Decatur pulls annexation vote, reschedules it for January

The question of where the borders of Decatur should be is open for another month.

Just two days after the city school district voted 4-0 with one abstention to reject supporting the annexation of two large neighborhoods and several commercial properties into Decatur, city officials on Thursday pulled their vote from Monday night’s City Commission meeting.

Mayor Bill Floyd said that moving the vote to Jan. 20 gives the city time to figure out if the school district is opposed to all annexations or if it could support adding mostly commercial areas. The School Board split 2-2, with one abstention, on separate votes to annex only the commercial properties, or to do nothing.

“When we saw the dilemma the School Board felt like they were in, it felt like a good-sense decision to step back,” Floyd said. “We want to make sure we do the right thing by everyone.”

The city is weighing whether to add the Forest Hills and Midway Woods subdivisions to its borders while also annexing several shopping plazas and nearby residential areas that currently are north of the city line.

School Superintendent Phyllis Edwards recommended against annexing both the residential and the commercial annexations, but said she could live with only annexing the commercial land.

Edwards said she was concerned the estimated 450 students in the two subdivisions would add to already crowded classrooms and force the system to reopen buildings to handle the influx.

Edwards and some School Board members said they could live with adding the mostly commercial properties, which are projected to include about 160 public school students.

“We could support commercial properties,” Edwards said. “I believe we could accept between 150 and 250 students” before the system reaches a breaking point.

A city report shows that adding the commercial areas alone would help city coffers, though not as much as adding the Forest Hills and Midway Woods neighborhoods as well. Keeping the city’s borders where they are now would cost the school district about $900,000 a year, and the city up to $1 million a year, because of declining property values in the present economy.

If the city votes to seek state approval for any annexation, the issue will go the state Legislature in the upcoming session.

— Staff writer Kristina Torres contributed to this article.