Rincon City Council members tried to assure a neighbor of its newly-annexed property that it won’t be home to sprawling new subdivision anytime soon.

Council members gave final approval to the annexation of 66.2 acres off Blue Jay and McCall roads Monday night and also approved the first reading of a new zoning for the land.

The city bought the property last year and will use about five acres for a new fire station, which has a pact with the county to operate.

But the land had been zoned AR-1 under the county’s zoning. City Manager Wesley Corbitt explained that the city had to first give it a comparable zoning under the city’s regulations.

“Every property has to have a zoning,” said council member Scott Morgan.

Sharon Moore, whose land abuts the new city property, issued her concerns about the R-4 zoning the land now carries. It had been told to her, she said, that the city was going to allow 240 houses to be built on the property. Under R-4 zoning, that’s the number that could be allowed to be built.

“The city is not putting a subdivision out there,” said city planning director LaMeisha Kelly. “There was someone who called and said we were going to put houses back there, and we’re not going to do that. The R-4 is the closest to the county’s old zoning. That’s just to give it a zoning designation.”

Moore also said she was curious about how she and the city can split ownership of a pond. The property line bisects a pond in the woods.

“I’m confused about the pond, how the pond is mine and yours,” she said. “I have been there for 40 years. The city of Rincon and myself own the pond. Those are my cypress trees, my cypress knees. I was upset about what was going to happen to those trees. I’m just a conservationist.”

Council member James Dasher said the pond likely would be protected under wetlands regulations.

Corbitt said about 20 acres of the city’s new property aren’t suitable for building, and council members reiterated there are no plans for the land, other than the fire station.

Moore has owned the land for 40 years and was concerned that something might befall the cypress trees in her pond.

“The cypress knees in the pond are precious to me,” she said.