EAST SPENCER — Discussions over town boundaries and annexation limits for East Spencer and Spencer, which have been ongoing for several years, appear to finally be coming to fruition.

Since the state no longer allows involuntary annexations, nor can towns require annexation, communities with close or abutting ETJs or Extraterritorial Jurisdictions have been meeting across Rowan County to work out who, exactly, should get what. An ETJ extends only one mile out from a town’s borders, and towns are allowed to annex only three miles out from their borders. Annexation requests must come from owners and/or developers, and although growth has slowed in the 2025 fiscal year, it has been on a fast track in recent years.

In 2022, the county provided maps indicating the lines of demarcation, showing where the ETJ lines would fall, and where the three-mile line would fall, then encouraged towns to get together to reach agreements on what, in reality, would be a better representation of the lines of annexation for each town.

In 2023, East Spencer and Spencer hammered out an agreement that has been held in abeyance while Salisbury worked out its boundaries with Granite Quarry and Spencer. Salisbury City Council approved their half of the agreement with Spencer at the end of May, and now East Spencer and Spencer are prepared to approve their agreement.

The agreements have helped clarify what were at times awkward lines, even running through the middle of a property. The agreements determine, essentially, from which town or city an owner or developer should seek utility connections such as water and sewer.

Spencer has had its public hearing on the agreement with East Spencer and expects to vote on it at the next Board of Aldermen meeting, while East Spencer will hold a public hearing and then a vote during its Board of Aldermen meeting July 7. Anyone in East Spencer who wishes to comment on the proposal should plan to attend the board meeting at 6:30 p.m. next Monday night.

East Spencer Town Manager Michael Douglas said his town will then begin conversations with Salisbury sometime at the end of July. He said their conversations are at the starting line, so he is not sure how long it will take, but noted that once an agreement is reached, the town of East Spencer and city of Salisbury will go through the same hearing and vote process.

At the time the communities reached an agreement, Douglas noted that Steve Blount, planning and zoning director for Spencer, had been “very pleasant to work with, which I appreciated.”

“East Spencer’s board has already agreed with the proposal we have with them,” Blount said in 2023. “My mayor and town manager convinced me to be a nicer guy, and what we have agreed to is in truth better for both towns.” Douglas said that was still true for both communities, and he has hopes that conversations with Salisbury will go as smoothly.

In the East Spencer and Spencer agreement, Douglas said the primary piece is that “everything north of Long Ferry Road could be annexed by Spencer, and everything south of Long Ferry Road could be annexed by East Spencer.”

“As our staff has worked through this, it has become clear that there is still a lot of ETJ in Spencer that is undeveloped,” said Mayor Jonathan Williams. “We need to be leaders in this process. We are not trying to make this any kind of land grab. We want to grow, but we want to do so in a controlled manner, within our means, and we want to foster good relationships with our neighbors as we go.”