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GREENSBORO - The city will extend water and sewer service to GTCC's new northwest campus - a project that could tap into $1 million worth of utility trust fund and $1 million in city economic development bond funds.

Tuesday night City Council members voted 7 to zero to approve a utility agreement with GTCC. Councilmen Robbie Perkins and Zack Matheny abstained due to conflicts of interest.

The City Council will hold a hearing on the proposed use of the economic development bond money on March 3.

In other news Tuesday night, City Council members - for a second time -- unanimously voted to ask the legislature to restore the protest petition to Greensboro.

Mayor Yvonne Johnson said that the failure of local groups to negotiate a revised version of the state citizen-participation zoning tool does not affect the council's support.

GTCC officials asked the city to extend the utilities to the community college's new 97-acre campus, a tract of land that runs along N.C. 68 south of Oak Ridge, by 2011.

The college will use the new campus to expand its logistics training programs.

County, city and college officials have worked for nearly a year to determine who will pay for the project. They have proposed that that county pay $2.8 million, that the Greensboro Water Resources department fund $1 million from its water and infrastructure fund and that the city use $1 million in economic development bond money.

GTCC will also add $1 million to the pot, said Cuyler McKnight, of GTCC.

City voters approved $10 million of economic development bonds for the city, about $3 million of which has been designated to fund an economic incentive and a property purchase.

Greensboro Assistant City Manager Jim Westmoreland said the GTCC water and sewer extension will open up more than 800 acres of developable land. But only about 240 of the acres are in the city.

And although the new campus - which is located in the county but will likely be annexed as part of the utility agreement - will not generate property tax, it should generate some new jobs and sales tax for the city, Westmoreland said.

"They still create some level of indirect benefit to the city," he said.

The northwest campus could ultimately hold as many as 14 buildings and thousands of parking spaces. In the short term college officials hope to build three buildings in three years.

The total campus project, including extending the water and sewer, is expected to cost $75 million.

On Tuesday night, council members reiterated their support for protest petition, a citizen tool that forces a higher percentage of council support to approve a rezoning.

Greensboro is the only city in North Carolina exempt form the state law.

Last month the council agreed to ask the state legislature to restore it. But they also asked local real estate industry and community representatives to try to negotiate changes to the law that all interest groups could agree upon.

Those talks failed to reach a compromise last week.

Tuesday night community group members asked council to support protest petition again.

"I think there may have been a fundamental flaw in the way this process was framed," Whitney Vanderwerff, from the League of Women Voters, said of the negotiations.

Johnson said since the council already agreed to ask the legislators to restore the petition, the state of the negotiations did not matter.

Contact Amanda Lehmert at 373-7075 or amanda.lehmert@news-record.com.