The Centralia City Council took the second step in the potential annexation of a subdivision area off of Prill Road during its Tuesday meeting.
Daryl Anderson submitted to the city a notice of intent on April 4 that his neighborhood would like to petition for annexation into the City of Centralia. The proposed annexation is about 2.77 acres in size.
Annexation is the process by which a city adds acreage to the city limits.
Centralia Community Development Director Emil Pierson told the council that the majority of the homeowners in the subdivision have signaled support for Anderson’s intent.
“There are a few property owners that have not signed the petition — not to say that they’re not interested, but at this point, they have not signed the petition,” Pierson said.
In all, 14 homeowners have signed the petition.
On April 26, the council set a date of May 10 — a date that needed to be no later than 60 days after the filing of the notice — for a meeting to determine the answers to three questions related to the proposed annexation.
The first question that the council answered Tuesday was “whether the city will accept or reject or geographically modify the proposed annexation,” Pierson said.
According to council agenda documents, city staff did a quick analysis of the annexation and noticed no issues that would need to be resolved before the area could be annexed.
The second question that needed to be answered Tuesday was “whether it will require simultaneous adoption of a proposed zoning regulation,” Pierson said. “And that’s not an issue in this case because as you know, in our interlocal agreement with the county, we actually already zone these areas.”
Zoning is the codification of how much and what kind of development can be done on a piece of land to be used as a tool to implement the land uses designated in the city’s comprehensive plan.
“Number three is whether (the annexation) will require the assumption of all or any portion of the existing city indebtedness by the area to be annexed,” Pierson said. “And that, in this case, is not applicable.”
With the three needed questions answered, the council voted unanimously to accept the annexation application and move on with the annexation process — thus completing step two of the seven-step process.
Annexation Next Steps:
• Step 3: If the application is accepted, the city must circulate the petition to the required parties and submit the petition to the Lewis County Assessor for certification of the signatures.
• Step 4: A public hearing must be scheduled. The petition application must be reviewed by city staff and the Site Plan Review Committee. A recommendation must then be made to the Planning Commission
• Step 5: A public hearing must be scheduled to make a preliminary finding on the proposed annexation. The public hearing is held at a Planning Commission meeting, where commissioners will formulate a recommendation to the city council on the potential annexation. A public meeting must then be held by the city council to decide on the annexation in the form of a resolution.
• Step 6: The resolution must be submitted to the Lewis County Boundary Review Board (BRB) with the city council’s findings on the matter.
• Step 7: Upon BRB approval, the city council would then adopt an ordinance approving the annexation.
