Slaughter, J.
Reagan Outdoor Advertising owns billboards in Noblesville, Indiana. The city classifies billboards as pole signs, which are signs affixed to poles or other uprights installed in the ground. A city ordinance now bans pole signs, but signs like Reagan’s that pre-date the ordinance can remain as a legal nonconforming use if they are kept in good repair and not “relocated”. After a storm damaged one of its billboard’s support posts, Reagan tried to repair them. Reagan removed the sign’s display, cut off the broken posts at ground level, and installed new posts a few feet from the posts’ existing holes. Before Reagan could reattach the sign’s display to the new posts, the city issued a stop-work order after concluding that Reagan had “relocated” the sign, which thus lost its legal nonconforming status. The board of zoning appeals affirmed this determination, but the trial court reversed.
At first blush, the ordinance’s ban against “relocating” a sign would seem to ban any “movement” at all, including the de minimis movement of the disputed support posts here. But based on the different ways the ordinance uses “relocate” and “move”, we conclude that “relocate” is ambiguous and, consistent with our interpretive canons, must be resolved in Reagan’s favor. We hold that Reagan did not relocate its sign and affirm the trial court’s judgment for Reagan.
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We hold it is unclear under the ordinance whether “relocate” encompasses the de minimis movement of a sign undertaken to repair the damaged support posts. Consistent with our interpretive canons, we resolve this ambiguity in Reagan’s favor. Thus, the board’s decision was contrary to law under Indiana code section 36-7-4-1614(d)(1), and Reagan is entitled to declaratory relief.
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Here, the underlying facts are undisputed. Thus, the lone question before us on judicial review is the legal consequence of undisputed facts—whether, in other words, Reagan violated Noblesville’s ordinance. We hold it did not. Although “relocate” and “move” are similar, they have different meanings under the ordinance. And the ordinance offers no guidance on how far a sign must be “moved” before it has been “relocated”. Thus, the term is ambiguous, and we construe it in Reagan’s favor.
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…But, unlike the court of appeals and the board, we do not consider Hoosier Outdoor “instructive”. Under our standard of review, we do not defer to agency decisions on legal questions. Thus, we review the ordinance de novo.
Article 11 of the ordinance regulates signs within Noblesville. Under article 11, signs lose their legal nonconforming status if they are “relocated”. UDO § 11.C.6. Article 11 does not define “relocate”, but Article 2 explains that all undefined words in the ordinance “shall be defined according to any recent edition of Webster’s New Collegiate Dictionary”. UDO § 2.1.D. The parties agree that “relocate” means “to locate again, establish or lay out in a new place, or move to a new location.” Relocate, Merriam-Webster-Online Dictionary, https://perma.cc/5ND9-JBWU (last visited Sept. 22, 2023).
Article 14 of the ordinance, which governs nonconforming structures generally, says that such structures lose their legal status if they are “moved”—also undefined—“for any reason for any distance whatever”. UDO § 14.E.4. The parties did not stipulate to the meaning of “move”. But the trial court defined it as “[t]o change position or posture; dislodge or displace from a fixed position.” (Citing Move, Merriam-Webster-Online Dictionary, https://perma.cc/W57M-ABC8 (last visited Sept. 22, 2023)). Neither party challenges this definition. Instead, the board argues that these terms—“relocate” and “move”—do not have different meanings because “relocat[e]” means “to move to a new location” (emphasis added). Thus, the board argues, Reagan “relocated” its sign by moving it to a new location 18 to 36 inches from the original position.
At first glance, this plain-meaning argument seems obvious and correct: “relocate” means “to move to a new location”, and Reagan moved the posts to a different location, inches behind their original position. Thus, the argument goes, Reagan “relocated” its sign in violation of the ordinance and forfeited the sign’s status as a legal nonconforming use. But on closer inspection, the ordinance itself suggests that “relocation” and “movement” have different meanings.
Article 11 says that nonconforming signs cannot be relocated; it does not say they cannot be moved. Though often synonyms, “relocate” and “move” do not mean the same thing here because the ordinance uses them differently. When the ordinance wants to prohibit movement of any kind, it says so in no uncertain terms: Article 14 bans the movement of nonconforming structures “for any reason for any distance whatever”. UDO § 14.E.4. A prohibition on “movement”, in other words, bans even the slightest movement. Had the board argued on appeal that Reagan’s sign was an article 14 structure, Reagan’s actions may well have violated the ordinance’s ban on “movement” and caused the sign to lose its legal nonconforming status. But the board never did so, thus waiving any argument for reversing the trial court’s judgment on this ground. Isom v. State, 170 N.E.3d 623, 639, 645 (Ind. 2021) (citing App. R. 46(A)(8)(a)) (concluding that failure to raise argument on appeal resulted in waiver).
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An ordinance is ambiguous if it is “susceptible to more than one interpretation”. Anderson v. Gaudin, 42 N.E.3d 82, 85 (Ind. 2015) (citations omitted). Was Reagan’s “movement” of the posts 18 to 36 inches behind their original location enough to constitute a “relocation”? The ordinance does not say. It provides no guidance on this point—no yardstick for assessing when a difference in degree (“movement”) becomes a difference in kind (“relocation”). The trial-court and zoning-board decisions show that this lack of guidance leaves the ordinance susceptible to competing interpretations of “relocate”. Thus, “relocate” is an ambiguous term.
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Our review of the ordinance shows that the board’s interpretation of “relocate” was contrary to law. Thus, we affirm the trial court’s judgment reversing the board’s decision. I.C. § 36-7-4-1614(d)(1).
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The zoning board argues that the trial court’s declaration of rights and award of costs was improper because the 1600 series within Indiana Code chapter 36-7-4 “establishes the exclusive means for judicial review of zoning decisions”, I.C. § 36-7-4-1601(a), and does not specifically provide a mechanism for granting declaratory relief, id. § 36-7-4-1615. The board also argues that a court can award no further relief from a zoning-board decision under any other statute.
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These issues are different from the merits of the zoning board’s decision and seek to preserve Reagan’s legal rights after it obtained a favorable ruling on judicial review. The stop-work order was issued over three years ago and still bans Reagan from doing necessary maintenance on its sign. Because the appellate process has lasted longer than the ordinance’s six-month deadline for completing required repairs, UDO § 11.B.3.C.1, Reagan needed to ensure the sign still retained its legal nonconforming status after the lawsuit ended. After the trial court’s favorable ruling on judicial review, its award of declaratory relief preserves the sign’s uninterrupted legal nonconforming status and allows Reagan to finish its repairs within the ordinance’s six-month maintenance deadline once the stop-work order was set aside.
As a party with rights affected by an ordinance, Reagan could seek a declaration of its rights or status under the declaratory judgment act and recover its costs as warranted. Because Reagan established on judicial review that the zoning board’s order was invalid, it was also entitled to the declaratory relief that the trial court granted it. Thus, we affirm the trial court’s decision to grant Reagan declaratory relief and award costs.
For these reasons, we affirm the trial court’s judgment for Reagan on its claims for judicial review and declaratory relief.
Rush, C.J., Massa and Molter, JJ., concur.
Goff, J., concurs in the judgment with separate opinion.
Goff, J., concurring in the judgment.
I concur in the result. Under our precedent, we afford “great weight” to a zoning board’s interpretation of the ordinances it enforces. St. Charles Tower, Inc. v. Bd. of Zoning Appeals of Evansville-Vanderburgh Cnty., 873 N.E.2d 598, 603 (Ind. 2007) (quotation marks omitted). In the words of the Virginia Supreme Court, such deference appropriately leans on zoning agencies’ “expertise in the relationship between particular textual language and a local government’s overall zoning plan” to promote “consistent application” of local ordinances. Lamar Co., LLC v. Bd. of Zoning Appeals, 620 S.E.2d 753, 757 (Va. 2005). Here, however, Noblesville’s interpretation of “relocated,” to include re-erection of a damaged pole sign 18 to 36 inches from its original spot, is unreasonable—especially considering Reagan’s duty to keep the sign in good repair. Noblesville’s interpretation is therefore undeserving of deference. I otherwise agree with the majority’s interpretation of the ordinance in Reagan’s favor.