AHOSKIE – The Town of Ahoskie is moving forward with its annexation plans.

At its Tuesday meeting, Ahoskie Town Council members listened as Will Best of the NC Department of Commerce/Division of Community Assistance (DCA) presented an update of the proposed annexation. He said DCA has studied various scenarios and compositions of the areas. Best then made a powerpoint presentation, one which analyzed each of the four areas under consideration.

Those areas include Colonial Acres, North Catherine Creek Road (north of Malibu Drive), NC 561 East (Harrellsville Highway) and NC 42 West.

“All of these areas are part of our original annexation plan,” Ahoskie Town Manager Tony Hammond said. “The only difference now is that they have been fined-tuned a bit.”

In his presentation, Best said one area that has undergone major changes is NC 42 West.

“Through the calculations stemming from land use, that area was originally denied (for annexation), but we came up with a smaller area that will work,” Best said.

The new annexation plans for that area will take in 15 lots/tracts totaling 17.6 acres. The entire area that will possibly be annexed along NC 42 covers 23.03 acres.

Hammond said the majority of the parcels/tracts are commercial property, located beyond the Ahoskie Creek about halfway to the Johnny Mitchell Road intersection. He added there were roughly seven-to-eight parcels on the right side of the road and a few on the left.

Study Area #1 (Colonial Acres, all residential property) consists of 118 lots/tracts encompassing 135.65 acres.

North Catherine Creek Road (Study Area #2, basically an area along the Ahoskie-Cofield Road and the Willoughby Road) has 146 lots/tracts covering 61.9 acres.

There is a total of 115.32 acres in Study Area #3 (Harrellsville Highway). There, 53 lots/tracts may be affected by annexation.

Best informed council members that the next step in the annexation process would be to collect data in order to perform a cost analysis. That financial data will assist Ahoskie officials in determining the feasibility of annexing property weighed against the costs of providing town services to those new citizens/businesses. From that point, the Town of Ahoskie may choose to adopt a resolution of intent (to annex) any or all of the areas now being studied.

The only action taken on Tuesday was that council members approved the study and recommendations of the DCA and will allow DCA to move forward with the cost analysis.

“We’re taking our time and doing things the right way with this project,” Hammond said. “Hopefully, the timing will be right for the annexation to occur just at the time the expanded wastewater treatment plant comes on line.”