During a meeting held at City Hall Dec. 9, the planning commission recommended approval of five doughnut hole tracts of land for annexation.

The areas are small pockets of property that are identified as being within the county’s jursidiction but are surrounded on all sides by property within the city limits.

Planning and Development Director Randy Mannino said the city initiated a move to annex properties located within the doughnut holes into the city and over the past two months, property owners have come forward to complete the process.

“It was slower than we anticipated to begin with but its starting to pick up,” Mannino said.

Three of the applications were for properties that were zoned for mining in the county.

The mining operation is located on about 133 acres of land north of East Main Street and South of Center Road.

Chuck Doggett, president of Forty-One Connector, said the mning company, New Riverside Ochre Company, was pleased to become apart of the city and hoped to con-tinue its “low-key” minig within city limits.

“Any mining that we do will be in accodance to [De-partment of Natural Resources and Environmental Protection Division] mining plans,” Doggett said.

Assistant City Attorney Keith Lovell said after “sur-face mining” the land the company may elect to desig-nated the land for a mixed-use development in the future.

Other doughnut annexations include land occupied by Bartow County Bank, and property located on Dogwood Drive.

The Dogwood Drive residence is located in the Coun-try Club Estates neighborhood where Mannino said he met with neighbors about a “doughnut hole initiative.”

The initiative was initiated by the city and according to Mannino, there is no time limit at this time on when the initiative will end.

As it stands, the city is waiving fees for those who live in donut hole areas and want to annex into the city.

According to information on the city’s Web site, the annexation process could take about two to three months to complete.

Benefits to those who chose annexation include lower water bills and lower homeowners insurance bills.

Costs would include higher property taxes and the addi-tion of a stormwater utility fee.

Other Planning Commission agenda items included an annexation and zoning application by Chemical Products Co., which hopes to annex property located at Old Mill Road and Old Mill Farm Road from county property to industrial property within city limits.

Harry White, who represented the company at the planning commission meeting, said the plan is to add two additional buildings to the property, which would operate as a type of computer chip processing operation.

All applications from the meeting will be forwarded to City Council, which will consider the requests at a public hearing Thursday at 7 p.m. A second public hearing and final action from Council wil take place Jan. 8, 2009.