CRONE, J.
The City of Greenwood, Indiana (“Greenwood”), Felson and Jane Bowman, and Zinkan & Barker Development Company, LLC (“ZBDC”) (collectively, “Appellants”), appeal the trial court‘s order denying their cross-motion for summary judgment and granting the motion for summary judgment filed by the Town of Bargersville, Indiana (“Bargersville”), in which the court upheld Bargersville‘s annexation of 1847 acres (“the Territory”) within three miles of Greenwood‘s city limits and voided Greenwood‘s attempted annexation of the Territory. Because we find as a matter of law that fewer than 51% of the Territory‘s landowners consented to Bargersville‘s annexation pursuant to Indiana Code Section 36-4-3-9, we reverse and remand.
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As a preliminary matter, Bargersville contends that the trial court erred in concluding that Appellants have standing to seek a declaratory judgment regarding the validity of Bargersville‘s annexation based on whether 51% of the Territory‘s landowners consented to the annexation. . . .
Bargersville first contends that Indiana Code Section 36-4-3-9 does not confer standing on Greenwood to challenge the validity of the annexation, given that the statute was amended in 2005 to take “away Greenwood‘s right to unilaterally stop a town‘s annexation[.]” Appellee‘s Br. at 42. While it is true that a city may no longer “unilaterally stop” an annexation under Indiana Code Section 36-4-3-9, the fact that a city has statutory authority to withhold its consent to an annexation indicates that it retains a significant protectable interest in the three-mile “buffer zone” surrounding its corporate boundaries. This interest goes hand in hand with a city‘s right to annex contiguous territory pursuant to Indiana Code Section 36-4-3-4.
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Bargersville argues that City of Hobart “in no way authorizes a city to challenge an annexation based on the interest of landowners” under the current version of Indiana Code Section 36-4-3-9. Appellee‘s Br. at 44 (bold emphasis removed). Appellants insist that Greenwood is not relying on Indiana Code Section 36-4-3-9 “to assert the rights of others but to protect its own interests.” Appellants‘ Reply Br. at 23. Appellants further assert that “Greenwood‘s statutory right to withhold consent would be meaningless if it could not challenge another municipality‘s illegal attempt to bypass its refusal to consent under the statute.” Id. We agree with Appellants on both counts.
Finally, Bargersville contends that Greenwood cannot “purport[] to hop into the shoes of the landowners and construe terms of Sewer Service Agreements to which they are strangers.” Id. at 43. Bargersville states that “‗only the parties to a contract, those in privity with the parties, and intended third-party beneficiaries under the contract may seek to enforce the contract‘“ and asserts that “Greenwood has no right to demand a judicial construction of contracts to which it is a stranger.” Id. (quoting Harold McComb & Son, Inc. v. JPMorgan Chase Bank, NA, 892 N.E.2d 1255, 1258 (Ind. Ct. App. 2008)).
In this instance, we disagree. We emphasize that Greenwood is not seeking enforcement of the sewer service agreements, but rather a judicial interpretation of the agreements. . . . There is a difference between the interests of Greenwood and the interests of the affected property owners. Greenwood‘s significant interest in its three-mile buffer zone is undeniably affected by the sewer service agreements, on which the Bargersville Town Council relied in concluding that Bargersville had secured “consent” to the annexation from 51% of the landowners in the Territory pursuant to Indiana Code Section 36-4-3-9. As such, Greenwood was entitled to seek a declaratory judgment as to whether the agreements constituted legally valid “consent” to the annexation. Likewise, Greenwood was entitled to seek a declaratory judgment as to the legal validity of Bargersville‘s annexation ordinance. In sum, we agree with the trial court that Greenwood has standing to bring a declaratory judgment action.
The parties agree that the Territory contains 739 parcels of land and that for Bargersville‘s annexation of the Territory to be valid, the owners of at least 51% of the parcels—that is, 377 parcels—must have validly consented to the annexation pursuant to Indiana Code Section 36-4-3-9. The parties‘ dispute regarding the validity of the annexation focuses primarily on the meaning of “consent” as used in Indiana Code Section 36-4-3-9 and whether various documents signed by landowners constitute such consent.
In their stipulation, the parties agreed that “the [current] owners of 387 parcels have signed one or more of the documents attached hereto as Exhibits A-L, and therefore the owners of 52 percent of the parcels have themselves signed one of the documents attached to this stipulation.” Appellants‘ App. at 659 (Stipulation ¶ 44).11 The parties also agreed that “[t]he [current] owners of 281 parcels have purchased parcels with one of the sewer service agreements included in this stipulation in its chain of title[.]” Id. (Stipulation ¶ 45).
Appellants assert – and Bargersville does not dispute – that of these 668 parcels, at least 407 parcels (that is, at least 55% of the 739 parcels in the Territory) are subject to sewer service agreements that were executed prior to the legislature‘s amendment of Indiana Code Section 36-4-3-9 in 2005. One such agreement, which Appellants characterize – again without dispute – as representative, [includes a provision waiving the right to object to, remonstrate against, or appeal an annexation].
Appellants contend that the waiver of the right to object to, remonstrate against, or appeal an annexation does not constitute “consent” to an annexation as contemplated by Indiana Code Section 36-4-3-9. To date, no Indiana appellate court has addressed this issue. . . . .
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We agree with Appellants that waiving the right to object to, remonstrate against, or appeal an annexation is not the same as consenting to an annexation for purposes of Indiana Code Section 36-4-3-9. Bargersville‘s contention that giving consent to and waiving any objections to annexation are two sides of the same coin ignores the fact that in Indiana, a landowner may respond to an annexation initiated pursuant to Indiana Code Section 36-4-3-9 in more than two ways: namely, by signing a consent to the annexation (pursuant to Indiana Code Section 36-4-3-9(c)),13 by signing a remonstrance against the annexation (pursuant to Indiana Code Section 36-4-3-11), or by doing nothing, which may be due to any number of reasons, ranging from apathy to having signed a remonstrance waiver. Doing nothing cannot be interpreted as “consent” for purposes of Indiana Code Section 36-4-3-9. See Cox v. Cantrell, 866 N.E.2d 798, 809 (Ind. Ct. App. 2007) (“We will not read into a statute that which is not the manifest intent of the legislature. For this reason, it is as important to recognize not only what a statute says, but also what a statute does not say.”) (citation and quotation marks omitted), trans. denied.
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Bargersville argues that “if there was any doubt that the landowners[] consented and that additional documents needed to be executed, the Sewer Service Agreements themselves already require the parties to “execute and deliver any and all consents … as may be reasonably required to carry out the provisions of this Agreement,‘ which includes the Annexation Waiver.” Appellee‘s Br. at 24 (citing Appellants‘ App. at 821). We find this argument unavailing because the agreements provided only for the waiver of the “rights to object, remonstrate or appeal against [the] annexation,” not for consent to the annexation. As such, the execution and delivery of consents to carry out the waiver provisions of the agreements would have no bearing on the issue of consent to the annexation for purposes of Indiana Code Section 36-4-3-9.
In sum, based solely on the plain language of the sewer service agreements affecting at least 407 of the parcels in the Territory – that is, at least 55% of the total number of parcels – we conclude as a matter of law that those agreements (as well as any other agreements with the same or similar wording) do not constitute valid consent to Bargersville‘s annexation pursuant to Indiana Code Section 36-4-3-9.17 In so concluding, we express no opinion on Appellants‘ collateral arguments regarding the validity of those agreements.18 Likewise, we express no opinion on the validity of the remaining documents on which both the Bargersville Town Council and the trial court relied in finding that 51% of the landowners in the Territory had consented to Bargersville‘s annexation. Even assuming the validity of those documents, far fewer than 51% of the landowners in the Territory consented to Bargersville‘s annexation. Therefore, we reverse the trial court‘s grant of summary judgment in favor of Bargersville and remand for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
Reversed and remanded.
BAKER, C.J., and DARDEN, J., concur.