Officials for the city of Chelsea are planning for the future of the city’s youth sports programs by buying land while prices are good.

At Tuesday’s Chelsea City Council meeting, the council approved a resolution to allow Mayor Earl Niven to get a loan for $500,000 for city land purchases.

The city has already decided to purchase 19 acres of land adjacent to city-owned land on Shelby County 51. The land, which will cost the city $262,650, will eventually be developed into additional sports facilities, Niven said.

“We haven’t decided what, and we haven’t laid out any plans,” he said. “We just felt like we had to purchase it at this time because the land was at a good price, and the city felt like it was advantageous for us to buy it.”

The rest of the $500,000 will likely go to purchase more land for city facilities.

“The need for additional ball fields is always present for a city,” Niven said. “When the economy gets back up, we’ll have the property to go into the design phase for the ball fields.”

Also at Tuesday night’s meeting, the council voted to pass four resolutions to annex properties in the Ashton Woods subdivision into Chelsea.

There are four more lots in the subdivision that have not been annexed yet, but Niven said the city plans to meet with the landowners to talk about annexation.

“We look for the entire subdivision to be annexed into Chelsea,” he said.

Once that annexation happens, the entire subdivision, which is located at the intersection of county Highways 36 and 39, will have fire protection, police protection and the right to participate in Chelsea city government.

Meanwhile, the city will add population numbers for next year’s U.S. Census, which will bring in more tax revenue.

Niven said the homeowners association in the Cameron Woods subdivision would hold an election August 18 to decide whether to be annexed into Chelsea.