Downtown zoning details clarified
By Rebekah Nicodemus
Staff Writer
Phenix City Council and planning commission members met with Darrell Meyer of the KPS Group, creator of the city’s comprehensive plan, zoning ordinance and design standards, Monday night to discuss details of the zoning ordinance as well as the impact of the Boulevard Group’s Phenix City Downtown/Riverfront District Plan on the comprehensive plan, adopted in 2002.
Meyer said the Boulevard Group’s plan would “enhance” the 2002 comprehensive plan. He described the comprehensive plan as a “public plan,” and said that the Downtown/Riverfront District plan was more of a “developer’s plan.”
Doug Faust, vice president of consulting services for the Boulevard Group, disagreed with Meyer’s assessment. He pointed out that the East Alabama Riverfront Development group (EARD), which hired the Boulevard Group to create the plan, is composed of private citizens, and that the Downtown/Riverfront District plan had been developed with input from the community via three public masterplanning meetings. “It’s absolutely not a developer’s plan,” Faust said.
While the Downtown/Riverfront District plan focuses on specific portions of the city, Meyer said the comprehensive plan stretches beyond the borders of the riverfront plan.
Meyer said the two market analyses conducted as part of the Boulevard Group’s planning process had been conducted by nationally recognized and respected firms, and said that they confirmed the work done by both development groups.
“What they proposed is very much what we proposed two years ago,” Meyer said.
City officials spent time Monday asking Meyer about some of the finer details of the city’s zoning ordinance.
Council member John Storey asked Meyer if the city’s conditional-use zoning in the Highway Corridor Overlay District provided the city with legal protection, referencing a lawsuit recently filed against the council and planning commission by two people who say they were discriminated against because their request to locate a bail-bond office in downtown Phenix City was denied, but another was granted.
Meyer said that if the city is careful to document its reasons for making each decision, the conditional-use zoning could offer some legal protection.
Mayor Jeff Hardin asked if there was anything the city could do to ensure that developers follow through with plans they present to the city. The Phenix City Planning Commission voted to recommend against re-zoning property for a proposed townhouse development last week, after planning commission members expressed concern that the developers might change their minds and build a lower-quality development on the property. Meyer said the city’s zoning ordinance allows the city to require developers to submit a Planned Residential Development as part of their rezoning requests. Developers who create a Planned Residential Development would be required to construct the development as originally proposed, eliminating the concern that proposed higher-quality developments would be replaced by lower-quality developments.
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Contact Rebekah Nicodemus at rebekah@phenixcitizen.com