Huntsville to annex 5,000 acres in Limestone

Tonight, the city council will look into annexing a total of 5,000 acres in the Greenbrier area in southern Limestone County. It will be the largest annexation for Huntsville in nearly 20 years, according to the Huntsville Times, and will bring the total size of the city to 197 square miles. There is a catch: the city must maintain a park on part of the land and build a K-8 school when 800 homes are built in the area.

In the past month, there has been a frenzy of annexations by both Huntsville and Madison due to pending state legislation that could make it tough to annex land in fast-growing Limestone County. The threat of the bill, though, has backfired the county's plans to slow annexations by the two cities and Decatur. Huntsville and Madison have already annexed a total of 1,700 acres since the bill was made public.