•Board won’t push for annexation, unless owners desire.

By JEFFERSON WEAVER
Staff Writer

Another meeting between Lake Waccamaw officials and property owners in Wooded Acres was “productive,” according to the town manager.

Darren Currie said the town’s commissioners re-emphasized that they have no plans to annex the subdivision if property owners aren’t behind the plan. Last Tuesday’s meeting was the latest in a series to discuss annexation as well as the extension of water and sewer to the area.

Between 25 and 30 people attended last Tuesday’s meeting, Currie said.
“We had a few more new faces,” he said.

Some property owners in the development have more than one lot, Currie said, and to ensure fairness in the process, commissioners want to allow only one vote per owner, not one vote per lot.

“The town wants to make sure no one feels pressured, or feels like one or two people ramrodded something through,” Currie said.

For the area to be annexed, Currie said, every property owner must sign a petition in support of the move. If one person refuses, he said, “the whole thing is off.”

The town is in the process of creating a master list of property owners in the community, and contacting out-of-town owners to keep them informed about the process. Even after a petition is completed, Currie said, the process “will still take some time.

“We’ll have to have a local bill introduced in the legislature,” he said, adding that such a bill would be too late for this session of the General Assembly.

Currie said support for the move is growing. Due to the high water table and other issues, some properties in Wooded Acres would be difficult to develop without town water and sewer. The town board is seeking someone from the community to “basically take this door to door” to gather opinion.

“People are not taking this lightly,” Currie said. “The town isn’t taking this lightly. People are talking about it, and weighing the options.”

The town will have two years after annexation to provide services to the area. Currie said the task would be hard, but it can be done if the residents ask to join the town.
“Two years isn’t a lot of time,” he said, “so we’d have to move pretty quickly.”

Currie said town commissioners would welcome the new properties, but have no intention of forcibly annexing the area.

“We want to do all we can if they are interested,” he said, “but if they do not have a unanimous desire to do so, there’s no hard feelings.”