Eastside annexation talks resurface

Tom A. Savage

Contributing writer

It first surfaced in 2021 when the Brandon City Council began discussions about annexing an area on the east side of Brandon near Redwood and Chestnut boulevards.

With the Brandon Valley School District announcing plans to build a new elementary near the southeast corner of that intersection, talks ramped up.

Work is currently underway on the new elementary school, which will be known as Burkman Valley Elementary. The school is scheduled to open in the fall of 2026. 

Along with the annexation of the properties in the area, talks included the paving of Redwood and Chestnut, in part because of the forthcoming school.

However, annexation talks stalled in 2022 after the City Council tabled the issue for several reasons, most notably the cost that would be absorbed by property owners within the annexation area through special assessments.

With the construction on the new elementary school in progress, and with the growth Brandon has seen in recent years, the issue seemed inevitable to resurface. It did so at the Dec. 16, 2024, City Council meeting when resident Scott Dubbelde approached the council during the Public Comments portion of the meeting.

“We’re respectfully asking for the city of Brandon to participate and potentially lead a discussion that results in getting East Redwood Boulevard and North Chestnut Boulevard paved to where they meet each other,” said Dubbelde, who said his grandkids will be attending Burkman Valley Elementary when it opens in the fall of 2026. “The east side of Brandon is continuing to grow and a second paved access is a necessity. We need another paved access for emergency vehicles, buses, an Aspen Boulevard flood event, and overall traffic flow.”

In response from that public comment portion of the Dec. 16 meeting, Brandon City Administrator Bryan Read gathered updated information and addressed the Council at their last meeting of 2024.

The issue has been quiet since the Council tabled it two years ago. However, Read reviewed numbers for the Council at Monday’s meeting that reflects DGR Engineering’s 2021 annexation study.

As part of that annexation study, the original cost to pave Redwood and Chestnut was $8 million. That included curb and gutter, sidewalks, storm sewer, water main, sanitary and sewer.

A reduced cost of $4 million was to simply shape the road with a proper base. That includes a 20 percent contingency, 4 percent administration cost and 15 percent engineering fee. 

“To put that into perspective, I think the last core project we did was $3.3, or $3.6 million,” Read said. “(It’s) pretty comparable to a regular core project.”

Read also reminded the Council with a third option which includes simply paving over the current gravel with a 3.5-inch mat. He said that discussion first surfaced “quite a while ago.”

The cost for that option was $955,000, which didn’t include the contingency cost.

“I took everything out except the asphalt,” Read said. “We’re not doing any shaping, we’re not doing any subgrade excavation, there’s no bedrock going down, there’s no new gravel coming on.”

That option seems to be a quick temporary, however. Read said simply paving over what’s currently on the roads wouldn’t last long.

“We know that there are some major frost issues on both of those roads,” he said. “There are some subgrade issues out there that need to be taken care of. This would not do it.”

Mayor Harry Buck said he’s talked with residents in the area who said they are interested in getting stakeholders together to continue conversations.

Read said he has not been approached, but said he’s communicated with both the school district and Splitrock Township that whenever they’d like to meet, the city would be open to continuing talks.

Clearly with the new school scheduled to open in 2026, talks of annexation and paving Redwood and Chestnut will come to light in the coming months. The last time it did, it resulted in some confrontational City Council meetings.

“There’s a lot of opposition out there to annexation,” Read said. “There’s increased costs for those property owners. There’s potential special assessments.”

Read said if the city decides to annex Redwood and Chestnut, all of the properties within that area would be surrounded by the city and would be potentially open for an easier forced annexation.

“Which I don’t think – if I remember those meetings correctly – those property owners are going to be really happy about,” Read said.