Lake Superior Court Judge Bruce Parent dismissed on procedural grounds the case of a group of Hobart residents seeking to halt a fill permit at a 168-acre site eyed for a future Amazon data center..
The residents had sought a preliminary injunction, pausing the project from moving forward, but in a Thursday ruling, Parent said they should have exhausted other remedies first.
“The court never reached the issue of the proposed preliminary injunction, as the court found it was without jurisdiction to rule on the issue,” Parent said in his order.
Parent did not rule on whether the fill permit was legal or illegal, but he said “certain administrative steps were not met in a timely manner by the plaintiffs and that they failed to exhaust their administrative remedies.”
“Any and all motions or requests of any party not specifically ruled upon herein were denied,” Parent said in his court order.
The four Hobart residents — plaintiffs Angelita Soriano, Albina Venegas-Roman, Barbara Koteles and Joseph Conn — filed the motion for preliminary injunction on Feb. 5, citing violations of local law and due process.
When reached for comment, Soriano said she was disappointed with the ruling, but there were some important takeaways, including the judge stating that the plaintiffs had standing.
“The plaintiffs (us) do have standing, so it sets (a) precedent moving forward with the rest of the case. Also, another important takeaway is that Judge Parent agreed that the evidence that we presented has merit and it is not baseless, which is what the city, Hobart Owner LLC, Tuhaus LLC and Amazon Data Services, argued that we have nothing,” Soriano said.
She said the plaintiffs aren’t giving up.
“We are doing all the right steps for this second fill permit, covering 605 acres, and we will be challenging this in court very soon,” Soriano said.
Hobart officials, including Hobart City Attorney Heather McCarthy and Hobart Mayor Josh Huddlestun, could not be immediately reached for comment.
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Soriano was one of several Hobart residents who testified on March 9 at a court hearing that lasted nearly five hours.
The four residents in their lawsuit were seeking to stop earthmoving activities related to the proposed Hobart Data Center campus at 61st Avenue and Arizona Street.
The group filed their first lawsuit in December, seeking to vacate multiple actions by Hobart city officials that have “prepared” the way for the possible construction of an Amazon data center on more than a square mile of farmland within city limits. The plaintiffs allege the two municipal bodies, the Hobart City Council and the Hobart Plan Commission, violated their “due process rights under the Constitution of the United States and the State of Indiana.”
Soriano, during the Hobart City Council meeting on Jan. 21, announced that the group had filed a second lawsuit against city officials regarding action taken by city officials on Jan. 7, which included approval of the $47 million Amazon contribution.
Huddlestun, who has called the $47 million upfront cash payment Hobart received in late January “record breaking,” said the city will receive $10 million when the first building permit is issued and another $45 million when the first building walls go up.
The developer is also paying 100% of the infrastructure costs, Huddlestun said.
Deborah Laverty is a freelance reporter for the Post-Tribune.