Spring City zoning lawsuits settled as residents look toward ‘healing’

SPRING CITY—Lawsuits pitting opponents of zoning changes in Spring City against the former Spring City Council are over.
Within three weeks after the first Spring City Council meeting of the year on Jan. 8, one suit was settled out of court; the plaintiff in a second suit withdrew it; and a third action filed with the Utah Supreme Court died when plaintiffs did not meet the deadline for refiling it in 6th District Court.

Several plaintiffs in what is being called the “big lawsuit,” a suit involving 13 residents, along with Friends of Historic Spring City, met with the Sanpete Messenger Jan. 24 to talk about how the lawsuits were resolved and where Spring City goes from here.
The plaintiffs said they backed away from litigation because of an expectation that new city council members, who took office in January, would repeal or modify Ordinance 2025-05, a measure the Spring City Council adopted last fall, which permits owners of 1.06-acre lots in some parts of town to split their lots.

In a letter to Taylor Kordsiemon, the attorney representing the city, Melanie Cook, attorney for the plaintiffs in all three lawsuits, wrote, “After recent developments, the plaintiffs have expressed confidence in the current Spring City Council and feel that their concerns are being heard.”

The plaintiffs also appeared to be influenced by the potential time and cost of continuing the suits. Tony Rudman, a retired attorney and a plaintiff in all three actions, noted that there is no guarantee the “new” city council will overturn Ordinance 2025-05.
But in the interview with the Messenger, he recounted that during a meeting of the plaintiffs following the first city council meeting, he suggested, “Let’s resolve this, so we don’t keep going to hearings and spending money and doing discovery and everything else. Let’s propose to drop all of the lawsuits.”

The plaintiffs also expressed a desire to start healing rifts in what has been a close-knit town. In her letter proposing to settle the “big lawsuit,” Cook wrote, “Members of the community—including plaintiffs, city council members and the Spring City residents at large—have expressed a desire to heal, move forward and restore relationships within the community.”

The “big lawsuit,” the first of the three actions, was filed in July 2025. The suit claimed the city had violated federal and state law by issuing $9.8 million in bonds to expand the water and sewer systems “without an adopted general plan, with inadequate public notice and over the express objections of residents.”

But in addition, and probably the central allegation in the suit, was that potentially changing the home lot size in Spring City from the historic 1.06-acre lots to a half acre could jeopardize the town’s status as a national historic district. That, the initial complaint in the lawsuit argued, could jeopardize Spring City’s eligibility for preservation grants as well as the eligibility of individual residents for historic preservation tax credits.

Overlying all the claims were allegations the city council, as the “big lawsuit” put it, had acted “arbitrarily and capriciously” by overriding Planning and Zoning Commission recommendations, “silencing dissent within advisory committees,” and “advancing growth measures without transparency, findings or meaningful public engagement.”

The lawsuit sought an injunction prohibiting the city council from adopting any land use measures that conflicted with Planning and Zoning recommendations. It also sought to halt any actions affecting the Spring City Historic District and to stop issuance of bonds for water or sewer projects.

Judge Mandy Larsen of the 6th District Court in Manti denied the injunction. Meanwhile, the city, through its attorney, Kordsiemon, filed a motion to dismiss the lawsuit.

The second of the three suits, with Rudman as the sole plaintiff, was filed Nov. 12. The case arose when the city council voted for a small expansion of commercial zoning on the north end of Main Street.

After the vote, Rudman asked the council how he could appeal the decision—in other words, how he could try to stop the commercial expansion. The city council directed him to appeal to the city’s Board of Adjustment.

Shortly afterward, city officials learned Utah law had changed, and zoning decisions could no longer be appealed to boards of adjustment. The city sent Rudman a letter saying there were no avenues for administrative appeal of zoning decisions.

That’s when Rudman, with Cook as his attorney, filed suit. Besides seeking to overturn the commercial zoning decision, the suit sought to block implementation of Ordinance 2025-05.

The Rudman suit also went to Judge Larsen, who initially granted a temporary restraining order blocking implementation of both the commercial zoning and Ordinance 2025-05. Later, after she learned about the new state law, the judge she declined the make the temporary injunction permanent.

The third suit was filed Nov. 4. At the time, petitions were being circulated in Spring City to put repeal of Ordinance 2025-05 on the 2026 ballot.

Then the group circulating the petition learned about a state law barring attempts to overturn a municipal land use ordinance if the city council vote on the ordinance had been unanimous. The Spring City Council vote adopting 2025-05 had been unanimous.

A group of residents, again with Cook as their attorney, filed an “extraordinary writ” asking the Utah Supreme Court to declare that the law regarding propositions and unanimous votes violated the Utah Constitution.

The Supreme Court, which rarely grants such writs, dismissed the case “with prejudice,” meaning it could be brought up again. But the court required plaintiffs to first file in 6th District Court, with the expectation the district court decision would be appealed to the Utah Court of Appeals, and the Court of Appeals decision to the Utah Supreme Court.

After the first Spring City Council meeting of 2026, actions to end the lawsuits moved extraordinarily quickly.

At the Jan. 8 council meeting, even before the plaintiffs in the “big lawsuit” met, Rudman spoke out during the public comment period.
As he recounted in the interview, Rudman told the council and residents attending the meeting, “I can dismiss my lawsuit. I can try to convince plaintiffs in the big lawsuit to dismiss theirs. But I can’t tell what the Supreme Court is going to make me do.”

Less than a week later, the Supreme Court issued its decision dismissing the request to overturn the law on ballot propositions but offering Spring City plaintiffs the option of taking the case up through the court system.

“Since that was going to be a long pathway with an uncertain outcome, the timing was right for the parties to settle,” Rudman said. The deadline to refile the suit in district court was Jan. 23. The plaintiffs did not refile.

On Friday, Jan. 16, two weekdays before Kordsiemon, the city’s attorney, was scheduled to argue Spring City’s motion to dismiss the “big lawsuit” in 6th District Court, Cook emailed her letter offering to settle the suit.

“Between Friday and Wednesday, the ball was in their (the city’s) court,” Rudman said. “They were kind enough to come back and say, ‘We may win this thing, but we’re going to allow it to be dismissed, and let’s get it solved.”

Within a day or two of sending her letter to Kordsiemon, Cook drew up a joint agreement to dismiss the lawsuit, both attorneys signed it, Cook emailed it to Judge Larsen, and the judge signed it on the day of receipt.

Meanwhile, as offered at the city council meeting, Rudman, the plaintiff in the suit on expansion of commercial zoning, which also sought to overturn 2025-05, asked the court to dismiss his suit.

Former Mayor Chris Anderson, now a councilman, said a new ordinance on lot size in Spring City has been drafted and will be presented at the council meeting this week, “I think the most likely thing would be to go back to the 1.06 acres in the entire city, but I think maybe we keep larger accessory units.”

Anderson said he expected a provision in 2025-05 limiting multifamily units to 3 percent of the number of single-family dwellings in the city to remain in place. The provision would have the effect of barring any multi-family units until quite a few more single-family homes are added in the town.

Anderson emphasized that the council would hold public hearings, and the initial draft might be adjusted based on input at the hearings.
Concerns have been expressed about what will happen now, with 2025-05 remaining in force unless or until a new lot-size ordinance is adopted. Anderson said he knows of just “two or three” people who have applied to divide their lots but expected a couple more applications at the next Planning and Zoning Commission meeting. He said he had heard about a proposal for a multi-lot subdivision but hadn’t seen anything tangible yet.

For now, participants in the lawsuits are passing around commendations.

“I want to commend Judge Larsen,” Rudman said. “…(In the “big lawsuit”), she did a remarkable job in ruling in favor of the council on some things and ruling in favor of us (the plaintiffs) on some things…The judge allowed the parties to come to some kind of resolution…and that’s the way it should work.

“The (city) council should be complimented as well…,” Rudman added. “Once we said we were willing to resolve it, they had to agree to the resolution. So the current council ought to be complimented. And former mayor, now councilman Anderson, (and) Paul Penrod (the new mayor)…ought to be complimented in allowing us to resolve this ourselves.”

Scott Newman, a plaintiff in the “big lawsuit” and president of the Friends of Historic Spring City, said the resolution will allow life in Spring City to start getting back to normal.

“I can’t tell you the anxiety we (his wife and him) have felt for, gosh, probably the last eight months because of people on both sides.”
He said he sits next to members of the past council, his adversaries in the “big lawsuit,” in church. “They walk by you in the hall. Are they going to extend their hands? It’s not like Salt Lake, where you may never see these people. I credit everybody involved, from the city, and the group here (the key plaintiffs), for having to deal with that, and I’m confident we can get past that.”