2026-09-09 · Idaho · Courts

What happened. In Jordan v. Powers, Docket No. 51330-2023², decided 28 August 2025, the Idaho Supreme Court held that a county-approved boundary line adjustment and amended plat did not remove a strip of land from the covenants recorded against the subdivision — but also held that those covenants did not categorically prohibit building a road on it.¹ Justice Zahn wrote; Chief Justice Bevan and Justices Brody, Moeller and Meyer concurred.

The result is split, and both halves are useful. Associations win the durability point. Boards lose the habit of reading a general covenant as a prohibition on anything unwelcome.

The sixty-foot strip

Aaron Powers owned Lot One in the Sorensen Creek Subdivision in Teton County and a large adjacent parcel outside it, which he planned to develop into fourteen lots. The adjacent parcel had no public or developed private road access — only a two-track dirt path across Lot One. Powers asked the association's board for permission to build a road on a sixty-foot strip of Lot One and was told no.

He then applied to Teton County for a boundary line adjustment that would shift the strip out of Lot One and into the adjacent parcel. A homeowner opposed the application; the County granted it anyway; the association asked for reconsideration and the County declined. Neither the association nor any owner sought judicial review under the Local Land Use Planning Act.³ The amended plat and boundary line adjustment were recorded in April 2022.

Carl Jordan, a homeowner and board member, sued. The district court (Seventh Judicial District, Teton County, Judge Alan C. Stephens) granted him essentially everything and permanently enjoined the road.

Covenants follow the plat they were written against

The covenants defined the “properties” they governed as the real property shown on the plat recorded 29 May 1984 as Plat No. 94873, “and such additions thereto as may hereafter be brought within the jurisdiction” of the association. The sixty-foot strip was part of Lot One as platted in 1984.

That settled it. “Nothing in the CC&Rs indicates that the owner of property to which the CC&Rs apply can unilaterally remove that property (or some portion of it) from the scope of the CC&Rs by filing an amended plat.” The Court gathered authority from Utah, Oregon and Wyoming to the same effect, including the Wyoming rule that approval of a land-use plan by a county zoning authority does not override a covenant violation enforceable in a private action between landowners.

1. Jordan v. Powers, Docket No. 51330-2023 (Idaho, Aug. 28, 2025) (slip opinion) ↩
2. Jordan v. Powers, docket record (CourtListener) ↩
3. Idaho Code tit. 67, ch. 65, Local Land Use Planning Act (judicial review of county land-use decisions) ↩