NATCHEZ — Almost a year to the day when the Natchez Board of Aldermen adopted an ordinance to annex 2.68 square miles of county land, the U.S. Justice Department has approved the city’s request.

Former City Attorney Walter Brown announced last week the city has acquired 2.12 square miles along U.S. 61 South near Trinity Episcopal Day School. The remaining 0.56 square miles is near Old Country Club Road on the north side of town.

“This is the City of Natchez’s first annexation since 1981,” Brown said.

Glenn Green of Paul Green & Associates and Ricky Edgin of Edgin Construction Co., who together purchased 760 acres along U.S. 61 South, requested the annexation for a mixed commercial and residential development now in its beginning stages.

“We’re pleased the approval has come through and we feel it will be an asset to Natchez to have this additional space,” Green said. “(The development) is coming slowly but surely based on the demands and growth of our economy.”

The development includes an area of residential development along Southwind Road on the east side of the highway. Green and Edgin have sold five tracts on that road, five to 11 acres each.

One buyer has purchased 95 acres and plans to build a house on the west side of the highway. Green said there have not been any recent sales.

“We will slowly start leveling a little bit at a time as demand predicates,” Green said. “As we get folks interested in parts of (the development), we’ll develop it based on the absorption rate of the local economy.”

Green said he and Edgin are currently leveling two tracts of land just barely outside the city limits near the fire tower. Of the 600 acres of land yet to be sold, 500 acres are annexed into the city.

“Coincidentally, the two tracts we’re leveling are outside the city limits,” Green said.

Plans are under way to begin leveling 10 acres of the newly annexed land, Green said.

The annexation has not been without hardship. When the aldermen adopted the ordinance in October 2008, the Adams County Board of Supervisors announced their opposition, citing approximately 12 county residents who did not want to live in the city would be annexed in.

Further examination by Brown and City Engineer David Gardner concluded no county residents were annexed.

Then in March, Aldermen James “Ricky” Gray and Ernest “Tony” Fields, Alderwoman Joyce Arceneaux-Mathis, former Mayor Phillip West and other local residents claimed the annexation is in violation of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. The group feared the annexation would favor the white voting population.

Gray and Mathis argued in chancery court the land on U.S. 61 South would be too expensive for the black population. Gray also argued a portion of the land near Old Country Club Road was used as a dumping site for Armstrong Tire Company and could be a health hazard. No plans are pending to develop the site.

The chancery court ruled in the favor of the annexation, and Gray and Mathis rescinded their votes for the annexation.