newly formed City of Erda, meaning the land-use authority over the property was transferred from Tooele County to the City of Erda.
After the district court ruled against the Sponsors on the issue of whether the referendum petition met procedural requirements, the Sponsors appealed this decision to the Utah Supreme Court. However, the Utah Supreme Court did not address the merits of these issues. Instead, it dismissed the appeal as moot, reasoning that even if the Sponsors were to win their case and successfully get the referendum on the ballot, and even if Tooele County voters were to repeal the ordinance, the outcome would have no legal effect on the property. The City of Erda, not Tooele County, now has the sole authority to regulate the land’s zoning. The court stated that its purpose is to provide “meaningful relief,” which it could no longer do in this case. The City of Erda has already enacted its own zoning ordinances for the property since its incorporation.
The Sponsors argued that a successful referendum might still be able to extinguish any “vested rights” a developer may have accrued under the Tooele County ordinance. The court rejected this argument, noting that the developer and the City of Erda were not parties to the lawsuit. Furthermore, the court explained that under Utah law, a successful referendum would repeal the ordinance prospectively, as of the date of the election. It would not retroactively affect any rights that may have already vested. The court concluded that because Tooele County no longer has land-use authority over the property, a ruling on the validity of its old ordinance would be purely advisory. Therefore, the court dismissed the case.
