Marineland claims that the subject parcels are exempt under
Ind. Code § 6-1.1-10-16(c)(3), which provides the following:
(c) A tract of land, including the campus and athletic
grounds of an educational institution, is exempt from property taxation if:
…
(3) the tract:
(A) is owned by a nonprofit entity established for the
purpose of retaining and preserving land and water for their natural
characteristics;
(B) does not exceed five hundred (500) acres; and
(C) is not used by the nonprofit entity to make a profit.
I.C. § 6-1.1-10-16(c)(3).
Marineland failed to offer any evidence to prove one of the
essential elements of its claim: that it
was established for the purpose of retaining and preserving land and water for
their natural characteristics. Indeed,
Marineland offered scant evidence to show the purposes for which it was
established. Although Marineland offered
its By-Laws, those By-Laws do not indicate the purposes for which Marineland
was organized. They instead address how
Marineland is governed and lay out certain restrictions on how parcels within
the subdivision can be used.
Indeed, some aspects of how Marineland used the parcels,
such as laying down gravel to make one of the parcels available for parking,
are inconsistent with retaining and preserving land and water for their natural
characteristics. While Marineland also
used the parcels in other ways that might be consistent with preserving and
retaining land and water for their natural characteristics, those uses are also
consistent with a variety of other purposes, such as providing members with
recreational opportunities. In fact,
those were the purposes that Steuer highlighted the most in his testimony.
Even when pressed by counsel, Marineland’s president, Roger
Steuer, did not clearly testify that Marineland was established for the purpose
of retaining and preserving land and water for their natural
characteristics. At best, Steuer pointed
to some minimal steps that Marineland has taken to maintain land and water—it
does not fence the parcels, which allows geese and other animals to gather on
them, and it applied for a grant to dredge the channel. Of course, Marineland did not apply for that
grant until January 2012—well after the assessment years at issue in these
appeals and more than 40 years after Marineland was organized.
Thus, Marineland’s ambiguous evidence about how it used the
subject parcels does not suffice to show that Marineland was established for
the purpose of preserving and retaining land and water for their natural
characteristics. That is especially true
in light of the absence of articles of incorporation or any other
organizational documents laying out the purpose or purposes for which
Marineland was organized.
