POCATELLO — Nearly 500 acres of land located around South Fifth Avenue will likely soon become part of Pocatello.

In spite of pushback from many private property owners, the City Council is poised to begin the process at its 6 p.m. Thursday meeting at City Hall to finalize the annexation of 488 acres of land formerly located in Bannock County near South Fifth Avenue between South Valley Road and Katsilometes Road.

City officials said the proposed annexation has been in the works in some capacity since Century High School was constructed on Pocatello’s south side in the late 1990s. But when the annexation plan was accelerated late last year, it caused quite the stir among many of the impacted landowners.

Property owners who live within the land set to be annexed have voiced a multitude of concerns, but one of the most common issues revolves around the idea that they will be forced to pay city taxes for services they already receive elsewhere, including police and fire protection as well as water, sewer and sanitation.

Additionally, several property owners have expressed concern surrounding the city’s timeline, in that it appears the city expedited the annexation as a means to circumvent impending state legislation, which would have made the annexation process at least more difficult and at most impossible to complete.

City officials counter that the annexation not only makes sense considering the land already borders existing city limits and is closer to being Pocatello than it is Bannock County, but also because the land needs to officially be within city limits in order for the city to apply for various grants that could be used to improve pedestrian access and sewer infrastructure.

A major component of the city’s desire to annex the land surrounds the idea that the standards of development for Bannock County are lower than those of the city. The properties targeted for annexation are connected to private septic tanks and have previously been identified by the Idaho Department of Environmental Quality as major contributors of nitrates within the aquifer that provides safe drinking water to local residents.

Much of the public’s concern surrounding the annexation process boiled over during a May 1 Pocatello Planning and Zoning Commission meeting that ultimately ended with the commission voting 4-1 to deny the city’s application for annexation.

During that meeting, several property owners living in the affected area spoke out about the process, including Kevin Spencer, who previously provided the city with a letter that 14 other property owners signed expressing their opposition to the annexation. This past December Spencer and the other property owners on Garton Road and Lower Road were not included in the initial annexation map but were included in one released later in March.

“We the undersigned property owners would like the city to reconsider the proposed annexation lines they have drawn,” the property owners’ letter stated. “...The city is unable to supply any services to us at this time that we do not already have. The cost of putting in water and sewer lines are cost prohibitive and there are only about five undeveloped lots in this section so no developer will be willing to spend their capital on a small section even if the property was to be available.”

The letter continued, “We already have police coverage with the county. The sheriff’s office is only a mile or so from us. We have garbage service. Ambulance service comes from the city of Pocatello. North Lower Road is a county road, which the county plows on a regular basis in the winter, not so in the city. Garton Road is a 10-foot-wide private road, which will get no service from the city.”

During the May 1 meeting, Planning and Zoning Commission member Marjanna Hulet questioned the timing of the city’s annexation plan and why it wasn’t worth waiting until the new legislation comes into effect on July 1 that would significantly change how annexations of this type work in Idaho.

Currently, in order for an entity to annex property containing over 100 parcels of land, it must obtain consent from 50 percent of the property owners to move forward. The legislation going into effect on July 1 changes that percentage from 50 percent to 60 percent and also requires that 50 percent of the total geographic area to be annexed, not just the parcels, provide consent because parcels differ in acreage.

Consent is not as black and white as a property owner simply providing written support for annexation, however, as there is such a thing called “implied consent.” Any property that is already connected to a city utility, for instance water or sewer, provides implied consent to be annexed into the city, so long as that utility connection was completed before July 1, 2008.

According to city officials, 75 percent of the people located in the area targeted for annexation on the south side have provided consent or implied consent.

Many of the local residents who spoke out at the May 1 meeting questioned whether or not the city actually has 75 percent annexation support and also wondered if the city would still meet the same threshold of the new legislation.

Pocatello Planning and Development Services Director Brent McClane during the May 1 meeting responded to Hulet and said that the city was not trying to sneak anything in ahead of the new law going into effect and that waiting until after July 1 would “just elongate the process.”

McClane also said that he was not quite sure how the new legislation would impact the annexation request because there were “a lot of nuances with the new code that we would have to look at and see how it applies.”

McClane’s comments to the Planning and Zoning Commission are interesting considering that in February he testified against the proposed legislation, known as Senate Bill 1293.

Minutes from the February meeting in front of the Idaho Legislature state, “Brent McLane, City of Pocatello, testified on behalf of Mayor (Brian) Blad in opposition to (Senate Bill) 1293…. He expressed concern about the increase of the threshold for consensual annexations from fifty percent to two-thirds consent of landowners and fifty percent of the area to be annexed. He stated that the threshold would be difficult to meet. In addition, he was concerned about the reduction of parcels necessary for the city to annex an enclave from 100 or fewer to 30 or fewer. That would allow a small number of landowners to disapprove an annexation.”

Even though the Pocatello Planning and Zoning Commission denied the city’s application for the annexation, the Pocatello City Council on May 16 unanimously approved the request during a meeting that saw many of the same concerns voiced during the May 1 commission meeting.

During a recent phone interview with the Idaho State Journal, Blad addressed many of those concerns.

Blad told the Journal that he did personally request the addition of several parcels on Garton and Lower roads for annexation, primarily because the initial proposal without those additional properties created city boundaries that didn’t make sense to him.

“We would have sent police to one side of the road but not the other,” Blad said. “And it just didn’t make sense to me to have these funky lines drawn on there like we have near the border of Pocatello and Chubbuck.”

When asked why the city just didn’t wait the 60 days for the new law to go into affect and avoid what appears to be a forced annexation, Blad said this process has been in the works for years and if the city waited on the Idaho Legislature to implement new laws nothing would get done at the local level.

“This was prepared and planned and we were moving forward with this before the legislation was even introduced,” Blad said. “The legislation got in the way and made it look like we were trying to do a land grab but that is just not the case. Had we waited it would have cost the taxpayers probably three or four times the amount.”

He continued, “It would have been easier, optics-wise, if we waited but when I started looking at the amounts it cost to notice everything and prepare all the documents it just made sense to continue on the path we were on and do it all at once.”

Blad also addressed the concern that McClane misled the Planning and Zoning Commission when he said he was unsure how the new law would impact the annexation request.

“I think that he knew what this legislation did,” Blad said. “I think that he was saying that this was amended 15 times before it came out and what he testified against was a different bill than what was passed.”

Ultimately, with the City Council already approving the annexation request, recourse for the affected landowners is limited. If the City Council approves an ordinance on Thursday approving the annexation request, the next step will involve determining how many times that ordinance must be read to the public before it becomes official. There are no additional public hearings or meetings for local residents to voice their concerns.

Long Range Senior Planner for Pocatello Jim Anglesey says that if the City Council approves the ordinance on Thursday, the city will then send notices to all affected property owners explaining a process they can embark upon to appeal the matter with the courts.