Emily Featherston
The future is still uncertain for a proposed condo development on Poe Drive in Cahaba Heights after the issue was postponed without action at Thursday night’s Planning and Zoning Commission meeting.
There were three items of business on the commission’s agenda, but only the rezoning request for 3792 Poe Drive drew in most of the several dozen community members who filled the chamber.
Overton Condos, LLC was requesting a rezoning of the property from Vestavia Hills B-2 to Vestavia Hills R-9 for a 10-unit condominium development.
The 10 units are part of an overall development of 41 units, comprised of two and three bedroom condos over two acres and with the property split between Vestavia and Mountain Brook.
The parcel, City Planner Conrad Garrison explained, has come before the commission before, and was rezoned in 2007 to its current designation as a mixed-use commercial property.
Originally, Garrison said, the property was going to have retail on the first floor with 16 condos above, but the financial crisis and a lack of movement on the project led to the development falling through.
Now, Vestavia’s portion of the newly proposed development would include two stories of condos, totalling 10 units.
Development representative Ron Durham further explained the development to the commission, introducing his team of architects and engineers, and elaborating on the parallel process the firm is going through with the two cities.
Durham said that his firm would build and develop the property, and ARC Realty would be selling the units.
Current estimates, he said, would value the units at about $300 per square foot, translating to above $600,000 per unit depending on the furnishing.
“We’re going after people who have primarily lived in the area but want to downsize,” he said, adding: “It’s not driven toward families with children in any way.”
Commission member Deloye Burrell said he remembered the 2007 discussion, and asked how this iteration was different or better, particularly with regard to drainage and traffic.
James Parsons with Schoel Engineering said that the plans go above and beyond what both Vestavia and Mountain Brook require for stormwater retention, and that the system would collect the water underground to slow down runoff.
As far as traffic, Parsons and Durham said the project had employed Skipper Consulting for a traffic study.
According to that study, Durham said, there would be “minimal” impact on traffic, with an additional 29 cars per hour during peak evening times, or one additional car every two minutes.
City Engineer Christopher Brady said his team had looked at the submitted study, and seen that it recommended some improvements, but that the report indicated the impact would not be significant. However, later in the meeting, he said he did have some reservations that the multipliers for the study could be dated.
After hearing from the developers, the commission opened the meeting to public discussion.
Emily Featherston
Griffin Edwards, an economics professor at UAB, presented on behalf of the majority of the community members in the room.
Prefacing his presentation, Edwards said he wanted to make it clear that the community was not against all development — just this one because of its size, the lack of adequate infrastructure to support it and the safety issues it would cause.
When the first development was proposed for the location, Edwards said, there were only 17 single-family homes in the area, whereas today there are 24.
In the area comprised of Poe Drive and Fairhaven Drive, the direct neighbors of the property, there are 30.7 children, the 0.7 coming from a resident whose due date is in a few weeks.
Edwards pointed out that in the rest of the neighborhood, residential density averages about 3.9 dwellings per acre, but that the proposed development would be 20 dwellings per acre.
The scale, he said, also “looms” over the neighboring houses, which is directly against the language of the master plan for the community.
He said that the community also has reservations about entering into a shared agreement with the city of Mountain Brook where Vestavia residents bear the brunt of the side-effects, referencing the issues residents of East Street are facing with Rathmell Sports Park.
“We are not happy with what Mountain Brook has done,” he said.
Edwards then presented the commission with a petition from the community in opposition of the rezoning, complete with 236 signatures.
City Councilor Rusty Weaver thanked Edwards and the community members for presenting such a put-together and “digestible” argument, and the commission re-opened discussion with Durham to hear their response.
After going back and forth and asking Durham about the citizens concerns, Durham said he wanted to do more research on the different issues raised, particularly the traffic issues, before being able to answer, and asked if the commission could postpone a vote.
“I think we may need to just regroup,” he said.
He added that he and his team might also consider changing the Vestavia portion of the development to fit with the current zoning.
With a vote postponed until a date to be determined, the next action on the development would likely be the Mountain Brook City Council’s consideration of the issue in early November.
Other Commission Business Included:
Approving the rezoning of 1644 Shades Crest Road from Jefferson County R-1 to Vestavia Hills R-2, conservation district.
Approving a rezoning for 3779 and 3781 Poe Drive, to subdivide one of the lots to add another home.
