STARKVILLE — Aldermen on Tuesday approved a developer’s agreement for the Glen Creek subdivision, which is a 80-acre development south of the city located off Poor House Road.
The legal contract would hold the subdivision outside of city limits to Starkville’s infrastructure standards. It’s the first of its kind the aldermen have approved, both Ward 4 Alderman Mike Brooks and City Attorney Berk Huskison said.
It passed by a 6-1 margin, with Ward 7 Alderman Vaughn opposed. It now awaits approval from the developer, Glen Creek Subdivision Partners.
Under the agreement, the developer would be required to submit all the materials it uses for sewer, water, and road infrastructure for city approval. The development would also have to follow the city’s Unified Development Code, and infrastructure must undergo inspections by a third party, which will be submitted to the city.
In exchange, the city would provide access to water and sewer services for residents in Glen Creek, as well as maintain those utility lines.
“We need to be able to hold the developer accountable to the standards we are requiring of the city,” Mayor Lynn Spruill told The Dispatch after the meeting. “If we’re going to take the water lines and the sewer lines as if they were installed inside the city limits and maintain them, then they need to meet the standards of all the other developers inside of the city.”
The agreement only applies to the first phase of development for the Glen Creek subdivision, which includes 47 lots. Subsequent agreements must be reached as the development grows. Eventually, the development is intended to hold more than 200 houses.
Spruill said the developers approached the city initially, asking for water and sewer services.
But before the city agreed to provide services, Huskison, City Planner Daniel Havelin and General Manager of Starkville Utilities Edward Kemp entered negotiations with the developer to provide the city protections long-term.
Kemp said, if the agreement goes through, the city will incur no capital costs on the front end, as the developer will be responsible for all construction.
Huskison said the document, though a first for the city, is similar to agreements that have been entered by other cities in the past, and will provide the city with protections it has not had with developments in the past.
With the development being held to city standards, Ward 5 Alderman Hamp Beatty asked Kemp if there is the potential for the development to be annexed into the city in the future.
Kemp said it would be properly engineered for that purpose, but Spruill said those conversations are not yet in motion.
“Anything that’s close to our city limits in 10 or 20 years, someone is going to annex it in,” Spruill said. “If it’s highly developed, then it will certainly be subject to that discussion. But I’m not having those talks. … It will be something that those who follow us will be projected to at some point in time.”
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