Spring City Council moves to head off lot size referendum

SPRING CITY—The lot-size battle in Spring City isn’t over.

In late 2025, after nearly two years of overflow meetings, multiple lawsuits and a raucous municipal election campaign, the Spring City Council approved an ordinance, known as Ordinance 2025-05, establishing an historic zone where 1.06-acre zoning would be preserved.

Outside of the defined zone, the maximum lot size was reduced to a half-acre, enabling owners of 1.06-acre lots to split them in two. The vote on Ordinance 2025-05 was 3-2.

Almost immediately, proposals for new subdivisions with half-acre lots, the very thing historic preservation advocates sought to avoid, started flooding into the town’s Planning and Zoning Commission.

In February 2026, after newly elected council members had been seated, the city council voted to repeal Ordinance 2025-05. By another 3-2 vote, the council passed Ordinance 2026-03 reestablishing 1.06 acres as the minimum lot size citywide.

Then at a city council meeting last Thursday, May 7, the city council looked at the draft of a third ordinance, this one repealing both 2025-05 and 2026-03.

The new ordinance, titled Ordinance 2026-06, again sets the minimum lot size at 1.06 aces. It also incorporates much of the town’s overall land-use and zoning ordinance covering topics other than lot size, ranging from home businesses to frontage requirements. Most of those provisions, which are not controversial, go back years and in some cases decades.

Councilman Chris Anderson, the former mayor, an attorney, and the person who drafted the latest ordinance explained that he and other council members are trying to head off a referendum, which conceivably, could restore 2025-05, the ordinance passed late last year, which, for a time, permitted lot splits and new half-acre subdivisions.

After passage in February of the ordinance repealing any chance at half-acre lots and restoring the 1.06-acre minimum citywide, residents favoring half-acre lots, led by former Councilman Randy Strate, petitioned for a referendum to overturn the 2026 ordinance.

The next step was for proponents of the petition to work with the city staff to prepare a pamphlet explaining what the referendum was about. The pamphlet was completed in mid-April.

That started the clock ticking under the Utah referendum process. Strate and his supporters have 45 days, or approximately until the end of May to gather signatures from 35 percent of active registered voters in the city. The signatures must be submitted to the county clerk for verification.

If Strate and his supporters meet the 35 percent threshold, the referendum goes on the ballot in November. More significantly, the ordinance they opposed, the measured passed in February returning to 1.06-acre lots citywide, is immediately invalidated, at least until the election. The pre-existing ordinance, 2025-05, permitting lot splits is restored, pending the outcome of the election. If the referendum passes, 2025-05 becomes permanent city law.

But, Anderson explained, there’s a wrinkle in Utah law addressing referenda on land-use issues. If a land-use measure is passed unanimously by a city council, it is not subject to a referendum.

After 2026-03 was passed, Councilman Courtney Syme and Councilman Marty McCain, the two council members who opposed it and who wanted to keep the previous ordinance permitting lot splits, resigned from the council.

James Baker, one of the people appointed to fill the vacancies, is a known, longstanding supporter of the 1.06-acre lots. Stan Soper, the other appointee, has not been vocal about lot size but has advocated referring the whole lot-size issue to the Planning and Zoning Commission. He would charge the commission with coming up with a broader town design, which could include designating different lot sizes and housing types in limited areas, or setting up “overlay” districts where a mix of lot sizes and housing types could be permitted.

If all five council members vote for 2026-05, the new, more comprehensive ordinance drafted by Anderson, it appears to be game over. A referendum is not permitted.

A public hearing on 2026-05, the latest draft, is scheduled before the Spring City Planning and Zoning Commission on Wednesday May 27. The measure would go before the city council at the first meeting in June, scheduled for June 4.

“When I look at the referendum, people say, ‘We just want to have a chance to vote,’” Anderson said at the May 7 council meeting. “The problem is, it isn’t just a chance to vote. It changes our zoning right after they submit the referendum and the signatures are approved. We go to one-half acre zoning in a large part of the city.

Anderson said some Planning and Zoning commissioners are saying, “Let us make recommendations.” But Anderson said by the time they complete the recommendations, “it will be too late.” Planning and Zoning might decide to keep a given area 1-acre. But by the time they make the decision, “half the lots are now a half acre. It’s too late to go back.”

At the same meeting, Councilman Soper said lot size “is an important issue for this community. But is in the only issue.” He called for referring the issue to Planning and Zoning to look at it wholistically, in the context of the whole town, while the council moves on to other matters.