SUMMERFIELD - Property owners on the southeastern outskirts of Summerfield are getting the opportunity to learn what voluntary annexation would mean for them.
Summerfield Town Council has scheduled a special called meeting at 6 p.m. next Tuesday, April 26, to provide information to residents about voluntary annexation. The meeting will be held at Center United Methodist Church, 6142 Lake Brandt Road in Greensboro.
The council is pursuing voluntary annexation by eligible property owners after the Guilford County Board of Commissioners denied the town's request last year to create an extraterritorial jurisdiction (ETJ) in the vicinity of Lake Brandt and Bunch roads. Summerfield leaders sought the establishment of the ETJ as a way to control zoning of property adjoining town limits.
If the ETJ had been created, Summerfield would have taken zoning control over a two-mile-wide band of property on the town's southern and eastern borders away from the county. Town leaders are concerned that higher-density residential development allowed by the county's zoning regulations may wind up abutting Summerfield neighborhoods.
In denying the town's ETJ request, the board of commissioners sided with Greensboro City Council and the heirs of Lunsford Richardson, the inventor of cold salve Vicks VapoRub. The heirs own 1,124 acres in the area where Summerfield sought to exert zoning control.
The Greensboro council asked the commissioners to deny Summerfield's request until the city can gain a better understanding of how the ETJ would affect its growth plans and investments in water and sewer lines in the area.
