The referendum would give voters the final say on proposed construction of a 167-home subdivision, to be called Riverdale, at 7848 S. Brown School Road. A rezoning request for the project was approved by council last March.
The petition committee collected a total of 723 signatures, according to the Montgomery County Board of Elections, with 608 of those signatures confirmed to be valid by the board.
The petition needed to amass a total of 419 valid signatures based on Vandalia’s charter, which stipulates a referendum’s signature total must be at least 15% of the number of votes cast in the most recent general election.
In the November 2025 election, 2,787 votes were cast by electors in Vandalia, 15% of which is 419.
The petition will now go before Vandalia council, which will hold a vote to place the issue on the ballot in accordance with the city’s charter.
The issue will appear on council’s agenda in February, city spokesman Rich Hopkins said Thursday.
Where the project stands
When council approved the Planned Unit Development zoning designation for the Riverdale project last year, developers at Addison Properties were given the green light to move forward with construction on the 85-acre site, according to Hopkins.
“Until this issue is formally placed on the ballot, developers may still work on the project,” he said Thursday. “If the issue is placed on the ballot, the project would be paused until the election.”
‘We want council to listen’
Petition committee volunteer Tanya Brown said the group wants voters to have a say in the housing development project because many residents feel unheard and are concerned about traffic safety near the site, the need for infrastructure improvements and who should foot the bill for such improvements.
“The developer should pay for them if they want to build the 160-plus homes. The city did not budget for this in its 2026 budget that was passed in December and this project was not even put into the city’s 5-year capital improvement plan; if it was such a priority, why didn’t they put it into the budget?” Brown said.
“If the city pays for these improvements, other priority projects voted on by council will not be funded or will be pushed out to future years,” she added.
The goal of the committee was not to block development, Brown said.
“To be clear, our goal was never to stop the project, but we have always wanted city council to listen to its constituents and the people who live by this proposed development,” she said.
A second try
Nearly 700 signatures collected as part of the committee’s initial petition effort last summer were ruled invalid by the Montgomery County Board of Elections due to errors discovered on petition documents that were distributed by the city.
Although the board of elections recommended at the time that the city of Vandalia give petitioners another 10 days to re-collect signatures on corrected forms, council voted to the contrary, ruling the petition invalid altogether, prompting the committee to start the process from square one.
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