The Ames City Council voted unanimously Tuesday to allow for the voluntary annexation of land expected to be used for the construction of a new mall near Interstate 35 and 13th Street.

The unanimous vote surprised some opponents of the mall, who had expected the measure to receive the same distribution of votes as a change to the Land Use Policy Plan map that went before the council in January.

“I’m obviously disappointed,” said Joseph Rippetoe, Ames Smart Growth Committee chairman. “I thought it would go along the lines of the land use change, and maybe someone would change their mind, and [the annexation] might fail. But I guess we’re going to have to be opposed to [the mall] on some other level.”

The two dissenting votes on the land-use change, voiced by Matthew Goodman and Sharon Wirth, were placed in favor of the annexation, with both council members citing control of the land, regardless of its use, as the important issue.

Both reiterated their opposition to the mall itself before the vote, leaving hopes among groups, such as the Ames Smart Growth Committee, that the measure will be defeated somewhere down the line.

The annexation remained unpopular for those who oppose a new mall, and many leveled criticisms against the city’s decision to develop land outside the city while seemingly neglecting areas within the city.

“There’s no point in deciding how that land is going to be used when, in fact, we want to use the land within the city first,” said Martha Atkins, 419 Pearson Ave. “So, there’s a lot of city resources that are being used to develop something outside of the city limits, which they’ve now annexed, when we should be spending those resources to develop the commercial areas within our city limits as they exist right now.”

Some argued with the justification used by the council in approving the annexation.

“That is in contradiction to our land-use planning policy, which calls for additional land of about 20 acres per year,” said Sue Ravenscroft, 455 Westwood Dr. “So they have just now added enough land to meet our needs until 2030. If they wanted to just have more commercial land, they could look at the land we have within city boundaries already.”

A measure considered among smart growth adherents, which called for the land to be involuntarily annexed and voted on by Ames residents, found no friends on the council, with Goodman only briefly mentioning the prospect before dismissing it.

“I think that would have been a good option if it had come up earlier,” Rippetoe said. “It came up awfully late in the process, and I think it’s very tough to do.”

The next step in the mall construction process will be a series of focus groups.

A meeting to determine student opinion will be held Tuesday in the Memorial Union.