The City of Powell is poised to grow a bit further to the south.

At the request of the landowner, the Powell City Council is preparing to annex 9.7 acres of property south of Monroe Street. It would be zoned as general residential.

Owner Jeff Sheridan said he wants the land added to the city so it’s ready to be developed by someone else at some point in the future. Though nothing is imminent, “there’s a lot of interest into developing it,” Sheridan told the Tribune last week.

The parcel will soon see some other activity, however, as the city plans to install a new sewer line beneath the property to accommodate future development on the growing south side of town.

The city’s existing sewer main on Gilbert Street can’t handle the additional waste that will come from the new Autumn Grove Subdivision, which is located to the west of Sheridan’s land. The first two phases of Autumn Grove include lots for 69 houses, and developer Erik Petersen has said it could eventually stretch far enough south to include 200 homes.

The city’s new sewer main — for which $500,000 was budgeted — will head south from Monroe Street and go west across Sheridan’s parcel. The line will then run beneath Road 8H and connect to Autumn Grove.

At its April 6 meeting, the city council approved an easement agreement with Sheridan that will allow the sewer line to cross his land. They also approved the annexation of the “Sheridan 2 Addition” on the first of three readings.

The only wrinkle in the process is a 1 acre parcel at the northeast corner of Monroe Street and Road 8H. Though the parcel is set to become completely surrounded by city limits, the current landowner doesn’t want her property to be brought into the city at this time. As a result, Sheridan and the city plan to leave a small strip of land — the eastern half of Road 8H — in rural Park County for now. That will avoid creating an illegal “island” of county land within the city.

At a March 30 meeting of the Powell Planning and Zoning Commission, Chairman Ronn Smith quipped that, “We’re meeting the letter of the law, not the spirit.”

However, City Building Official Ben Hubbard said he expects that the county parcel will eventually be annexed and the entire road will become a city street.

“It’s just a question of when,” Hubbard said.

Before anyone seeks to subdivide the Sheridan 2 Addition, they’ll need to return to the city for approval and potentially install roughly $700,000 worth of infrastructure — including street, curb and gutters, city documents say.