Annexing northeast area to be discussed
By Barbara Arntsen
Published in News on January 18, 2004 11:03 PM
The Goldsboro City Council will decide Tuesday night whether to spend $250,000 to begin the process of annexing areas northwest of town.
The meeting is being held at 7 p.m. Tuesday instead of Monday because of the Martin Luther King holiday.
The council plans to hire an engineer to determine how utilities should be installed if the area was annexed..
Several subdivisions northwest of the city limits are under consideration. The area includes the east and west sides of Salem Church Road and the north and south sides of Buck Swamp Road. It includes Ashby Hills, Fallingbrook Estates, Morgan Trace, Buck Run, Pineview Acres, Tarklin Acres and Canterbury Village subdivisions.
The entire area under consideration is about 410 acres.
Because state law requires the city to provide utilities to annexed areas within two years of annexation, the city plans to begin studies on those services.
This will involve hiring an engineering firm to look at preliminary plans to install and connect 48 fire hydrants, the design of sewer lines and the design of five sewage pumping stations.
The city also needs to hire a surveying company to prepare a preliminary boundary survey and other required work needed for the project.
Bids were submitted to the city, and the staff is recommending hiring the Raleigh engineering firm of Stearns & Wheeler and the LaGrange surveying firm Butler-Atlantic, to conduct the separate studies.
The studies would cost $250,000, but there's no money in the city's current budget for it. The city manager and staff are recommending that the city take a temporary loan from the utility fund to pay for the studies.
Next year the city will be selling sanitary sewer bonds, and the loan to the utility fund can be repaid then.
The following items are also on Tuesday night's agenda:
*A public hearing on a request from Sunburst Foods to rezone the north side of Wayne Memorial Drive between Fourth Street and Sixth Street from residential to neighborhood business.
*A public hearing regarding a request from Chris Cox to rezone the north side of Wayne Memorial Drive between Humphrey Street and Ninth Street from residential to general business.
*A public hearing on the closing of Sunset Lane.
*The presentation of the city's audit by Dean Horne of Pittard, Perry & Crone Inc.