City property inside subdivision reverts to county|[07/10/08]
Published 12:00 am Thursday, July 10, 2008
About 39 acres of municipal property in southeast Vicksburg will be ceded to residential expansion, according to a chancery court order agreed upon by developers and city officials Wednesday.
Findings of the proceedings before Chancery Judge Vicki Roach Barnes concluded the exclusion of property purchased by planners of Littlewood subdivision is in line with state laws regarding municipal property because the area is separated from city police, fire and garbage service by 5 miles of brush.
Also, the order found it was “cost prohibitive” to build a bridge from the nearest city street over Hatcher Bayou to reach the rest of the subdivision’s second phase.
In its initial petition to the court, Littlewood Development Company LLC argued the decision is in the public interest because the neighborhood’s developers can provide more affordable housing in Vicksburg. Developers asked for the current subdivision’s main access, Madison Ridge Road, to be extended to reach the area involved.
Littlewood subdivision borders the city limits, southeast of Audubon Hills subdivision and east of the U.S. Engineer Research and Development Center. The entrance to the subdivision is on Lee Road.
Homes in the existing, non-municipal neighborhood are valued at more than $300,000 and pay county taxes averaging $2,500, plus school taxes. Any second phase would be governed only by Warren County’s subdivision ordinance, which stipulates timely submissions of plans for drainage and construction so roads can be maintained by the county.
Part of Littlewood, the second and third phases of development, is among 25 subdivisions under scrutiny by county engineers for not filing compliance paperwork on time. All of the 25 have an Aug. 1 deadline to show sufficient progress or face misdemeanor charges and nullification of preliminary plats, if not filed.
Littlewood is one of several neighborhoods lining both sides of the city’s southeast edges. Another development off Lee Road in the county, Eastvillage, has sewer and gas service from city lines into homes ready to receive it.
Reached this morning, Littlewood’s principal developer, Ronald Taylor, said he plans 13 homes on the 39 acres involved in the suit and that water services would be provided by the Hilldale Water District.
“It will be all on-site septic,” Taylor said of the development’s plan for providing sewer service.
Wednesday’s order represents, in effect, a reverse annexation, but does not change Vicksburg’s political boundaries. Residents of future development of Littlewood would not receive city services, pay city taxes or vote in city elections.
“You don’t see it all the time,” said attorney Wren Way, who argued the city’s 1990 annexation case before the Mississippi Supreme Court. “You can’t have city services and not pay city taxes.”
Way said one of many plans the state’s high court shot down included taking in county subdivisions such as Oak Park and what is now Littlewood.
“That didn’t fly,” Way said, because of federal law protecting independent water districts like Hilldale, which serves areas in southeast Warren County.
“If I were the developer, I wouldn’t want to be de-annexed without water and sewer,” Way said.