Carmel Annexation Gets Interesting

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(CARMEL) - Another Hamilton County neighborhood may soon become part of Carmel.

The Indiana Court of Appeals says Carmel's annexation of the home place neighborhood can go forward.

A Hamilton superior court judge had blocked the annexation, saying Carmel had made only "vague promises" of how to pay for it. A June supreme court ruling in another Carmel annexation says judges mustn't micromanage annexations.

A unanimous court of appeals says as long as Carmel lays out detailed plans for how it plans to incorporate the area into the city, it's not the judge's job to audit whether the city will gain or lose money.

Annexation opponents' attorney Stephen Buschmann says the finances of the two cases are different. He says Southwest Clay, the area annexed in the June case, has more than a billion dollars worth of property and will pay for itself, while home place is projected to cost the city 3.5 million dollars in the first three years.

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