Local News
Incorrect measuring led to oversized AF structure approval; Lehi neighbor files court injunction
Rob Shelton | Lehi Free Press
A fight over a massive backyard structure on 900 West in American Fork is headed towards court. A Lehi homeowner, whose property is adjacent to the structure, told the American Fork City Council at its Sept. 8 meeting that he has retained an attorney and plans to seek an injunction. The city has responded by routing all further communication through its own attorney. This is the second announcement of legal action against the city this past month during the public comment period of a city council meeting.
The structure sits at 731 N 900 W, on a parcel the city’s Development Review Committee approved on April 6. City records list the building at 7,910 square feet of footprint and 11,146 square feet total, standing roughly 35 feet tall, compared to the single-story “rambler” homes that back up to it in American Fork and neighboring Lehi.
“The Rovig accessory structure was approved on April 6, 2026,” Dale Stewart, a Lehi resident whose backyard abuts the project, told the council Sept. 8. “Many of you have seen the news reports now on KSL and Fox 13 regarding the size of the structure and the undue negative impact it has created on the neighborhood.”
Stewart’s case turns largely on how the city measured the property’s required “rear yard,” the open space behind a home where accessory-building coverage is capped. American Fork code defines a rear yard as the space between a building’s rear outer wall and the closest opposite property line. But when Stewart called the city on Aug. 24 asking how the calculation was done, city planner Cody Opperman told him the city had measured from “the plane that’s flush with the front of the home, and anything behind that is rear yard,” using the front of the house, not its rear wall, as the starting point. The city approved the project in April with no side yard calculated at all, according to Stewart.
After Stewart raised the issue, Patrick O’Brien, director of development services for the city, acknowledged in an Aug. 25 email that a side yard needed to be calculated and sent a drawing showing the correct approach: measuring from the rear of the dwelling, not the front. But the drawing excluded part of the home’s attached addition, labeling it a “detached structure.” Stewart said the addition was attached, and O’Brien agreed after sending an inspector to confirm it. “They confirmed that it is attached,” O’Brien wrote back.
Using the full, attached dwelling, Stewart calculates the rear yard at roughly 28,181 square feet. The accessory structure’s 7,910-square-foot footprint is 28.1% of that space, which Stewart says exceeds the 25% cap set by Section 17.5.105(1)(f) of the city code. He also told the council the building’s height, including a decorative cupola, could reach 37.5 feet, exceeding the city’s 35-foot maximum.
City records suggest officials anticipated a dispute like this well before it arrived. At an Aug. 19, 2025 Planning Commission meeting, eight months before Rovig was approved, O’Brien told the commission a code-compliant building could still feel “out of place and create a sense of concern,” citing a different accessory structure that had “met all code requirements” yet still drew complaints. Mayor Frost said the city needed rules flexible enough “while preventing someone from building something disruptive.” He asked staff what steps it could take “to prevent serious issues like the one that occurred previously.”
Stewart also quoted O’Brien from a December 2023 meeting, saying an accessory building “should be considered something subservient. If we have something that is borderline two times the size of the primary structure, it challenges that role.” Stewart said the structure behind his home is three times the size of the primary residence.
“Mr. Mayor, you made a commitment to us that evening that you would review the matter and, quote, ‘make it right if the city made a mistake’,” Stewart said, referencing a visit Mayor Frost made to his home. “I’m asking you to follow through with that tonight. I have hired an attorney, and they will be seeking an injunction this week.”
The fallout arrived by email two days later. David Bunker, American Fork’s city administrator, wrote to Stewart and his attorney, Jeffrey Colemere of the Draper firm Colemere Gibbs & Stout, on Sept. 10, copying the mayor, the council and the city attorney. “With the notification you provided during the city council meeting on Tuesday, September 8, 2026, that you are seeking legal recourse regarding this issue, we respectfully request that all communication with the city shall proceed through our city attorney,” Bunker wrote. “Heather [city attorney Heather Schriever] will be the point of contact for all communications with you or Mr. Colemere.”
Stewart first raised the issue publicly at the council’s Aug. 25 meeting, two days after construction began, and local media reported on the dispute the next day.
