Six Hobart residents have filed a petition seeking a judicial review and injunction relief in regard to decisions made at the May 7 Hobart Plan Commission meeting.
The Plan Commission, at the May 7 meeting, delivered unanimous yes votes to site plans for two separate proposed data centers, both of which will be operated by Amazon Web Services at 61st Avenue and Colorado Street.
The injunction, filed in Lake Superior Court on Monday, lists as defendants the city of Hobart Plan Commission, Tuhaus LLC and Hobart Owner LLC.
The plaintiffs in the case are: Jennifer McQuade, Angelita Soriano, Albina Venegas-Roman, Matthew Turner, Dana Turner and Dr. Deborah McCullough.
“We are asking the Plan Commission to open back up the meeting and remedy the deficiencies that we found with the site plans,” Soriano said.
Some of those deficiencies include issues with proper public notice of the meeting and failure to provide the following: traffic and utility impact, aesthetic and economic impact on neighboring properties, public safety/services, environmental, drainage impact, stormwater, site design, building design and landscaping.
In addition to not providing proper public notice, residents who attended the meeting faced an “intimidating public meeting space, forcible removal of speakers, and stifling of free speech.”
The nearly five-hour meeting, which included one arrest, was held in Hobart’s City Court amidst tight security and police presence.
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Soriano and Venegas-Roman, and other members of the No Data Centers group, have filed previous lawsuits, including the first in December, in which the group sought to vacate multiple actions by Hobart city officials.
The plaintiffs in that lawsuit 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.”
Hobart City Attorney Heather McCarthy could not be reached for immediate comment on the most recent lawsuit.
Deborah Laverty is a freelance reporter for the Post-Tribune.