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| Image: Mike LoCascio |
Written by Marcos Camargo
On Tuesday June 23, the town of Virgin held a referendum on whether to allow a zoning amendment to go forward. The amendment would allow Zion Sunset Resort to build a new RV park on a parcel of land zoned for noncommercial use. The referendum took place despite lawsuits filed by the resort to halt the citizen-led initiative. Attorneys for Zion Sunset filed two suits. The first, filed against supporters of the referendum, claimed that petitioners fraudulently obtained signatures. The second, filed against the town, claimed that the issue was not legally referendable. The judge in the case, Jeffrey Wilcox, recognized that the pending suits could alter the outcome of the referendum, but still allowed the vote to take place.
Although the votes have yet to be certified, an unofficial count points strongly to the passage of the referendum.
“We have 23 provisional votes cast, and so those have to be reviewed by the county and by our attorney to determine which ones we will actually accept or reject,” said Virgin town clerk Monica Bowcutt. “Right now the count is 128 against the ordinance, which means they’re against the rezone, and 115 for the ordinance.”
Unless the provisional votes vote heavily in favor of the rezone, the referendum will pass. But with the pending lawsuits, there is still a chance that the referendum could be ruled moot. And even if upheld, the vote only blocks the zoning amendment; the RV park could still be built using a different process.
Adele Pincock, one of the defendants named in the resort’s suit, stressed that the referendum has nothing to do with stopping the building of the park. Rather, she said, it is an initiative to stop the city from approving a large zoning change without citizen consent. “If the property owner’s true intention is to apply for an RV resort he can legally do so today without a rezone,” said Pincock. “The referendum had nothing to do with the approval of an RV park. It was filed because citizens did not agree with the Town Council’s decision to rezone almost 57 acres of Rural Residential property for commercial and resort development. The intent of the referendum was to protect citizens’ rights and desires as expressed in the General Plan and zoning ordinance.
Neither attorneys nor spokespeople for the Zion Sunset Resort could be reached for comment.
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