The City of Portage is about to get bigger. The city council voted four-to-two this week to annex property in the 600 block of Porter County Road 700 North, between Willowcreek and Swanson roads. It's the first of two annexations required for a proposed 240-home subdivision.
Council members Ferdinand Alvarez and Gina Giese-Hurst voted against the annexation, citing concerns about the city's ability to provide services to the area. "I'm not convinced that the $312,000 a year [in property tax revenues] that we would bring in as a city is worth the additional expenses and strain on our resources and our departments," Alvarez said.
Council President Collin Czilli acknowledged it's a delicate balance — between new development to bring in revenue and new city staff to serve the new development. "We have to find ways to generate new revenue, and this is a development with $275,000 in assessed value. And it generates property taxes as soon as it's annexed. We start generating the property taxes that already exist that are not coming into the city now," Czilli said.
Giese-Hurst was also concerned about the density of the proposed subdivision compared to surrounding development. The developers asked to annex the property as an R-4 zone, which calls for single-family residential but at a higher density than the standard R-1. But City Attorney Dan Whitten stressed that the development would still be limited by the annexation agreement, and the subdivision would have to go through a separate approval process.
