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Saturday, December 09, 2006
Ind. Law - "Property owners across Indiana are fighting annexations"
Cathy Kightlinger of the Indianapolis Star has an article today on efforts to unite property owners fighting annexations. (Typing "annexation" into the ILB search box produced a slew of earlier entries.) A few quotes from today's story:
Indiana’s law allows property owners of an area in line for annexation to challenge the move if they can produce one of the following:
• A petition with signatures from at least 65 percent of the property owners in the annexation area.• Signatures from property owners that represent more than 75 percent of the assessed value in the annexation area.
If a petition drive is successful, a judge hears arguments from both sides before deciding whether the annexation should be allowed. Organizing successful opposition under those rules can get expensive, opponents say.
“A lot of cases, it’s a cumbersome job to fight annexation, so they kind of give up. They are like, ‘OK, what can we do, fight city hall?’ ” said [Fishers homeowner Rachel] Quade. A lot of people on her list live in rural areas and don’t have a lot of disposable income, she added.
Geist-area residents have raised about $90,000 for their battle, Quade estimated. Residents in southwest Clay Township, outside Carmel, have spent much more in their fight, which is awaiting a decision from the Indiana Supreme Court. Home Place residents, who also are battling annexation efforts by Carmel, have raised more than $60,000 for their fight, said Matt Milam, president of Concerned Citizens for Home Place.
“Home Place does not fit in the Carmel mold. The median income is much lower and the housing values are lower,” said Milam, who supports changing the law to make it easier to oppose annexation. “Most of (residents’) income is probably already set to be spent on their bills.”
Milam said the 65 percent threshold is too high. “It’s not a level playing field,” he said. “If you run for office and you get 51 percent of the vote, you win.”
The Association of Indiana Counties is lobbying for annexation laws to change, too. When properties are annexed into municipal boundaries, counties lose important pieces of the tax pie, said David Bottorff, executive director for the association. State Rep. David Orentlicher, D-Indianapolis, says he plans to draft annexation legislation for the upcoming session of the Indiana General Assembly. His district includes parts of Clay Township that Carmel officials want to annex.
“It’s important that we make sure that homeowners have . . . a say and control of their own destiny,” he said.
According to Orentlicher, who has introduced unsuccessful annexation reforms several times, possibilities could include:
• Reducing the percentage of homeowners in a proposed annexation area who must sign a petition for a challenge.
• Forcing municipalities that are defeated in annexation efforts to pay litigation costs of the homeowners who opposed them. State Sen. Beverly J. Gard, R-Greenfield, also plans to submit legislation. Gard said she is working on three bills: two that are similar to Orentlicher’s and one that would lessen the incentive for municipalities to annex by reducing the amount of taxes they would get out of it.
Posted by Marcia Oddi on December 9, 2006 12:21 PM
Posted to Indiana Law