Lesley Stedman Weidenbener, writing for the Louisville Courier Journal, has an article entitled “Annexation Bill’s Demise No Surprise.” A bill that passed the Senate would have required a city to receive the permission of every affected property owner before annexing property. This is a radical departure from current law which places the burden on those seeking to resist annexation – requiring them to get signatures of 65% of affected property owners before they can even get to a judge. That bill died in the House.
The column also discusses the current practice of obtaining annexation waivers. A city will extend water and sewer services to developers in exchange for waivers to challenging future annexation. The waiver runs with the land to whoever buys the developed land. Apparently there is some gaming of that system, where a city will obtain enough waivers to prevent affected landowners in a future annexation from getting the 65% of signatures needed.
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