I realize that Joseph Smith is a venerated figure among Mormons, having found those

[MineralMan]

21. I've been to Vermont. It's a lovely state.

It's not difficult to block large-scale developments and be legal about it. If Vermont or parts of Vermont want to keep such developments out, then there are time-tested ways to make it impossible to build them. Up to a point, that is. However, if those land-use rules are not in place and someone proposes a development that doesn't violate existing limitations, it can be much more difficult to prevent that development from going forward.

In many rural areas, not enough attention has been focused on maintaining an existing land-use strategy, and laws have not been put in place, because nobody expected such changes. When that happens, it's always possible for a developer to use the holes in the land-use laws to do what he or she wants. It can be almost impossible for a jurisdiction to prevent such use if it is not prohibited.

I'd guess that this particular developer believes that he has found a legal gap that would make it possible to do what he plans. He might be correct, actually. Any hint that the local jurisdiction is trying to use religious grounds to prohibit the development could destroy its chances of actually stopping it. Religious freedom is a very tough bar to crack.

The story you linked to would seem to indicate that some such thing is being attempted. That's a serious mistake, and could screw up the plans to block such a development in their tracks.

Land-use stuff is tricky. Very tricky. The community where I used to live in California made a similar mistake, really. Not having to do with religion, but in not having well-designed land-use laws. A developer wanted to put up a shopping mall. It was across a major road from another one, but the property in question was zoned for agricultural use. The owner of the property was the developer. He looked at the land use limitations and discovered that he could pretty much do anything agricultural there without restriction. So, he decided that he'd put a pig farm on the property. It turned out that the local jurisdiction could not keep him from doing so, right on the edge of a residential and commercial zone. They had not considered such a use, and had not prohibited it.

The developer built the shopping mall. Apparently the local jurisdiction decided that would be a more appropriate use, since there was another one right across the road. The pig farm project was not developed.

If the area around that small town does not have adequate land-use restrictions in place, that jurisdiction is going to find that trying to use religion as the basis for prohibiting the development will backfire and they'll lose any chance of blocking this developer by taking the wrong approach. I foresee real problems with this, frankly. And if the proper land-use restrictions are not in place, it's too late to impose them if the developer has filed any plans for his project.

Quite a dilemma, and the developer can use current interest in alternative community development and agricultural/residential mixed development, along with energy considerations to push this effectively. The religion thing sounds like desperation to me. It will not succeed, and could backfire spectacularly.

On the upside, most such dream communities are never built for other reasons, anyhow.