Court Opinion

ID: 9707097
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 02:02:29.674022+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:22:28.166621
License: Public Domain

VAIDIK, Judge,
concurs in result.
I agree with the majority that Lake County did not prevent "the complete use and alienation of [appellants'] mineral resources under Indiana Code [§ ] 36-7-4-1108(c)." Op. at 376-77. As such, I agree that summary judgment in favor of Lake County would have been appropriate even if the trial court had not dismissed the case. I write separately to express my disagreement with the majority's conclusion that the trial court properly granted Lake County's motion to dismiss.
Indiana Code § 36-7-4-1101 provides that "[the area planning law does not apply in ... a county having a population of more than four hundred thousand (400,-000) but less than seven hundred thousand (700,000)." Therefore, the area planning law does not apply in Lake County, the only county in Indiana that has a population of more than 400,000 but less than 700,000. If Indiana Code § 36-7-4-1108(c) is only area planning law, then, the majority would be correct that it does not apply to Lake County. But the heading for Indiana Code § 86-7-4-1103(c) is "ADVISORY-AREA." Indiana Code § 86-7-4-101 provides that "[slections and subsections of this chapter with headings that include 'ADVISORY' apply to advisory planning[,]" while Indiana Code § 86-7-4-102 provides that "[slections and subsections of this chapter with headings that include 'AREA' apply to area planning." As such, the contents of Indiana Code § 36-7-4-1103(c) are both area planning law and advisory planning law. While area planning law does not apply to Lake County, advisory planning law does, as the Lake County Plan Commission is an advisory plan commission. See Ind.Code § 36-7-1-2 (" 'Advisory plan commission' means a municipal plan commission, a county plan commission, or a metropolitan plan commission.")(emphasis added); see also Ind. State Bar Ass'n & Ind. Planning Ass'n, Indiana Planning and Zoning Law Annotated 2 (2003) (showing Lake County as advisory planning jurisdiction).
Furthermore, according to the reasoning of the majority and the trial court, none of the sections and subsections in Indiana Code chapter 36-7-4 with no heading would apply to Lake County. Indiana Code §§ 86-7-4-101 to 108 provide that sections and subsections without headings apply to advisory planning, area planning, and metropolitan development. The majority would apparently hold that none of these generally applicable statutory provisions applies to Lake County because they all apply to area planning. For example, Indiana Code §§ 36-7-4-220 to 2283, which deal with commission vacancies, the expenses of commission members and employees, and conflicts of interest of com*378mission members but have no headings, would not apply to Lake County. This is an untenable result, and I would hold that the only sections and subsections that do not apply to Lake County are those with the "AREA" heading alone.3
Given the above, I believe that the trial court erred in granting Lake County's motion to dismiss. Nevertheless, I concur in the result reached by the majority because I agree that summary judgment in favor of Lake County would have been appropriate even if the trial court had not dismissed the case.

. In addition, the provisions headed "METRO" apply only to Marion County.