19 & 20 - DISANNEXATION REQUESTS 36TH NE AND FM 79

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Ability to Provide Services and Facilities Properties or an area should be annexed only to a municipality willing and able to provide fire and police protection and refuse collection immediately and sanitary sewer and water service within a reasonable period of time. Provision of sewer and water service should, however, not be at the expense of areas already within the municipality that still do not have these services. • Simplification of Municipal Boundaries Annexations should be encouraged and enhanced that have the effect of consolidating a community's corporate area and reducing the irregularities that previous annexations may have added to the corporate limits. "Squaring off' the municipal limits to create an easily recog- nizable shape can enhance the image that residents have of their municipality and create a more logical shape for administering services. Also, more logical and easily definable configurations of annexed property also provide the development community with opportunities oftentimes to create developments that are more efficient and aesthetically pleasing. Annexation lines should be drawn so as to avoid ribbons or odd pieces of unincorporated land between communities. It is preferable for municipalities to abut and have a common boundary rather than be separated by a small unincorporated area. • Cost- Revenue Analysis The deficit of income to be realized from the annexed area against the expenses to the municipality in serving it should be reasonable. Cost - revenue analysis, a topic in itself and beyond the scope of this report, can compare the annexation area's potential revenue base with the costs of furnishing necessary services. For example, consideration should be given to a situation whereby a city annexes a residential subdivision that was not built to that city's subdivision standards. In the long -run, therefore, the current citizens within the annexing municipality may have to pay for upgrading said potentially annexed subdivision. • Economic Development In conjunction with cost - benefit analysis, Paris can use annexation, where appropriate, as a tool to stimulate local and regional economic growth and implement sound, long -range capital improvement programming. A sub -tool for this kind of economic development could be, for example, public - private partnerships and investments. • Comprehensive Plans and Zoning District Maps Texas does not allow zoning of unincorporated areas. Therefore, if property is annexed, it should be zoned as soon as possible to be in conformance with the annexing municipalities' future land use plan within its comprehensive plan. If such zoning does not occur in a timely manner, the municipality runs the risk of having its recently annexed area developed with land uses that may be incompatible with that city's land use plans, growth- goals, and policies. • Parks, Recreation, and Open Space Oftentimes, parks, recreation, and open space plans can be more fully implemented if linkages can be made to other parks elements, to increase citizen use, city design, and aesthetic features. In certain instances, therefore, it could be an important factor to annex areas outside of Paris that could enhance trail systems, as well as use environmental resources that are presumably outside the city (e.g., flood plan and /or other environmentally sensitive, archeological and /or historical sites or interesting areas). 11