Franklin T. Wike, et al. v. Grandview Solar Project, LLC, et al.

Summary

The Indiana Supreme Court holds that a town board of zoning appeals’ approval of a special exception for a solar project in the town’s two-mile extraterritorial jurisdiction was voidable rather than void. Because the landowners did not challenge the approval within the applicable thirty-day judicial-review period, their objections were waived and their later collateral attack was improper. The court vacates the Court of Appeals’ decision and affirms the trial court’s summary judgment for the town and project developer.

Holdings

1. A Board of Zoning Appeals decision is void, and therefore subject to collateral attack, only when it is outside the authority derived from Indiana's enabling statutes and the applicable local ordinance. When the enabling statutes contemplate the type of action taken, an error in satisfying statutory or local prerequisites makes the decision voidable rather than void.
2. Because the special-exception approval was voidable, the Landowners were required to challenge it within the statutory thirty-day judicial-review period. Their failure to do so waived their objections and made the later declaratory-judgment action an impermissible collateral attack.
3. The settlement agreement between the Town and Grandview Solar was not void, and the trial court did not clearly violate a procedural rule by accepting the stipulation of dismissal before the Landowners' motion to intervene was decided.

Questions Presented

1. Whether the Town's 2019 special-exception approval for property in the Town's two-mile fringe was void or merely voidable when the Town had general statutory authority to issue special exceptions and provide for extraterritorial jurisdiction but had not satisfied the statutory and local prerequisites for exercising that jurisdiction.
2. Whether the Landowners' challenge was barred because they failed to seek judicial review within the thirty-day statutory period.
3. Whether the settlement agreement between the Town and Grandview Solar and the prior injunction proceeding were void or otherwise invalid because they relied on the 2019 special-exception approval.

Disposition

affirmed