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Just got off the phone with city attorney Ginny Gennaro. She tells me the city will issue a press release tomorrow (Friday) regarding the homebuilders' lawsuit.

What does that mean?

Here's my guess, which is conjecture only at this point:

The council will vote at its next meeting to officially hold off on considering large projects while the suit is in play. (What us regular folks would consider a development freeze.)

GEEK ONLY ALERT! NORMAL PEOPLE STOP READING HERE:

Some technicalities underlying the guesswork...this gets wonky  quick.

Under state law, the city is allowed to make changes to the general plan up to four times a year.

Each "cycle," which includes all of the projects under consideration, counts as one change. So if 15 projects are voted on during one cycle, that counts as one amendment under the four-per-year limit.

Last night, the city postponed three of five projects (biggest = the Canyons) in the current cycle and approved the other two. But the two voted on (some city/county cleanup that didn't involve traffic impact fees) won't go into effect until the current cycle is officially ended.

At the moment, it's in a state of suspended animation, so to speak.

The cycle will end when all of the projects in it are approved, denied or punted to the next cycle.

So, the council could end the cycle (again, my conjecture only until we hear more) by shuttling the three postponed projects to the next cycle. Then they could put off consideration of the next cycle until the litigation is resolved.

Or something.

Any better guesses?

- Gretchen Wenner, staff writer