Opinion ID: 852536
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Effect of Settlement on Alternative Objection

Text: A relatively new provision of the Code stipulates that even if a municipality satisfies all the prerequisites of section 13, aggrieved landowners can still defeat the annexation. The Code requires that the court prohibit the annexation if it finds that all of the conditions set forth in clauses (A) through (D) and, if applicable, clause (E) exist in the territory proposed to be annexed: (A) The following services are adequately furnished by a provider other than the municipality seeking the annexation: (i) Police and fire protection. (ii) Street and road maintenance. (B) The annexation will have a significant financial impact on the residents or owners of land. (C) The annexation is not in the best interests of the owners of land in the territory proposed to be annexed as set forth in subsection (f). (D) One (1) of the following opposes the annexation: (i) At least sixty-five percent (65%) of the owners of land in the territory proposed to be annexed. (ii) The owners of more than seventy-five (75%) in assessed valuation of the land in the territory proposed to be annexed. Evidence of opposition may be expressed by any owner of land in the territory proposed to be annexed. Ind.Code Ann. § 36-4-3-13(e)(2) (emphasis added). The trial court found conditions (A) through (D) were all satisfied, and condition (E) not applicable. Some of these findings pose interesting questions. As to condition (A), for example, Clay Township presently pays Carmel to provide fire protection in the annexed area. Does this mean that a provider other than the municipality seeking the annexation, to quote section 13(e)(2)(A), is providing fire protection? This conundrum can wait for another day, inasmuch as the remaining remonstrators have not proven condition (D). Condition (D) contemplates a showing that at least 65% of the landowners oppose the annexation. Section 13(e)(2)(D)(i). The trial court concluded that Condition (D) was met because 65% opposed the annexation when they signed on for the initial remonstrance. (App. at 34-35.) The appropriate consideration should have been whether 65% of the landowners continued to oppose the annexation. Condition (D) complements the rest of the statutory arrangement only if understood as a testing of landowner sentiment after the rest of the process has run its course. NOAX President Fred Yde testified at the evidentiary hearing that the only way he secured enough signatures for the remonstrance petition was to promise to negotiate with Carmel for better terms of annexation. ( Id. at 340-41; Appellant's Br. at 35; Trial Tr. at 262, 270-77.) The trial court found that he succeeded, declaring that the terms of the amended ordinance benefited both the remonstrators and the municipality. [5] (App. at 23.) Those new and favorable terms led to the settlement in support of the amended ordinance. There is no need to speculate about how many of the original remonstrators supported the settlement. The referendum shows that it is mathematically impossible to meet the 65% opposition requirement. (Appellant's Br. at 36; Petr.'s Ex. 117) (546 of the original remonstrators supported the amendment, reducing the number of certified remonstrators to 1,855far below 2,236 or 65%). To defeat an otherwise valid ordinance, all conditions of section 13(e)(2) must be met. They were not.