Date: Jun 30, 2026

ETJ Zoning Missteps Are Voidable, Not Void: Collateral Attacks Limited to Acts Beyond Enabling-Statute Authority

Introduction

Wike v. Grandview Solar Project, LLC (Ind. 2026) required the Indiana Supreme Court to draw a sharper line between zoning decisions that are void (and thus open to challenge at any time) and those that are merely voidable (and thus must be challenged within the statutory judicial-review window). The dispute arose after the Town of Grandview’s Board of Zoning Appeals (BZA) granted a special exception approval in 2019 for a commercial solar project on land located in the Town’s two-mile “fringe”—territory outside municipal limits where a municipality may exercise extraterritorial jurisdiction (ETJ) only if it satisfies statutory prerequisites.

Years later—after the developer had secured additional approvals, the project changed hands for millions of dollars, and the developer allegedly spent roughly $30 million—adjacent landowners filed a declaratory judgment action asserting that the Town never properly established ETJ authority through its comprehensive plan and ordinance. They argued the 2019 special exception was therefore ultra vires and void ab initio, making it vulnerable to collateral attack despite the 30-day judicial-review statute.

The key issue was doctrinal: When a BZA has general statutory authority to issue the type of approval at issue, but fails to satisfy statutory or local prerequisites for exercising that authority in a particular place (here, the ETJ), is the resulting approval void or merely voidable?

Summary of the Opinion

The Court (Justice Massa) affirmed summary judgment for the Town and the developer, holding that the 2019 special exception approval was voidable, not void. Because Indiana’s enabling statutes contemplate (1) a BZA’s authority to grant special exceptions under Ind. Code § 36-7-4-918.2 and (2) a municipality’s ability to provide for ETJ under Ind. Code § 36-7-4-205, the Town’s failure to satisfy ETJ prerequisites amounted to legal error that had to be raised within the 30-day judicial-review window under Ind. Code § 36-7-4-1605.

The Court emphasized that ultra vires (void) treatment is an “extreme remedy” that must be narrowly cabined to protect finality and good-faith reliance on zoning decisions. A BZA decision is subject to collateral attack only where it falls outside authority derived from both Indiana’s enabling statutes and the applicable local ordinance.

The Court also rejected the argument that a later settlement (in prior litigation about an improvement location permit) was void for “ratifying” a void zoning decision, because the underlying special exception was not void.

Analysis

1) Precedents Cited

Foundational “ultra vires” framing

Anderson Lumber & Supply Co. v. Fletcher, 89 N.E.2d 449 (Ind. 1950)
Role in decision: The Court treated Anderson as the source of the oft-quoted proposition that BZA acts beyond granted powers are “ultra vires and void,” but it narrowed how that language should be read. In Anderson, the BZA did something the enabling statutes did not contemplate at all: it dismissed a variance application by declaring a variance unnecessary based on nonconforming-use logic—an action outside the BZA’s authorized menu of outcomes (grant/deny). The Court in Wike drew from this a limiting principle: an act is “void” when it has no basis in Indiana zoning law, not merely because it violates a local rule or statutory prerequisite in the particular case.

Intermediate Court of Appeals cases used to harmonize the doctrine

Elkhart Cnty. Bd. of Zoning Appeals v. Earthmovers, Inc., 631 N.E.2d 927 (Ind Ct. App. 1994), trans. denied
Role in decision: Although Earthmovers repeated Anderson’s broad language, it upheld a challenged permit condition because it rationally related to zoning objectives. The Wike majority used Earthmovers mainly to show that not every defect is voidness and to illustrate the general judicial instinct to uphold zoning actions when they are within the broad purposes and powers contemplated by zoning law.
Schlehuser v. City of Seymour, 674 N.E.2d 1009 (Ind. Ct. App. 1996)
Role in decision: The Court emphasized Schlehuser’s formulation: “Any acts of the BZA that exceed the powers enumerated by the Indiana Code and the local zoning ordinance are ultra vires and void.” The majority treated the conjunction “and” as doctrinally important, reading the voidness inquiry to focus on whether the BZA’s act was beyond what the enabling framework contemplates—not simply whether it contravened local limitations in the particular instance.
Georgetown Board of Zoning Appeals v. Keele, 743 N.E.2d 301 (Ind. Ct. App. 2001)
Role in decision: This was the decision’s closest factual analogue: a town purported to act in the ETJ without meeting statutory requirements, and a remonstrator attempted a post-deadline challenge. The Wike Court endorsed Keele’s practical outcome—no collateral attack—while declining to revive Keele’s older “jurisdiction over the case” terminology. In substance, Keele supported the Court’s rule that ETJ defects are typically voidable when the entity has general authority to act in that category.

Indiana Supreme Court “jurisdiction” and void/voidable guideposts

Board of Trustees of Town (Now City) of New Haven v. City of Fort Wayne, 375 N.E.2d 1112 (Ind. 1978)
Role in decision: Cited as part of the lineage for distinguishing lack of power to hear a class of matters from errors in deciding a particular case—supporting waiver/finality when the tribunal has general authority.
Mischler v. County of Elkhart, 544 N.E.2d 149 (Ind. 1989)
Role in decision: Reinforced the waiver principle where a tribunal possesses power over the general class of cases. The Court treated Mischler as supporting Keele and, by extension, supporting the conclusion that the Town’s ETJ missteps did not create a perpetually void act.
K.S. v. State, 849 N.E.2d 538 (Ind. 2006)
Role in decision: Used to reject confusing “jurisdiction over the case” phrasing. The Court used K.S. to modernize the framing: focus on general authority versus legal error, not obsolete jurisdiction labels.
T.D. v. State, 219 N.E.3d 719 (Ind. 2023)
Role in decision: Supplied the analytic phrasing the Court applied directly: the difference between judgments “the law does not authorize under any circumstances” (void) and judgments “authorized by law but derived in violation of law” (voidable).

The dissent’s authorities (to frame the doctrinal fork)

J.B. v. State, 252 N.E.3d 910 (Ind. 2025)
Role in dissent: Used to analogize ETJ statutory limits to subject-matter jurisdiction limits, arguing the Town BZA lacked “jurisdiction” beyond borders and thus acted voidly. The majority implicitly rejected the analogy by treating ETJ prerequisites as conditions affecting legality (voidability), not existential power (voidness), when statutes contemplate ETJ generally.
Kranz v. Meyers Subdivision Prop. Owners Ass'n, Inc., 969 N.E.2d 1068 (Ind. Ct. App. 2012) (dissent’s proposition that agreement cannot confer agency jurisdiction).

2) Legal Reasoning

A. The Court’s operative rule: “general authority” versus “no basis in law”

The Court reframed ultra vires for zoning-collateral-attack purposes around a practical and finality-protective principle: if the enabling statutes contemplate the category of action and empower the entity to act in that category, then defects in how the entity exercised that power in a particular instance are voidable and must be challenged within the statutory review window. Only when the BZA takes an action that Indiana law does not authorize “under any circumstances”—i.e., an act with no statutory basis—is it void and thus collaterally attackable.

B. ETJ noncompliance is a merits defect, not the kind of ultra vires defect that triggers perpetual vulnerability

Applying the rule, the Court concluded that (1) the Town BZA had statutory authority to grant special exceptions (Ind. Code § 36-7-4-918.2) and (2) Indiana law provides mechanisms for municipal action in the two-mile fringe (Ind. Code § 36-7-4-205(d)-(e), and potentially other paths). The Town unquestionably failed to implement ETJ via its comprehensive plan and ordinance before acting, but that failure meant the special exception approval was “authorized by law but derived in violation of law”—classic voidable territory under T.D. v. State.

C. The Court’s treatment of Anderson and Schlehuser: narrowing the “void” category

The Court read Anderson Lumber & Supply Co. v. Fletcher as involving a BZA action that the enabling statutes and ordinance did not contemplate: a “declaratory finding” that a variance was unnecessary and dismissal of the application. That is different from a BZA granting an approval type that statutes contemplate, albeit in the wrong geographic scope due to unmet prerequisites.

The Court then leveraged Schlehuser v. City of Seymour’s “Indiana Code and local zoning ordinance” phrasing to reject the Landowners’ broader theory that any violation of local limitations automatically produces a void act. For collateral attack purposes, the Court privileged whether the BZA’s action had a statutory basis in the enabling scheme.

D. Finality and reliance as explicit policy drivers

A prominent feature of the opinion is its candid policy grounding: zoning decisions support investment-backed reliance; therefore, the system requires time-limited review. The Court treated the ultra vires doctrine as an exception that must remain narrow to prevent destabilizing development and governance long after public-hearing processes conclude and judicial-review deadlines expire.

E. The settlement and intervention issues fall with the voidness argument

Because the special exception was not void, the Court held there was no foundation to declare void the Town–developer settlement that resolved the injunction dispute over the improvement location permit. The would-be intervenors’ theory depended on the premise that the prior approvals were void.

3) Impact

Practical consequences for zoning litigation

ETJ challenges must be brought quickly: Parties opposing a municipal BZA’s action in the two-mile fringe should assume that ETJ-prerequisite defects are voidable and therefore must be pursued via timely judicial review (generally within 30 days).
Narrower collateral attack channel: Collateral attack is largely reserved for actions the BZA had no power to take in any circumstance, not for actions taken in the wrong place or without satisfying preconditions.
Greater security for investment-backed reliance: Developers and lenders gain stronger assurance that discretionary zoning approvals will not be undone years later through declaratory-judgment collateral litigation, even when statutory/local missteps exist, so long as the approval type is one contemplated by enabling law.

Institutional consequences for municipalities and counties

Compliance pressure remains, but the remedy shifts: The Court stressed this is not a “get out free card.” Municipalities should still align comprehensive plans, ordinances, and ETJ procedures; the consequence of noncompliance is vulnerability to a timely challenge, not perpetual invalidity.
Potential for intergovernmental friction: The dissent highlighted a policy concern: the decision may, in edge cases, allow one BZA’s mistaken assertion of ETJ to affect residents in another jurisdiction unless challenged promptly.

Complex Concepts Simplified

Ultra vires: Literally “beyond the powers.” In this context, it refers to an administrative body doing something it has no legal authority to do. The Court treats ultra vires acts as void only when they lack a statutory basis altogether.
Void vs. voidable: Void acts have no legal effect and can be attacked at any time. Voidable acts are legally effective unless challenged within the prescribed time; if not timely challenged, they become final.
Collateral attack: A later lawsuit filed outside the ordinary appeal/judicial-review process that attempts to invalidate an earlier decision. The Court limits this to truly void actions.
Extraterritorial jurisdiction (ETJ): A municipality’s ability to apply planning/zoning powers outside its corporate limits—here, in the two-mile fringe—only if statutory conditions are satisfied (such as providing for the area in a comprehensive plan under Ind. Code § 36-7-4-205).
Special exception: A discretionary zoning approval allowing a use permitted by the ordinance only if specified criteria are met. It typically involves notice and a public hearing and is reviewable under the statutory judicial-review framework.

Conclusion

Wike v. Grandview Solar Project, LLC clarifies Indiana’s ultra vires doctrine in the zoning context by prioritizing finality and reliance and by confining “void” status to actions that lack any basis in the enabling statutes and local authority framework. Where a BZA’s action is of a type contemplated by Indiana zoning law—here, a special exception and the statutory possibility of ETJ—defects in satisfying ETJ prerequisites render the approval voidable, not void, and must be raised within the 30-day judicial-review period.

The decision thus shifts ETJ disputes decisively toward prompt, direct challenges rather than late-stage declaratory-judgment collateral attacks, while leaving truly power-exceeding zoning actions subject to invalidation at any time.