Understanding Indiana Utility Easement Laws
There’s a saying that beauty often lies in the eye of the beholder, or, to the more poetically-inclined, beauty is truth, truth beauty. As much as we try to separate lifestyle and arts from legal niceties and probities, they are the fabric upon which our visual culture is created mostly every single day.
To most people, the law in and of itself is an entertainment-filled distraction, one that too few people dare to engage or, more accurately, have the nerve to engage, fearing what myriad and complex legal entropic realities, demands, responsibilities, and, to be frank, expenses, they would be rolled into if they lifted the veil.
That being said, who would have thought, dear art and lifestyle lovers, that comprehensive Indiana utility easement regulations and other niceties could be one of these potential problems (and that, yes, deeper in the pocketbook, you could pay for someone else’s errors in assessments)? Forgetting for a moment of all the other amazing things the state has to offer (like the cities of Carmel and Indianapolis, and the Indianapolis 500 and other auto races, and the Indiana Dunes, and, of course, one of my all-time favorite fiction authors, Kurt Vonnegut), whether you’re a homeowner, someone living in a condo/unit, apartment-dweller, commercial space, etc., utility easements and restrictions may impact your property and impact the way you are able to use your property and may even affect potentially beautiful nooks you have had a vision to create in which you might cultivate one of your passions, including stunning garden beauty or the artist’s studio with the world’s most beautiful view.
These easements also occur in the context of other issues, including utility-owned utility poles, lines, and other “potentially beautiful” structures used by your “favorite” providers of television, cell phone service, Internet, and anything else they may want to build upon or near your property and those of your neighbors. Easements and other utility infrastructure may, depending on where you live, be aligned either within your lot or outside of your lot but within the zone they require for whatever utilities they provide.
Some of these terminals, poles, lines, and other equipment might be placed anywhere from right outside your back porch to right in your front yard to right next door, all without your consent, which can be painful and scary when it impacts how the yard or the home looks, especially when the yard and home have been cultivated into a personal work of art just like you envisioned.
Easements and other utility-related requirements also extend to all types of other spaces, meaning they also can be an issue when they impact the area outside of the home or any other structure on the property, including necessary equipment, plants, trees, or other items. To effectively create a creature comfort beauty environment or a work of art, the art enthusiast, homeowner, or other property manager should find out from the local utility companies, as well as consult the seemingly ever-changing laws, what rights exist and how they can and should be exercised to properly uphold the integrity of the home and its beauty elements while complying with all applicable laws and seeking creative solutions to avoid problems that could disrupt the visual place of beauty you have tried to create.
Thus, in connecting the dots, it’s easy to see that knowledge of the intricate laws that apply to you aligns with one of the most powerful things you can possibly do for yourself, which is to be empowered enough to make an informed decision about the directions into which you want your life to go, including choices about how to beautify your space, enhance areas that might need some sprucing up, and notice what beautiful things exist where you might not have previously appreciated their presence.
Electric poles, satellite dishes, and other wooden or metal structures, along with their wires, cables, lines, terminals, and other items, may also disrupt a peaceful garden or other outdoor area that you may have envisioned and planted to your aesthetic enjoyment, or disrupt the view of the fabulous two-story-picturesque window you were able to install after working from dawn to dusk, day after day, to save up for it.
Remember, those gorgeous displays of color and artistry require integrity in the artistic spaces in which they are placed, as well as appropriate surrounding infrastructure, so find out what the law might have to say. Download the free download regarding this specific legal issue by clicking here, registering for the download, and listening to the detailed audio presentation.
