Annexation

There were four studies during the 1990s, one by a joint committee of the League of Municipalities and the Association of County Commissioners and the other three by committees of the LRC.

The Joint City/County Annexation Committee, which reported in December 1996, made 20 different recommendations for amendments to the annexation statutes, both voluntary and involuntary.  None of the recommendations were immediately enacted into law, but a few were eventually included in the report of the third of the LRC committees and in that way became law.

The 1995 General Assembly authorized the LRC to study annexation, and the Commission established a committee to study a variety of property-related issues including involuntary annexation.  The committee recommended a number of amendments that would have generally made annexation more difficult and more expensive for cities, but the 1996 General Assembly did not enact any of its recommendations into law.  It did, however, authorize another annexation study by the LRC, which then reported to the 1997 General Assembly.  It too would have made annexations considerably more difficult and expensive, and once again the General Assembly refused to enact the recommendations into law.

After experiencing a bruising fight over the 1997 recommendations, the 1997 General Assembly asked the LRC to try one more time, this time resulting in a report to the 1998 session of the General Assembly.  This third time, though, the General Assembly was more receptive, and most of the recommendations of this third LRC study in three years were enacted into law.  The most important changes recommended in the 1998 report were:

1. Special provisions were added for annexation areas that include properties subject to use-value taxation.
2. The existing standards for urban development were modified with the intention of making it more difficult for a city to qualify an area for annexation.
3. A new urban development standard – the nonresidential urban uses test – was added.
4. Cities were required to follow streets and recorded property lines when drawing the boundaries of annexation areas.
5. A new step in the annexation process – the public information meeting – was added.
6. A court reviewing an annexation was now permitted to declare an ordinance void rather than remanding it to the city for modification.