OGDEN — A federal judge has ruled against a landlord who sued Ogden City after officials issued a demolition order on a boarded-up rental property on Grant Avenue.

Property owner Douglas E. Bruce, who lives in Colorado Springs, Colorado, filed suit in Salt Lake City’s U.S. District Court in 2020, alleging Ogden officials unconstitutionally down-zoned his property to single-family residential in 2009. The city had enacted a revised zoning ordinance several years earlier.

But in a ruling filed last week, Judge David Barlow said Bruce’s claim that the city is unjustly taking his property without compensation is legally invalid. The suit, according to the judge, “does not show that (the city) denied all economically beneficial use of the land — he may still rent, occupy or sell the property after the duplex is demolished.”

Bruce’s property, at 3166 and 3172 Grant, has two duplexes and a separate cottage in the rear. He bought the property in 1983 and rented out the units. But the down-zoning of the lot to single-family residential limited Bruce to keep renting only one of the 3172 Grant units.

Over time, the 3166 dwelling became a haven for homeless people and the duplex was declared a community nuisance. In their request that the suit be dismissed, attorneys for the city said officials sent Bruce 16 notices of violation, 14 citations and 11 abatement citations and that he failed to respond and remedy the problems. The ordered demolition “is not because it is in violation of Ogden City’s zoning ordinance, but because it is an actual threat to the public well-being,” the city’s court filing said.

Ogden police responded to 38 break-ins at the 3166 property from 2017 to 2020, the city said. One incursion resulted in a fire that collapsed the roof. In a court deposition, Bruce said the city “encouraged the bums. They didn’t get rid of the bums, and the bums went in and started a fire.”

Bruce said the zoning issues damaged the economic viability of the property and he contended he could not get what he believes the land is worth if he were to sell the lot.

Barlow wrote that “regulating a nuisance is quintessential government action,” and that Bruce provided no evidence that the structure is not a nuisance. “Instead, the unrebutted evidence shows that the building is dangerous because it is structurally deficient and left unsecured,” the judge said.

The city is entitled to summary judgment “because a reasonable jury could not find that defendants’ behavior was conscience-shocking,” the judge wrote.

Bruce’s claims against the zoning ordinance and down-zoning were denied because they were well beyond the four-year statute of limitations, the court ruled.

Newsletter