City committee meets for first time in 10 years to discuss annexation plans
By JIM BROOKS
Nelson County Gazette / WBRT Radio
Sunday, March 1, 2015, 9 p.m. — The City of Bardstown’s annexation committee met Friday afternoon at Bardstown City Hall for the first in 10 years. The committee met to review the areas outside the city limits that could be targeted for future annexation.
Larry Green, assistant city administrator, points to an area on a map of Bardstown during Friday’s meeting of the Bardstown City Council annexation committee. Friday’s meeting was the committee’s first meeting in 10 years.
Committee Chairman Fred Hagan stressed that the review was a preliminary move to review options and discuss the pros and cons of annexation. “After we review this, our recommendation may be to simply ‘do nothing,’ ” he told the committee.
Larry Green, assistant city administrator, provided the committee members with some history about the city’s last annexation efforts and a review of how state law regulates how annexations are handled.
Since the 1990s, all developments outside the city limits that have received sewer services from the city have been required to agree to be annexed as a condition of the receiving the service, Green explained. This requirement follows the property deed, and buyers agree to this condition when they purchase the property.
Using a map of the existing city boundaries, Green showed the possible annexation areas and discussed the potential problems with each. He identified four areas that could be annexed, though proposed boundaries might require careful routing to avoid residential neighborhoods that do not have signed annexation agreements and may be likely to oppose annexation.
Subdivisions that received city utilities prior to the 1990s were not required to have annexation agreements, he explained.
Green said the committee must also consider the fact that state law requires any annexation that includes manufacturing jobs to coupled with residential areas in a 2-to-1 ratio, or two manufacturing jobs for each individual resident annexed.
Green said the desire to couple residential areas with industrial annexation is why the City of Bardstown has delayed taking action to annex Woodlawn Springs and Maywood.
“We have not annexed Maywood because we wanted to be sure we would have enough residents to offset any manufacturing jobs we might want to take in,” he said.
There are also financial issues that must be considered, he explained. The city must examine the cost of providing services in areas considered to be annexed — which includes the cost of street maintenance, police and fire protection, and other expenses versus any revenue generated by the property taxes.
Due to an existing “gentlemen’s agreement,” the city has avoided annexing whiskey warehouses, including those at the Barton and Heaven Hill distillery properties. The office buildings and bottling plants of both distilleries are in the city, but their warehouses are not.
Annexing those warehouses may be an option the committee to consider.
Mayor John Royalty told the committee he would like to see some of the city’s irregular boundary lines cleaned up.
Green told the committee that annexing properties that have no sewer agreement means they can file a petition opposing the measure. If 50 percent or more of the resident voters or property owners sign the petition, the matter goes to a vote. If 55 percent of voters in the proposed annexation area vote against the measure, the annexation fails.
Hagan said he would like the committee to careful study the annexation possibilities and the merits of each. “I would like for us to understand the individual pros and cons of each area before we make a recommendation to the council,” he said.
In addition to chairman Hagan, and Green, the annexation committee members include Councilman Bill Buckman, Councilman Bobby Simpson, Director of Public Works and Engineering Larry Hamilton, and City Civil Engineer Jessica Filiatreau.
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