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Adel’s expansion plans are following the path of least resistance, Mayor Jim Peters said, but it is a route that has shaken its neighbor to the east.

That path is U.S. Highway 6, and the common link it provides to properties – some on the north side of the highway, some on the south – it hopes to welcome into the city through voluntary annexation agreements.

Since late last year, the city has obtained agreements from 16 landowners, including Knapp Properties Inc., who say that they will become part of the city.

The agreements are noteworthy in that three landowners demand that the city withdraw from the Dallas County Airport Authority, a body that at one time hoped to build an airport near U.S. Highway 6 and Dallas County Road R-16, which also serves as the eastern end of the proposed annexation, some 3.7 miles east of Adel’s current city limits.

In addition, the agreements preserve the ability of landowners to carry on with activities customary to predominantly rural areas, such as hunting, trapping, boarding horses, training dogs, burning open fires and using septic tanks.

Those exemptions to an urban lifestyle have turned some heads.

In Waukee, the initial reaction was to call the City Council into an emergency meeting Sept. 18, just a few days after it received notice from Adel that the city planned to grow.

City Administrator Jeff Kooistra said the notice caught officials off guard. The council went into executive session to discuss the proposed annexation.

“I’m not an expert in annexation, but it does look kind of strange to me,” Kooistra said.

The council decided to take a wait and see attitude to determine how Adel’s move would affect Waukee’s planning.

One immediate concern is Waukee’s proposed 200-acre recreation complex, located less than a quarter of a mile from what could become Adel’s eastern boundary.

“It just makes sense to have that land within our jurisdiction,” Kooistra said.

In discussions regarding the annexation of that land, Waukee had planned on using what has become Adel’s strategy, essentially using U.S. Highway 6 as a connecting corridor from the existing city limits to land it wants to bring into the city.

However, the Iowa Department of Transportation (DOT) told Waukee in April that it would oppose that plan because it follows what is referred to as ribbon or flagpole annexation.

The highway is the ribbon that connects isolated pieces of land to the city.

It is the same scheme adopted by Adel to move its boundary.

The DOT official who notified Waukee of that determination could not be reached for comment. It is not clear whether the department’s opposition to an annexation plan is enough to have it rejected.

And, he cautioned that the city’s neighbors shouldn’t feel threatened by the proposed annexation.

“Our comprehensive plan had put annexation on the table; we did that three to four years ago,” Peters said. “We sent letters to folks but really didn’t pursue it; we just indicated that we wanted to go east someday.”

Adel has reached an agreement with Dallas Center over annexation boundaries. It does not have a similar agreement with Waukee, and the lack of an agreement prompted the city to go ahead with its annexation plan.

The city began securing agreements last year from property owners, including Monarch Manufacturing, which is located near County Road R-16, and Knapp Properties, which owns nearly 200 acres just outside of the existing Adel city boundary.

Three of those agreements were made with the provision, requested by landowners, that Adel pull out of the airport authority.

Peters said the proposal to build a regional airport near R-16 and U.S. Highway 6 is “off the table,” in part because Adel is virtually alone among local governments in supporting the airport.

Adel would rather have the proposed airport location used for development, he said.

Peters conceded that although the airport plan is on the shelf at the moment, it could be resurrected, providing it passes muster with the Federal Aviation Administration.

The process of obtaining voluntary annexation agreements means that Adel will not have to go before a state governing board to have the annexation approved, Peters said.

“Voluntary is the best way to go,” he said. “It’s clean and it’s simple. It will not cause us a problem in the future.”

Because the property is largely rural and hosts little residential development, the extension of water and sewer services should not become an issue, Peters said.

Landowners can continue to use septic systems under the annexation agreements. Water service has been extended via Xenia Rural Water District, which is in dire financial circumstances and whose rates are considered beyond the norm for municipal and other rural water services.

Nonetheless, Adel would have to provide services for future development, the anticipation of which prompted the city to explore annexation.

Peters said that the city would save money by following U.S. Highway 6 if it needs to extend public utilities into the annexation area.

In addition, he said the city is not attempting to jump in front of development efforts.

“There are no specific development plans now,” Peters said. “Our annexation effort isn’t to try to capture any plans that are on the table; it’s simply defining what our borders will be in the future.”