The Baldwin City Council approved Tuesday a conditional use permit for a new public works headquarters but was unable to come to consensus on the building’s required development plan.

The inability to come to a decision called into question whether the project to build the new headquarters planned for the northeast portion of the city’s Orange Street yard would move forward. The headquarters would replace the city’s current public works facility in the 600 block of High Street.

The council approved the conditional use permit with a 4-1 vote, with Councilwoman Kathy Gerstner voting no. The vote satisfied the supermajority needed for approval with neighbors filing a successful protest petition against the permit.

There was no council debate of the permit, which was discussed at length at the March 7 council meeting. The development plan, however, spurred a long discussion during which council members revisited questions about the affordability of the facility. Complicating the decision, however, were the objections by neighbors to a new access road on the east side of the building and the need for additional buffering on the east and north sides of the building.

Councilman Dave Simmons said he supported the plan as originally presented that would have provided access to the yard via the current driveway and not the latest plan that added an access road to the east. Simmons also advocated extending an existing berm to the east and north of the building.

Simmons joined Councilwomen Christi Darnell and Gerstner in voting against the development plan, which failed 2-3. Simmons said the new plan “was dumped” on the council and there was no attempt to engage neighbors on their concerns.

The issue will be on the council’s April 4 meeting agenda, but Mayor Marilyn Pearse said there were no assurances any solution to the problems voiced would be reached.

Darnell and Gerstner have consistently voted against the new headquarters, citing concern for its impact on utility rates.

On that score, City Administrator Glenn Rodden assured them the building could be built without rate increases, in part because of a discussion item on the meeting agenda of adding in April a 2.5 percent fee to the city’s trash, water, sewer and electric fees. The 2.5 percent is half the 5 percent of revenue the city has transferred from utility funds to the city’s general fund since 2012. That transfer was initiated to duplicate the city’s 5 percent franchise fee on private utilities.

The first 2.5 percent fee increase was approved in September 2016 in an ordinance that would make the second 2.5 percent increase effective in September 2017.

Rodden said the full 5 percent franchise fee would provide $320,000, or 10 mills worth of revenue, to the city’s general fund annually.