An appeal of Grand County’s approval of modifications to the Cloudrock luxury resort’s configuration has been denied by 7th District Court Judge Lyle Anderson.

In the complaint, the appellants asserted that the Grand County Council approved amendments to the Cloudrock planned unit development requirements and the development agreement with Cloudrock LLC without complying with provisions in the county’s land use code that allow changes to wilderness lodge use-on-review and special exceptions for road design.

The Cloudrock development is slated to be built on Johnsons Up On Top mesa above Spanish Valley. Plans for the development include 73 wilderness lodge units, 156 “village” residential units, and 180 residential units spread along the center of the mesa top. The Grand County Council has also approved fifty-five employee housing units, but it is not clear whether those units will actually be built as part of the project.

Eleven plaintiffs took the appeal to the court after the Grand County Board of Adjustment rejected it.

“The plaintiffs have not demonstrated that the county’s land use decisions were arbitrary, capricious, or illegal. The plaintiffs also failed to timely appeal the short notice of the planning commission’s hearing on the use-on-review application, and they have not shown that their due process rights were violated. Therefore, the court grants Cloudrock’s motion for summary judgment, and denies the plaintiffs’ cross motion for summary judgment,” Anderson wrote.

The use-on-review approval allowed changing the development’s configuration to a more compact design and altered the ratio of lodging units to residential units.

The special exceptions allowed narrower roads and a larger lodging unit size, according to Anderson’s ruling.

An appeal to an earlier ruling by Anderson, in which he found that the county was following its own land-use rules, is now pending before the Utah Supreme Court. Questions in that appeal will be heard on Sept. 1, according to John Weisheit, one of the 11 plaintiffs.

“I think that is good news,” Weisheit said, remarking on what he said was the Utah Supreme Court’s willingness to hear the appeal directly rather than require it first be heard by the State Appellate Court.