That's Riverton United members' view of a Utah Supreme Court ruling in favor of their Sandy counterparts, which the court said can appeal a city zoning change at the ballot box and let voters decide the issue. "We're hoping to do what Sandy residents have done," Dennis Sampson, president of Riverton United, said Monday. "We're pretty optimistic that we'll see a referendum."

Though Sandy and Riverton residents dwell on opposite sides of Salt Lake County's east-west divide, they are bound together in opposition to big-box retailers, especially Super Wal-Marts. It's not that they hate Wal-Mart or other giant retailers, they just don't believe developers have picked appropriate homes for the big-box shops.

And both groups have gathered thousands of signatures in hopes of taking the issue to voters.

Sandy foes received their ballot-box wish earlier this month, when Utah's highest court ruled the residents could, by majority vote, overrule zoning regulations the City Council enacted for a parcel. In the Sandy case, residents were trying to stop The Boyer Co.'s proposal, which includes plans to bring a Super Wal-Mart, a Lowe's Home Improvement Warehouse, a set of smaller retailers and more than 300 housing units to a 100-acre gravel pit about 9400 South and 1000 East.

State Supreme Court justices' ruling has set up a citywide-vote in Sandy on the development.

While Riverton residents are attempting to take an identical request to voters, they have a least one additional hurdle that Sandy residents never faced. They may have misfiled their signatures.

Sampson said the Riverton group believed they could leave the signatures with the Salt Lake County clerk. But their referendum petition was dismissed in February by a 3rd District judge, who ruled the signatures must first go to the city.

Now that a new judge, John Paul Kennedy, has been assigned to the case, Riverton United is asking him to reverse the ruling. If the Riverton group is successful, its members believe their argument will get on the ballot.

The Riverton opponents are trying to reverse a zoning vote by the City Council that made way for a Super Wal-Mart and 800 housing units near 13400 South and Bangerter Highway. The project has been hotly debated in Riverton ever since the City Council approved the zoning change in January 2004 and then divided the land into four parcels, a move that killed an original signature drive in May 2004.

The issue was revived again when Riverton United collected the signatures of about 3,500 registered voters.

jsantini@sltrib.com