By Matt Ward
Overwhelming resistance from property owners swayed the Fredericksburg City Council to abandon annexation plans for a 145-acre area southeast of Fredericksburg along U.S 290 East.
The council voted unanimously to cancel the annexation during a regular meeting Sept. 2, choosing not to move forward with the proposal despite being given the opportunity to restart annexation with properties north of U.S. 290 East being the focal point.
Brian Jordan, city director of development services, offered the council a second proposal, which would move the majority of annexation from the south side of U.S. 290 to the north side, almost entirely agriculture-exempt farm land.
City Manager Kent Myers said the revised proposal would allow the city to keep its primary annexation goal “to protect our gateway into the community.”
“We’re going to spend an awful lot on infrastructure for very little in return,” Councilman Graham Pearson said. “We’re going to divert water and wastewater labor and effort and I would rather be spending it on the existing utilities we have in town now.”
Changing the annexation map would have trimmed city costs considerably as initial estimates for the original plan totaled around $1.4 million to service the area with utilities. The revised plan would have cost approximately $986,000 to service.
“To me, it’s not about protecting the corridor. It’s about protecting the people in the corridor,” Mayor Linda Langerhans said. “It just takes one business or development to go in in a corridor like that to destroy the whole feel of the area with something big and ugly.”
City officials indicated that the council will likely reexamine future annexation plans during a special council retreat next month, with all major corridors into Fredericksburg under consideration.
Budget, tax rate approved
With no opposition from residents, the council also unanimously approved the city’s fiscal year 2014-2015 budget and adopted the effective tax rate, set at 0.2482 per $100 valuation, which is down 1.18 cents from the current $0.2600 rate.
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