The proposed 20-acre Timber Springs retirement community cleared another hurdle Tuesday night when city commissioners approved the development plan.

Now, the plans must go before the Planning and Zoning Commission before the developers get the city's complete blessing to construct the project off of Maroney Drive in the northeast part of town.

The development plan includes more than 100 independent living apartments, 21 individual home plots and a nursing facility. A privacy fence and a landscape barrier will separate the retirement community from the other residential homes in the adjacent subdivision, according to planners.

Joe Geer of the Archangel Capital Partners group, which is looking to make the project a reality, told commissioners at their regularly scheduled meeting that his company has at least two financing streams to fund the project.

"We have researched several financing vehicles, and we believe we have two that are going to work for us," Geer said. "We have our primary one that we're running down the road on right now. We've had very successful progress, albeit slow."

Geer noted that the economic slow down has affected finding a lender. But he said he is "excited," nonetheless, about the direction in which the project is moving.

Two residents at the meeting expressed concerns over how the development would negatively affect the drainage on Maroney Drive, since the proposed site is on the top of a hill.

Steve Bartlett of Barwin Engineering Consultants, who is assisting the project's developers, told the commission that the designs for the plan, as required by the city, includes an extensive storm drainage system that will mitigate the effects of an increased runoff due to the development.

In other business, commissioners adopted a resolution to accept $75,000 in stimulus funds to help the city become more energy efficient. City Manager Jim Jeffers told the commissioners that city staff is researching how to best use the money and will present commissioners with the spending options when they are determined.

Commissioners unanimously approved an ordinance establishing the application process for a municipal setting designation, which is an official designation given to properties within a municipality certifying that groundwater at the property is not used as potable water because the property is contaminated beyond acceptable levels. Cities must enforce the measure through an ordinance, but the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality will have final say on which properties are granted an MSD.

Commissioners were told by local hydrologist Glen Collier that the purpose of MSDs are to relax clean-up requirements at derelict commercial sites in order to spur economic development. He said the designation will not affect the city's drinking water, which is obtained from aquifers hundreds of feet below the ground water table.

"It's an ordinance that I feel provides a logical and needed balance between economic development and reasonable protection of the environment," Collier told commissioners.

Among the requirements an applicant must complete before obtaining an MSD include paying a $2,000 application fee and attending public hearings on the affected property. The site also must already be served by the public water works. The MSD will not eliminate the property owners responsibility for contamination on the surface or in ponds or streams.

The Metro Store located at 1101 Shawnee in southeast Nacogdoches received its final death sentence from city commissioners and will be demolished. In September, The Daily Sentinel published a story about Steve Douglass, the man trying to save the old neighborhood landmark from being destroyed. But neither he nor the owner of the property attended Tuesday's meeting. Officials have noted that in recent years the Metro has become a blight on the predominantly African-American community in which is it located and has for many years been the center of criminal activity. The Metro is set to be destroyed within the next 90 days.

Other items covered at Tuesday's meeting included:

• SCS Engineers were approved by the commissioners to cover a 20-acre block of land at the landfill that is filled. The estimated cost of construction is $868,862, and the consultant fee will not exceed $167,740. The city is not expected to need to cover another block at the landfill for another eight years, commissioners were told by interim City Engineer Brice Clements.

• Duplichain Contractors were awarded a bid of $358,000 to rehabilitate more than 4,500 feet of sewer line from Starr Avenue to Park Street along the Lanana Creek The line has experienced failures before, and the repair project is expected to be completed by June, 2010.

• Mayor Roger Van Horn issued a proclamation to Municipal Court Judge Juanita Springer in honor of "Municipal Court Week," which is Nov. 2 through 6.

• An agenda item to consider authorizing a tax resale for properties between Stewart Street and Railroad Street was struck from the consent agenda.

• Commissioners voted to approve $31,500 in spending for airport maintenance, including water line improvements and pollution prevention.