The Town of St. John must put a whole lot of work – and expense — into a parcel on which Donald Trump Jr. granted water easement rights before it can annex it, says the Lake County Plan Commission head.
First, the town will have to purchase the nearly 167 acres at 12863 State Line Rd. In unincorporated Cedar Lake, Lake County Plan Commission Executive Director Ned Kovachevich said in a September 4 letter addressed to the St. John Town Council that the Post-Tribune obtained. Kovachevich wrote the letter after the town ran a legal ad announcing a public hearing for the parcel’s annexation during its September 10 Town Council meeting.
Once it has bought the property — which its previous owner, South Lake County developer John Lotton, quitclaimed to Trump Jr.’s llc, RBCP Investments LLC-Indiana and has a current value of $368,900 — the town will need to apply for and be granted a Special Exception per the Lake County Unified Development Ordinance to build either a wastewater- or water-treatment facility on the parcel, Kovachevich said. The parcel can then be annexed under state code once the facility is complete and online, he said.
Kovachevich was clear in the letter that the Lake County Plan Commission is fine with the town annexing the property. It just must be done within the confines of the law.
“Contained in the attached legal notice and as outlined in the Indiana Code (IC 36-4-3- 4(a)) (Exhibit 2), annexation of noncontiguous land is only permissible if the property is currently occupied by a municipally owned or operated wastewater or water treatment facility,” Kovachevich said. “The statute is clear in requiring that the land be ‘occupied’ by such a facility, and there is no indication that this is the case here. The property is currently noncontiguous vacant agricultural land located in Unincorporated Lake County, Indiana.”
Additionally, Kovachevich noted that the land is more than two miles from town limits “with no clear connection available to link either facility to the town’s infrastructure.” Attempting to annex the land before going through the necessary steps, then, could set a “concerning precedent” in that other landlocked municipalities — for example, Munster or Whiting — could decide to annex noncontiguous property on the promise that they may put a wastewater- or water-treatment facility on it to expand their footprints; the letter posits that would, in turn, lead to “fragmented, governmentally motivated annexations that disregard comprehensive planning principles, long-term infrastructure feasibility, and the interests of existing residents and neighboring jurisdictions.”
“In my discussions with individuals familiar with the applicable law, not one has interpreted it in the way currently proposed. There appears to be a clear consensus that this approach is inconsistent with both the letter and intent of the law,” Kovachevich said. “In law, words are supposed to mean exactly what they say, because ambiguity can lead to loopholes, injustice, or exploitation.
Kovachevich wrote that any vote to annex under irregular or legally dubious terms may be null and void upon passage, vulnerable to judicial challenge, and could be deemed invalid.
“Proceeding cautiously or reconsidering the approach entirely would be the prudent course,” he said.
St. John Town Manager Bill Manousopoulos on Friday was unable to respond to questions by deadline because he hadn’t received a copy of Kovachevich’s letter, though Town Council members did.
Manousopoulos previously told the Post-Tribune that “The developer, who is the registered owner according to County records, consented to the annexation of the subject property, and granted the water easement.” He also said it can annex the parcel “if it provides a service to the Town.”
“In the case of the subject property, it will be for additional well sites for the Town,” Manousopolous said. “The Town is securing water sites for the future as it has done in the past. Just recently, this administration has moved to bring wells 8 and 9 online for water production that were drilled around 2017. This is nothing new — just proactive thinking for the future of St John.”
In November 2022, Lotton-owned RCJJ Development, LLC submitted a petition to the Lake County Plan Commission for a residential zone change on this property, and at that time, then-Cedar Lake Utility Board President Richard Sharpe said Cedar Lake “would accept the proposed development of that property into the Town’s Utility Service Territory for potable water and sanitary sewer,” Kovachevich wrote. The request was ultimately deferred, and Lotton withdrew his petition.
Cedar Lake officials and the Indiana Department of Environmental Management have been working to address that town’s water system for nearly two years following an IDEM report that found more than a dozen deficiencies in its system, the Post-Tribune previously reported. Cedar Lake Town Council President Nick Recupito, R-1, previously said he received a letter from IDEM on August 8 that stated the town has a problem with supplying water to the new developments that were approved from 2020 onward.
As a result, Cedar Lake has a moratorium on all new development — much of which belongs to Lotton — and while a recently unveiled water master plan has alleviated some of its issues, it won’t resume building anytime soon, the Post-Tribune reported.
Michelle L. Quinn is a freelance reporter for the Post-Tribune.
