By David Benda, Record Searchlight, October 2013

The Anderson City Council has unanimously enacted an ordinance approving the pre-zone of approximately 385 acres southeast of the city for future annexation.

But if the proposed annexation of 385 acres sought by Oregon-based Roseburg Forest Products is later approved, the city could face some problems, Development Services Director Kristen Maze said in a report to council members.

“If the annexation is completed, the city would experience typical costs of providing municipal services to the area such as road maintenance, police and fire service,” Maze said in the report, which went to the council before its Tuesday
night vote.

The area also will need water and sewer lines and the city might need to beef up its sewage treatment plant, she added.

Roseburg Forest Products intends to develop its former lumber mill site as an industrial park, said company representative Arne Hultgren. It would be the largest industrial park in the city.

Ultimately, Shasta County’s Local Agency Formation Commission would have to approve the annexation after reviewing the application.

The 385 acres is on the southeast side of the city. Most of the land, about 215 acres, is owned by Roseburg Forest Products, which operated a sawmill there for years until the early 1990s. The property has power, water wells, gas lines and
railroad tracks running through it.

Roseburg closed its mill there after the last logs were salvaged from the Fountain Fire in 1993 and the property has sat idle ever since.

“There is no real strategic use for the property in that (logging) regard,” Hultgren said in a July interview. “We see it in some way filling an unmet need in Shasta County for a heavy industrial location.”

City officials have said immediate development of the property is not expected but the annexation would set the stage for future commercial and industrial development.

At 385 acres, the industrial park would be a little more than half the size of Stillwater Business Park in Redding. Stillwater opened three years ago and is still waiting for its first tenant.

Hultgren has said Roseburg’s industrial park would be different because all the risk would be taken on by a private company and not taxpayers.

“This is more pure business; it is how things should be,” Hultgren said in an interview during the summer.

The former Roseburg mill sits next to the former Shasta Paper Co. mill, which closed in 2001 and sits idle today.

The annexation proposal does not include the Shasta Paper Co. property.