But the annexation may not come anytime soon.
Aberdeen Planning Director Giles Hopkins told the Town Board of Commissioners during its annual retreat Saturday that Forest Hills is still the front runner. He said the town would have to connect the neighborhood to sewer lines if it was annexed, but added, “Some lines are in there already.”
Aberdeen Public Works Director Rickie Monroe told the commissioners later in the day Saturday that consulting engineers Hobbs, Upchurch & Associates of Southern Pines had prepared a preliminary cost estimate for providing sewer service to the remainder of the Forest Hills subdivision.
The estimated cost, at the time the report was prepared last May, was $334,700.
Much of Forest Hills has already been annexed by Aberdeen, one parcel at a time through the process of voluntary annexation. Commissioner Art Parker asked Monroe how many houses in the neighborhood remain outside the town limits.
“Giles did a count.” Monroe said, “It’s between 10 and 20 houses — I forget exactly how many.” (Hopkins had left the meeting by the time Parker asked his question.)
“Is that all?” Parker said. “Obviously you’ll get sewer revenue from the other houses, but — how many houses would that be?”
“I’d say 40 to 60 houses,” Monroe said. “But if you’re looking at adding only a dozen houses on the tax books, Forest Hills goes to the bottom of the list real fast.”
Town Manager Tony Robertson had another suggestion for an area to annex.
“Chapel Green has everything it needs for annexation — all the town services,” Robertson said.
He noted, however, that the Chapel Green area suffers from low water pressure. The town’s Public Works Department has been looking at tying two of its well-driven water systems together to increase water pressure in Chapel Green.
That, too, would be an expensive project, Monroe reported. He said Hobbs, Upchurch had estimated the cost of that project at either $393,000 or $444,000, depending on where the systems are connected.
Engineer Bill Lester of Hobbs, Upchurch stated in a memorandum to Robertson last year that the interconnection project would have other advantages, including “greater flexibility of water service” and eliminating “the booster pump station on N.C. 5, along with a deteriorated line in the low area below the pump station.”
The deteriorated line runs under a swamp, Monroe told the commissioners, “and it scares me to think about that line breaking.”
