Council to vote on former Berry campus annexation at series of meetings

The next phase of the transition for the former Berry High School campus will commence with the Vestavia Hills City Council's final September meeting.

The council will meet Monday at its regularly scheduled meeting, as well as at two special meetings later in the week, to discuss officially bringing in the former Hoover school campus into Vestavia city limits.

Annexations go through two processes, a "90 day" resolution that brings the property into the city in a total of 180 days, and an "overnight" ordinance, which brings the property into the city right away.

City Clerk Rebecca Leavings explained that because of the urgency to close the sale between the Hoover and Vestavia boards of education, where a contingency of the sale is annexation into Vestavia Hills city limits, the property needs to be annexed as quickly as possible.

However, she further explained that due to state law, only half the distance to the city limits can be annexed overnight, meaning that in this case, it will take three separate meetings to annex enough of the property for the city to have access to the campus.

Monday's meeting will address approximately 975 feet into the property, which Leavings said will largely cover the buildings not the campus. At the Wednesday meeting, the ordinance will address the next roughly 487 feet, bringing in most of the athletic fields. At the final meeting Thursday, another approximately 244 feet will be brought in, leaving only the embankment to the interstate unaffected.

Leavings said this will allow city employees to access the property in order to do maintenance or improvements, which will be important as the location will be utilized in the November general election as a polling place.

At Monday's meeting the council will also consider authorizing two urban hens at 724 Paden Drive, and a rezoning request for 3017 and 3029 Cahaba Heights Road.

Additionally, the council will consider a resolution authorizing City Manager Jeff Downes to issue a tax refund to Charter Cable, as the result of a petition claiming the company was over charged on sales tax.