City Council: Annexation Moves Forward in Hillbrook

The stage was set for what was expected to be a contentious City Council meeting yesterday.  The agenda for Monday’s meeting was almost entirely cleared so that council could take up the annexation of 54 properties in the Hillbrook Forest subdivision, and the meeting was moved from the normal location at City Hall to County Council chambers on N. Church Street in anticipation of large crowds opposed to the annexation.

All of that turned out to be unnecessary however, as the public hearing portion on both phases of yesterday’s annexation went without anyone coming forward to speak either for or against the proposed annexation.

Council voted 6-1 for both phases with Councilman Joe Spigner casting the lone dissenting vote in both cases.

The annexation of the 54 properties includes 16 properties which fall under South Carolina’s “25% law” which allows a municipality to annex 25% of the properties in an area without the property owners’ consent provided that the other 75% of property owners representing at least 75% of property value have agreements with the city providing consent for annexation.  The properties to be annexed must also be contiguous to city boundaries.

The properties affected by both phases of the annexation are on Mabry Drive, Perrin Drive, Winfield Drive, Webber Road, Brian Drive, Hollis Drive, Ransdell Court and Kaplan Court.

City Planning Director Stephanie Monroe said that the newly annexed properties can expect to receive city services such as trash and recycling pickup starting on the 15th of this month.  Their first property tax bill as city residents will be due in January of 2011.

The city has plans to annex around 1,000 properties total this year, most of those being on the west side.  More annexations are expected to be taken up in October.

Also taken up at the meeting, was a proclamation recognizing globalbike, a nonprofit organization based in Spartanburg.  The group’s professional cycling team, Team Globalbike, recently received the “Best Project by a Professional Sports Team” award at the Beyond Sport Summit in London this past July for their work promoting the nonprofit organization’s work.

Globalbike provides bicycles to HIV/AIDS workers in the developing world who often have to travel long distances on foot providing services to children managing as heads of households and orphaned by the disease.  The group currently has over 300 bikes in four countries.  The bikes allow HIV/AIDS workers to travel greater distances providing more support to more children orphaned by disease and poverty.