The Apopka City Council is taking steps toward an annexation referendum for South Apopka, more than four decades after a similar vote failed.
At its May 7 meeting, the City Council heard and discussed a 105-day timeline from a feasibility study to a referendum vote that could take place later this year or March 2026.
Although the discussion focused on the South Apopka annexation, the timeline detail covers the general process of getting the issue from feasibility study to the ballot, city attorney Cliff Shepard explained.
The last time the South Apopka annexation referendum was on the ballot was 1984. Back then, city residents approved the South Apopka annexation referendum, but South Apopka residents rejected it, so the referendum failed.
In the last few years, public discussions and workshops were organized to address bringing the South Apopka annexation back on the ballot.
Annexation by vote is different from voluntary application by a property owner. If a property owner wants to apply to annex their property it may be for various reasons such as how “services would be more convenient, sometimes it’s because the reasons they like the idea of being in the city and other things of that nature,” Shepard said.
“But this is different,” he said. “This is where an entire area of people will be given the opportunity by referendum to decide whether they want to join the city. Potentially we’re going to talk about this, the residents of the city of Apopka will decide where they want to take the annexation.”
The first step is a feasibility study, which would determine the annexation’s impact, including rendering of municipal services, on the area and the constituents.
“Without going into further detail, we have a purchasing policy,” Shepard said. “Do not know whether it would be applied to the situation, because I don’t know how much a feasibility study costs, but if needed, that would mean we did you get an RFP [request for proposal] to get the study done and get that process underway, if not, if it’s under the amount that we can spend without that, then we would go into finding who does those kind of studies and get them on board.”
Once a feasibility study is done, the document is filed with the county, and the city notifies property owners and residents in the area proposed for annexation. This step would include two public hearings to allow community input. If those public hearings go well, the City Council adopts an annexation ordinance, which doesn’t go into effect until the referendum is approved.
“A unique feature — which I do not know the answer to for South Apopka — is whether or not property owner consent to annexation is applicable before there’s even a vote, and this depends on whether or not greater than 70% of the land is owned by non electors,” Shepard said. “If you look at the area that began next, and it turns out that more than 70% are business owners, not voters, then you would have to go get at least 50% of owners of the land to consent to the holding of the referendum. So I don’t know if that analysis has been done, but it’s something that would need to be understood. If it’s less than 70% this step about obtaining property owner consent is unnecessary.”
Shepard said there is also a matter of whether there should be separate referendums, one for unincorporated South Apopka residents and the other for city residents, or if only South Apopka residents should have the vote.
“If you decide to have both elections, there has to be a majority in both,” Shepard said. “If you decide to only have the one for South Apopka, then it’s just those voters that matter for this purpose.”
In discussion with City Council, Shepard said the city may not get the South Apopka annexation referendum on the ballot for the September special election, but it may be able to do so for March 2026.
Visit Apopka.gov/979/South-Apopka-Annexation for further resources about the South Apopka annexation.
The Apopka Chief is an award-winning weekly newspaper serving the greater Apopka area in Central Florida since 1923.
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