Carroll Wayne Smith has lived at the same house inside western Columbia since returning home from the Korean War in the late 1950s.
Every morning, the veteran and his wife scoured newspapers for home listings. But it seemed that every time an apartment was being advertised, it was already taken.
So, with no other options, Wayne Smith purchased land and built his own house. He’s lived there ever since.
Single story and brick, Wayne Smith’s home looks like many others in Columbia. Except it’s technically not in Columbia. Wayne Smith’s neighbors on every side are part of the city, and his home alone is in unincorporated Boone County.
Columbia’s map has a lot of holes: areas of the county that are fully surrounded by – but not part of – the city. Living outside of Columbia can change a lot. Residents of unincorporated Boone County don’t need to pay taxes to the city, can’t vote in its elections and aren’t subject to certain laws.
For example, county residents can set off fireworks, while city inhabitants can’t.
When he built his house, Wayne Smith said Columbia hadn’t annexed the surrounding area yet. By the time the city moved in his direction, he said he chose not to annex due to a dispute over water services.
“I would have probably went ahead and joined the city, you know, but we just didn't get much cooperation, or didn’t get any cooperation out of the city at all,” Wayne Smith said.
He nowadays gets access to many of Columbia’s utilities and services, and a city trash bin sits ready outside of his house.
As for whether he would ever annex his property, Wayne Smith asked, “Why would I?”
All told, about four square miles of county land is surrounded by the City of Columbia. Some of these holes are single properties, such as Wayne Smith’s. Others encompass large swaths of city wards and contain hundreds of buildings.
The biggest contiguous hole is more than one square mile. It’s in southwest Columbia and is fully contained by the city’s fifth ward. Most of this area is filled with spread-out houses; there’s not many businesses.
So why do these holes exist?
Clint Smith is Columbia’s community development director. He said when it comes to those larger areas of unincorporated county, it’s typically because of the sewers.
“We have had instances where we provided that sewer and didn't require annexation,” Smith said. “Our policies are a little different now. So generally, when, when a piece of property that's outside the city does need certain city utilities, annexation is usually part of that conversation.”
He said there’s two common culprits. First is that an area didn’t need the city’s sewer system to develop. The second, which Smith said is more likely for the large Fifth Ward hole, involved Columbia providing sewer access to parts of the county in the past.
Cities in Missouri can forcefully annex surrounding county land if certain requirements are met. But Smith said that’s not something the city often considers.
If an area does want to voluntarily annex into Columbia, he said it comes down to how many property owners there are. For a single house, the owner would need to file a petition with the city and participate in a public hearing. But for an entire neighborhood, every single property owner would need to submit their own annexation petition.
“There's certain city services that they would have available to them, but in general, there's not, I don't think, a lot of immediate drive for a lot of these areas to annex in the city,” Smith said.
Christiana Hartman is Columbia’s newly-elected Fifth Ward councilor. Hartman said she “definitely noticed” the hole in the middle of her ward’s map, although annexation isn’t something she’d consider unless residents bring it up.
“There is probably good reason why it hasn’t been before now,” Harman said. “And so I’d just wanna understand the history of that and then talk with the people that live in that area to see if that’s even something they’d want championed.”
That may not be any time soon. After all, many residents like Carroll Wayne Smith are happy to remain part of the county.
