Surprise, AZ News blog

A handful of homeowners and ranchers from the rural, unincorporated community of Wittmann have asked to be annexed into Wickenburg because they are fed up with what they suggest are greedy annexation plans by Surprise.  

Wickenburg is seriously considering the request.

However, such an annexation would force Wickenburg to cut across state trust land and into Surprise’s general planning area, which could put a crimp in Surprise’s development plans.

 

Planners from both municipalities are scheduled to discuss the issue early next week, said Steve Boyle, Wickenburg’s assistant town planner.

Surprise wants to build thousands of homes and a large industrial facility by the BNSF Railway tracks in an unincorporated part of the Northwest Valley. Surprise would later annex the projects into its city, and in some cases has already awarded future incentives for area projects that are not yet within its limits.

Much of that planned development falls next to Wittmann, where pristine desert and horse properties stretch for miles. Residents there have vocally opposed Surprise’s encroachment for more than a year.

The fight climaxed in October when the Surprise City Council approved preliminary plans for the BNSF Railway facility despite vehement opposition from Wittmann residents. The facility would go up near the Nadaburg Elementary School.

In November, Wittmann residents flooded a Wickenburg Town Council meeting and pleaded to be annexed. Since then, Boyle has been tasked with figuring out how such an annexation might unfold.

Wickenburg’s first priority is to annex about 5 square miles - about a quarter of Wickenburg’s current size - southeast of town along U.S. 60, Boyle said. That project, called the Hassayampa annexation, has been in the works for about a year, and is expected to happen in early 2008.

Next, Wickenburg would continue to annex southeast until it grabs the intersection of U.S. 60 and U.S. 74 and the surrounding residential areas, which include parts of Morristown, another unincorporated community affected by Surprise’s development plans. Wickenburg continues to meet with representatives from the state Land Department to help the plans come to fruition.

Boyle said Wickenburg has met with Morristown residents and had a good show of support from homeowners hoping one day to belong to Wickenburg. A municipality needs the consent of 50 percent or more of the assessed land value and property owners in an area to annex.

Because Wittmann is about 20 miles southeast of Wickenburg, it may not be until 2010 that Wickenburg would even border Wittmann, making an annexation possible, Boyle said.

Dubbed, the “dude ranch capital of the world,” Wickenburg has long been known for its rural, Western heritage - a feature that is appealing to many homeowners in the unincorporated Northwest Valley, Boyle said.