First results from residents in the Dodson Branch Road area show they are against annexation by the city of Cookeville.
Cookeville Community Development Director Jon Ward shared the information with Cookeville City Council members Monday during a work session. Ward admitted only 14 surveys returned from 357 address points. Many of the nine against believed to be in multi-family housing.
“If you are living in a multi-family unit, this may be of no interest to you whether you are annexed or not, but we have had quite a bit of feedback from those folks, you know, that have responded to the survey, just saying ‘We think it might make our rent go up, you know, what benefit is it to us?'”, Ward said.
Ward said most of the time, the benefits of annexation will offset the cons of being annexed.
Ward said Putnam County Elections Administrator Michelle Honeycutt said a special referendum would cost an estimated $20,000. The northeast portion of the proposed annexation has a voting precinct located at Cookeville High School. Ward said the council could hold off on approving a resolution to send the annexation to referendum until next May to reduce the cost.
“The only difference in that $20,000 number would be based on if they had to hold the election somewhere else instead of the high school, and send out notices to the registered voters that would be voting at the high school location, and they would still have to do their research on if any of the eligible voters were in nursing homes, there’s things like that, they have to provide, so essentially just send letters that would have to be mailed out that would be the difference in cost which would not be a huge difference in what she had quoted me.”
Ward said the city already provides water and gas services to the proposed annexed area. Ward said part of the annexation would be providing sewer services, with an estimated cost of $6 million.
Ward said a majority of the multi-family units are currently on septic tanks. Ward said that many units on septic tanks tend to have issues, and sewer services are one of the reasons why some property owners have asked to be annexed into the city.
Ward said the planning commission had a lengthy discussion about the language that states the city would provide sewer service when economically feasible.
“Some members of the planning commission felt like, you know, putting a timeline in there is appropriate, but they did pass the plan of services as it was written,” Ward said. “We have some plans of services that had a specific timeline, 20 years, 25 years, but the majority of our plans of services do not have a timeline.”
Ward said the city will continue reaching out to residents in the area. The council will vote on Thursday to set July 7 as the date for the annexation proposal’s first public hearing.
