The Greensboro City Council currently has a virtual work session scheduled for Thursday, April 14 beginning at 2 p.m.

However, according to Mayor Nancy Vaughan, the work session will most likely be postponed because President Joe Biden is coming to Greensboro on Thursday and several councilmembers have said that a presidential visit takes precedence over a City Council work session.

Work sessions are being held virtually, which means they can be viewed at https://www.greensboro-nc.gov/government/city-council/council-meetings.

Vaughan said that if the work session is postponed, she hopes it will be rescheduled in the near future because the one item on the agenda, “Water and Sewer Extension Policies,” is a topic the City Council needs to discuss.

She said, “I’ve been asking for a work session on this topic for a while.”

The current policy for water and sewer extension is that a property must be annexed into the city of Greensboro before water and sewer service is made available to the site.  As a result of this policy the City Council frequently annexes single lots in neighborhoods that already have Greensboro water and sewer service available.  In some neighborhoods, adjacent houses that are not in the city may have water and sewer service that was provided to them when Greensboro didn’t require annexation, which creates an odd annexation pattern and can create problems in providing city services, particularly with police, fire and garbage collection.

And there are exceptions to the policy.  The City of Greensboro is extending water and sewer service to the Greensboro-Randolph Megasite, where the Toyota Battery manufacturing facility will be built, despite the fact that the megasite is miles outside the city limits and most likely will never be annexed by Greensboro.

Vaughan said that not only does the city need to reserve capacity for the major economic development projects like the Publix distribution center, Toyota and Boom, but it also needs to reserve capacity for the supply chain they will bring with them.

Vaughan said that the housing shortage in Greensboro is another factor the City Council needs to consider.  She said that a number of developers are looking at sites that are beyond the area that Greensboro could annex but need city water and sewer for the developments to move forward.  She said the City Council needed to consider what the return on investment would be for the city.

In the case of satellite annexations, Vaughan said a big issue was providing city services to those sites.