The how and why of Huntsville's annexation spree
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Huntsville is growing quickly — not only in population and employment, but in square footage.
Why it matters: The city has added 2,257 acres in annexations this year, per city data, making it larger in land area than Chicago and raising questions about city services and strategy.
How it works: Huntsville annexes property contiguous to current city limits either by referendum or by petition from property owners.
- Petitions make up 99% of annexations, Kelly Schrimsher, city communications director and planning board member, tells Axios Huntsville.
Zoom in: Each petition is evaluated on both the city's ability to provide utilities and the impact to existing services, Shane Davis, city urban and economic development director, told Axios in an email.
- The petitions are also reviewed on whether they'll have a positive impact on things like job creation, residential stock and the city's tax base.
What they're saying: "The city never desires to add more property into the current city limits if doing so would cause a negative impact on providing these services," Davis said.
Case in point: Recent large annexations have been for industrial and a combination of commercial and residential uses.
By the numbers: The almost 2,300 acres from 14 annexations in 2025 is an outlier, and there are still months left on the clock.
- In 2024, the city completed just six annexations for a total of 85.33 acres.
- From 2020–2023, 106 annexations totaled 4,592.58 acres, an average of 1,148 per year.
- For the 10 years prior, 2010–2019, 167 annexations totaled 6,205.8 acres, or 620.58 acres annually, on average.
Zoom out: In the past 15 years, Huntsville has added more than 13,140 acres, or more than 20.5 square miles, almost 9% of Huntsville's total 230.25 square miles.
- In that same time, the city has added an estimated 69,000 people, a 38.3% increase over the 2010 population of 180,109 and representing about 27.7% of today's 249,102 city residents.
- The city also added 20,500 housing units in the last five years, bringing the total to 120,904, and is on track to add 4,000 this year alone.
The bottom line: Davis debunked the "myths" that Huntsville's annexation strategy is simply a land grab or that it has a target number of acres to annex.