- A Davis County judge dismissed a lawsuit that stemmed from a dispute over a 341-unit housing development in Clinton.
- The lawsuit sought reinstatement of some of the signatures that had been removed from a petition taking aim at the project.
- The judge, though, said the pertinent state law doesn't contemplate reinstatement of removed signatures.
CLINTON — A Davis County judge has tossed a lawsuit filed by a Clinton man that stemmed from a dispute over a 341-unit housing development proposal in Clinton.
However, Adam Larsen, who has been spearheading efforts to challenge the project since last year, hopes his and other residents' clamoring at least spurs tweaks to the proposal, even if the lawsuit has fizzled. They had decried the density of the proposal, particularly the plans for 266 townhomes.
Second District Judge E. Blaine Rawson dismissed the suit filed by Larsen Wednesday. In the suit, Larsen had called for reinstatement of 37 signatures on a petition targeting the project, which, if permitted, would have been enough to allow a ballot question on the 2024 Clinton City Council zoning decision allowing the plans to move forward.
"Here, the court does not have the authority to grant the relief requested because granting the requested relief would require ignoring or overturning plain statutory language," Rawson wrote in his ruling. The ballot question, had it gone forward, would have asked Clinton voters if the 3-2 vote for the zoning change, key to the project's future, should stand.
Larsen and other critics of the project had mustered more than 3,800 signatures on their petitions, potentially enough to allow the referendum on the disputed zoning decision. But the developer, Mike Hatch, subsequently launched a campaign to convince signatories to remove their names, as allowed by law, reducing the final count to 3,519.
That 3,519 total was sufficient, but the number fell short in one of the city's voting areas — District B — by 14 signatures, failing to make way for the ballot question, the city said last January.
Larsen subsequently charged that those involved in the signature-removal drive used misinformation and deceit to convince signatories to remove their names, leading to the lawsuit. Twenty-one people in District B filed declarations saying they wanted their removed signatures to be counted, according to the suit, which would have theoretically been enough to overcome the shortfall in the district.
In his ruling, though, Rawson said the pertinent state law doesn't contemplate reinstatement of removed signatures.
"Thus, the court must conclude that the Legislature's omission of a reinstatement provision in the disputed statute was intentional and the Legislature did not intend for petition signers to have the option in the disputed statute to reinstate their signature after removing it from the petition," he wrote.
Neither Hatch nor Clinton officials immediately responded to queries seeking comment.
Larsen, spurred to run for a seat on the Clinton City Council given his experience with the issue, said he's hopeful the developer will scale his plans back given the uproar the proposal caused. A firm potentially interested in working with Hatch presented a proposal to Clinton officials that calls for 70 fewer townhomes than Hatch originally contemplated and seven more single-family homes, he said.
The proposal as originally put forward calls for 266 townhomes and 75 single-family homes on an undeveloped 34.9-acre expanse.
Larsen has also reached out to Rep. Karen Peterson, R-Clinton, to pursue the possibility of tweaking the state law that doesn't allow for reinstatement of signatures removed from ballot-initiative petitions.
In last week's primary voting, Larsen was the top vote-getter among eight hopefuls for two seats coming open on the Clinton City Council. He and the three other top finishers will appear on the November general election ballot for the two posts.
