City starts work clearing 42 acres

Preliminary plans for a new housing development are currently being made by the City of Albany and its Economic DevelopmentCorporation,with a total of 42 acres being cleared by city employees, according to city manager Billy Holson.

The new neighborhood would be accessed from U.S. Highway 6 and is adjacent to property owned by Albany ISD and the Clarke Estates, roughly located behind the high school baseball field south to the highway.

“This is still in the early stages of planning and finding out costs,” Holson said. “In fact, I have a meeting this week with the engineers to see what it would take to provide water and sewer services.”

He added that if the EDC and the city proceed with the development, he will be seeking one or more builders to develop housing.

Details are still vague at this point, but the property would potentially provide a number of regular-sized lots that could be purchased for constructing houses.

“We are just clearing the land at this point to see what we would have to work with,” Holson said.

He explained that the city obtained the property as part of a deal with the developer of the Clarke Estates in exchange for the city providing water and streets in that project a few years ago.

Currently, all of the lots in the first phase of development of the Clarke Estates have been sold, and only a few bigger plots remain in Phase 2.

Lots in the Clarke Estates rangedfromaroundfouracresto as large as 75 acres in Phase 2.

Reportedly, the lots in the City’s new development would be more traditional in size.

TheEDCprojectsarefunded through the city’s A and B Tax Boards, which manage the extra one-cent sales tax that the city collects that is limited for specific economic development projects.