Sugar Land prides itself on being more than just a bedroom community.

The city has branches of three major hospitals. It has a University of Houston campus. And it has a baseball team, the Sugar Land Skeeters, that recently won its league championship.

Now Sugar Land is moving forward with annexation plans that would result in a 34 percent increase in the city's population - raising the profile of the onetime company town in Fort Bend County.

The City Council on Tuesday gave preliminary approval to a plan to bring two communities covering 3,850 acres into the fold: New Territory and Greatwood. Complete with community tennis courts, swimming pools and walking paths, these areas west of the city will bring its largest population boost through a single annexation. Only a few designated spots within the areas will remain to be brought into the city's boundaries.

Some annexations are highly controversial - the city of Houston's takeover of Kingwood in 1996 is the best-known local example - but this one has had fairly smooth sailing.

"There's no antagonism," said Jack Molho, 58, president of the homeowners association for Greatwood, speaking for himself. "Personally, I'm excited about it. I think it will be good for the neighborhood. I think it's going to enhance the services."

For the 30,000 incoming residents, the plan will shift governance from municipal utility districts to the city while bringing a host of services, such as police, EMS, water and road maintenance.

For the city, the proposal will expand the tax base - bringing in revenue and making it easier for Sugar Land to borrow for projects.

A final vote is scheduled for Nov. 15, with the annexation taking effect Dec. 12, 2017.

Mayor Joe Zimmerman stressed that the actions should not result in a tax hike for current city residents, nor a significant increase in costs for the new residents.

"I think it's a positive for the residents of Sugar Land," Zimmerman said. "I think it's a positive for the residents of those two communities."

Economic growth

The planned annexation comes amid a period of growth for the city, which has burgeoned from 2,800 people in 1960 to around 87,000 today. The oil field services company Schlumberger chose to relocate its headquarters to Sugar Land, about 20 miles southwest of downtown Houston.

A new performing arts venue that can seat as many as 6,400 people, the Smart Financial Centre, is to hold its grand opening with Jerry Seinfeld in January. The iconic Imperial Sugar plant is being transformed into shops, offices, restaurants, bars, hotels and apartments facing a landscaped plaza.

Meanwhile, city leaders have been debating limits on apartments ever since a developer proposed including 900 multi-family units in a mixed-used project, drawing strong opposition from hundreds of residents.

At its core, officials say, the city provides valuable services and makes careful development choices - things that they say will remain unchanged with the annexation. The communities are located along Sugar Land's current western boundary, connected by Texas 99.

Groundwork for the ongoing process dates to 2007, when the MUDs - there are four in Greatwood and five in New Territory - negotiated what are known as "strategic partnership agreements" with the city to outline how the annexation would occur.

As part of that, the city promised to annex the districts by a certain date. It outlined what services - such as firefighting - the city would provide in the interim.

And it stipulated that once annexation occurred, current city residents would see neither a decrease in quality of service, nor an increase in cost.

The city has been tracking and monitoring financial factors ever since, according to Lisa Kocich-Meyer, the city's planning director.

A preliminary analysis was given to council members in the fall of 2015, when the December 2017 target date for annexation was set.

A series of workshops consequently occurred this year. (One year's notice must be given before annexation occurs, according to the agreements.)

If the council gives final approval to the annexation, the city will begin preparing for the changeover, increasing staff to provide services.

A communications campaign will also get underway, so new residents know who to call for what purpose. As such, the transition should be "seamless," city spokesman Doug Adolph said.

The costs of the switch will be covered by a fund established in the communities under the agreements while "not passing the burden along to our existing residents," Kocich-Meyer said. The MUDs will dissolve on the date of annexation, she said, and the city will take on the remaining debt, which should be "net neutral" to Sugar Land.

'Looking forward to it'

Residents in Greatwood seem largely supportive of the change, Molho said.

Connie Chirco, 70, who has lived in the neighborhood for 14 years, said residents knew it was just a matter of time before this process kicked into gear. She said she supported it, particularly because she looked forward to the city's road maintenance.

Her neighbor, Don Repetowski, 68, who was out working on his pool-cleaning tasks Thursday, agreed. He moved to the neighborhood 17 years ago because, he said, driving into the community, decorated with trees and Spanish moss, felt like a burden was being taken off. Repetowski said he now hopes to get a speed bump on their street, which he says Fort Bend County had declined to install, and he'd heard the Sugar Land Police Department was a good one.

"We've been anticipating it for years," he said. "It's a win-win."

Located just south of the Southwest Freeway as it reaches Crabb River Road, Greatwood maintains an idyllic feel.

On Thursday, golfers practiced on the driving range. Cul-de-sacs in various, named sections of the neighborhood were quiet. Artificial ponds bubbled.

In New Territory, a short distance away, a similar picture arose.

One resident, Nancy Brown, recalled that when she moved to the community in 1989, she actually was told she would be living in Sugar Land. A quarter-century later, that statement is nearly a reality.

"We've been looking forward to it for a long time," she said.