Decatur City Hall

The annexation of 29 properties on Derrydown Way into Decatur will be the last one on the City Commission’s agenda for the next few months.

During the June 16 Decatur City Commission meeting, City Manager Peggy Merriss told commissioners that staff will be devoting their time and energy to the creation of an “annexation master plan.”

“What I’ve been telling folks who have called recently is we were getting ready to do the annexation master plan over the summer and fall,” Merriss told commissioners. “If they want to do a petition together, they should do it in support of that master plan. At this point, the investment of staff energy and city commission energy is going to be developing the bigger master plan.”

The Derrydown annexation was the second within the last three months. The city annexed the Parkwood neighborhood back in April, voting to bring 77 parcels into the city limits.

Decatur City Commissioners were supposed to consider an item for “annexation master plan services” back in February, but decided to postpone that because the snow storm that month put the city behind schedule.

Decatur Metro asked Merriss for more information about the master plan. Merriss replied that the plan would be ready for consideration by November.

The plan would consider future land use and zoning, redevelopment, demographics, the cost of delivering services, the amount of revenue from property taxes, and “technical information” like maps and surveys, Merriss wrote.

“The goal of the Annexation Master Plan is to develop a proposal for the future Decatur city limits given that it still appears likely that the central and northern parts of DeKalb County will be part of some city in the next 3-5 years,” Merriss told Decatur Metro.

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