It has annoyed me for a while that Altoona and Des Moines’ annexations in the early 2010s omitted the US 65 bypass between them, meaning that the two cities do not technically touch boundaries. It turns out that, intentionally or not, the past decade has made it impossible to happen.
Multiple Des Moines suburbs had annexation activity in last year’s City Development Board meetings. While the CDB does not provide maps on its website, the Polk County Supervisors’ agendas do. The August 26 meeting had maps for Altoona, Bondurant, Grimes, and Polk City.
It’s not Altoona’s north-side annexation that’s relevant here, although if you compare it to older maps you can see the land-grab north of I-80 that’s mostly the Facebook Meta data center. Instead, pay attention to the “urban service boundary” with Pleasant Hill at the bottom. The map is shown on this KCCI story but the bottom is covered up. In 2012, Pleasant Hill annexed land north of IA 163, between NE 70th and NE 80th streets, that touched Altoona. Then, on June 22 of last year, as seen on Page 8 of this PDF, Pleasant Hill annexed more land north of the intersection of 163 and NE 70th, extending its common boundary with Altoona.
This means there’s a bunch of unincorporated Polk County land “trapped” between Altoona, Pleasant Hill, and Des Moines — and the only connection out is via the Iowa DOT’s right-of-way on the northernmost part of the US 65 beltway. Here’s the Polk County map for reference. Anywhere you see the yellow lines of paved roads, those are outside city limits. The fewer red lines, farther out, are the only gravel that’s left. The beltway acts as an isthmus to a splay of area centered around NE 27th Avenue (the extension of Easton Boulevard) and NE 64th Street (17th Avenue SW in Altoona).
Iowa Code forbids creating “islands” of unincorporated territory. Quite often, though, cities annex land right up to another city’s border in a “letter of the law” but not a “spirit of the law” manner. In this area, we have the Capitol Heights neighborhood connected to the bypass via a very thin strip of land, and a longer section along the extension of Easton Boulevard (NE 23rd/27th avenues). Annexation requires approval by owners of at least 80% of the land, which explains Pleasant Hill’s crazy-quilt city limits. (The village of Rising Sun on 64th Street was there waaaay before suburbia was.)
Farther south is Carlisle’s jumping over the state ROW on IA 5 to get land on the other side of the highway in Warren County. Everything on that map south of the railroad tracks along US 65 to the county line is owned by the state. Not grabbing that ROW prevents Carlisle from touching Des Moines but also keeps County Line Road outside its jurisdiction, and it’s quite possible the only person annoyed by these things wrote this blog post.
