Opinion ID: 853222
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: What the Statute Requires

Text: At the time the City passed the Ordinance, Section 13(d) required annexing municipalities to develop written fiscal plans and establish definite policies, by contemporaneous legislative resolutions, to include the following: (1) The cost estimates of planned services to be furnished to the territory to be annexed. . . . . (4) That planned services of a noncapital nature, including police protection, fire protection, street and road maintenance, and other noncapital services normally provided within the corporate boundaries, will be provided to the annexed territory within one (1) year after the effective date of annexation, and that they will be provided in a manner equivalent in standard and scope to those noncapital services provided to areas within the corporate boundaries that have similar topography, patterns of land use, and population density. (5) That services of a capital improvement nature, including street construction, street lighting, sewer facilities, water facilities, and stormwater drainage facilities, will be provided to the annexed territory within three (3) years after the effective date of the annexation, in the same manner as those services are provided to areas within the corporate boundaries that have similar topography, patterns of land use, and population density, and in a manner consistent with federal, state, and local laws, procedures and planning criteria. Ind.Code Ann. § 36-4-3-13(d)(West Supp. 1996). In Bradley v. City of New Castle , slip op. at 12, 764 N.E.2d at 227, we observed that Section 13 is a pretty straightforward directive: a court shall order annexation if a municipality satisfies Section 13's requirements. The question we address in this case is whether the trial court examined this Plan under too powerful a microscope.