Lawsuits filed in favor of and against a proposed solar energy farm that was approved for zoning in the city of Columbus but denied zoning approval in Bartholomew County have been consolidated, court records show.
California-based Carina Solar Inc., a division of Samsung C&T, wants to build a solar farm on about 1,880 acres of land leased from more than two dozen local landowners. After packed public hearings just days apart before the Bartholomew County Board of Zoning Appeals and the Columbus BZA in February, the county board denied the application on roughly 1,100 acres, but the city board approved the application on about 800 acres.
The split decisions resulted in separate legal challenges.
Carina sued the county BZA on March 26, challenging the board’s denial of its conditional use permit to construct the solar farm on property in its zoning jurisdiction. One day later, a group of more than two dozen local landowners sued Carina and the Columbus Board of Zoning Appeals, contesting the approval of a conditional use permit for portions of the solar farm within the city’s zoning jurisdiction.
The proposed solar farm includes multiple parcels of land leased from individual owners located generally south of County Road 100S, west of County Road 525E, east of South Gladstone Avenue and north of County Road 400S in Columbus Township.
On Monday, Special Judge Matthew Bailey of Decatur County ordered the suit filed by the landowners consolidated with the suit filed by Carina Solar. The decision followed an order in favor of consolidating the cases that Bailey had issued in the first-filed case.
A special judge who had been appointed to hear the suit brought by landowners, Magistrate Judge Christopher Doran of Jennings County, had previously scheduled an evidentiary hearing on June 26 at the courthouse in Vernon “for the parties to produce evidence on the issue of consolidation.”
Carina, however, argued that Indiana Trial Rule 42 “requires that the motion for consolidation be filed only in the earlier-filed action. … Accordingly, Carina respectfully asks this Court to reconsider the direction for an evidentiary hearing as there is no motion pending in this Court which can properly be heard.
“… Carina respectfully maintains … that a hearing of any kind on the question of consolidation in this later-filed action is procedurally improper,” the company said in a filing dated May 29 in the case filed by landowners opposed to the solar farm.
On Monday, in the case brought by landowners, Bailey entered an order to consolidate both cases, finding that doing so “is appropriate and would lead to a more orderly and economical resolution of both disputes that concern the same overall project.”
The cases involve common questions of law and fact and “No party will suffer substantial prejudice as a result of consolidation,” the judge found.
Bailey set a telephone status conference with parties in the consolidated cases for 2:30 p.m. June 19 to discuss pretrial scheduling and processes.
According to court records in both cases, special judges from outside the county were required to be selected by the Bartholomew County clerk because “all the Bartholomew County Judges have a conflict of interest in this cause.”
Carina Solar is represented by attorneys from Faegre Drinker Biddle & Reath LLP in Indianapolis. The landowner plaintiffs are represented by Fort Wayne attorney Jason Kuchmay.
