Cedar Rapids Today

The Marion city council recently discussed the annexation of property which comes with a few difficult issues.

According to a memo from the city, the Marion city council is considering an annexation request from Frazier Land Inc that includes property west of Mulberry Drive and north of East Robins Road. The council held a public hearing on the annexation, which can be done with the 80/20 rule as it is within two miles of the jurisdiction. Under the rule, the city can annex the land into its jurisdiction as long as no more than 20% of the area's landowners object to the decision. Currently, there are only three non-consenting landowners, which is just over 11% of the represented area. The city has been working on this issue for some time now.

The city already proposed providing a ten-year transition plan into the new property tax rate for these landowners as the city's property tax rate will be an increase from their current rate. Some of the areas in this annexation area are available to either Marion or Cedar Rapids, however, Cedar Rapids does not oppose the annexation of these lands into Marion. 

"I just want to make this crystal clear. It sounds as if in Marion, we currently don't necessarily have a choice regarding the annexation, because if we don't annex and Cedar Rapids annexes and then we're required to because there's an island and we can't have an island based on state law, is what I'm hearing," Marion councilwoman Colette Atkins said at the meeting. "I'm also hearing that there really isn't a path after that annexation happens for the current owners to grow their business. There is sort of this in-between phase before anything kind of happens if they get footings in the ground. There's this sort of period of time in order they could do that and then they can expand. So I think that that's the unfortunate part is, is it seems like our hands are a little tied in this."

One of the non-consenting residents, Amanda Madison, came out to speak at the public hearing, explaining why she opposes the annexation. Madison and her husband use their land for their businesses. Amanda's husband is a homebuilder and keeps a lot of equipment and supplies on the property and is looking to expand. Amanda is a poultry farmer and she hatches, raises, and sells various types of chickens and ducks. They bought the property five years ago with these expansion plans in mind, but the Marion city code will not allow these expansions. and they would only be allowed to continue their current levels of operation as a legal non-conforming operation.

After public comment, the council discussed various options for how they could annex and get around some requirements, but in the end, they tabled the conversation to see what more could be done without interrupting the residents' current business operations.