The Town of Culver continues to lay the groundwork for a possible annexation of land that lies to its Northwest.
During Tuesday night’s Culver Town Council meeting, Town Manager Jonathan Leist provided members with a list of the 29 properties that would be affected if annexation moves forward.
The effort follows an earlier request from the Town’s Plan Commission to begin communicating with the landowners. Leist says he has developed a frequently asked questions document.
“I made some changes to it and added a table on there that compares five different scenarios whether its Homestead, residence, agriculture, industrial and how it would affect their property taxes if they were annexed versus where they are right now,” says Leist.
The land under consideration would affect 142 acres. The Town believes that by bringing the space into the Town, $1.8-million in assessed valuation would be added.
Additional considerations are also cropping up, including that if a Town sewer line is within 300 feet of a property, the owners would be required to connect. Leist says tax caps were a key consideration.
“The way it stands right now, other units of government would not lose property tax revenue because none of those properties would be over the tax cap, so there wouldn’t be any cuts,” says Leist.
The Culver Plan Commission may have additional work to change the zoning of some of the land should annexation be approved. It has been mentioned in the past that the land may be prime real estate for the development of “affordable housing” – something Culver has expressed interest in attracting.
Culver may be working against the clock, however, as the Indiana General Assembly is considering a bill that may make land more difficult to annex.
Letters will be sent to the 29 landowners under consideration in the near future to help answer questions over the next month.
