Property rezoning draws fire from residents at contentious council meeting

May 24—One by one, residents opposed to rezoning a piece of land near the Carroll Acres subdivision took their turn at the microphone Monday, imploring the Cullman City Council to pause before signing off on higher-density zoning near their neighborhood along Third Avenue.

Many of the pleas were passionate. A couple of speakers were cut off after going well beyond their allotted three minutes; they and most others opposed to the measure drew a healthy round of applause from the crowd who'd shown up to see how Monday's vote would turn out.

When it was over, though, the owners of the approximately five-acre site fronting Third Avenue near King Edward Street got what they'd asked for: An official city sanction to develop the land under R-4 Residential zoning restrictions (which allow for apartments), rather than under its previous category — the lower-density, single-family zoning requirements of R-1 Residential.

With mayor Woody Jacobs and council member Johnny Cook both out of town for Monday's meeting, there were only three council members present to hold the roll-call vote. But the three-person quorum was all that was needed to conduct city business, and council members Jenny Folsom, Clint Hollingsworth, and David Moss, Jr. each voted in favor of the rezoning measure. Committing to the R-4 change elicited vocal disgust from the crowd, many of whom made their anger known as they got to their feet and exited the still-in-progress meeting.

"This is ridiculous," said vexed Carroll Acres resident Melissa Jones, one of the speakers who'd previously used up more than her allotted microphone time. "I voted for some of you guys!" another angry resident shouted as he left his seat. "How can y'all turn your backs on us?" asked Cullman resident Barbara Ragsdale, who'd also taken an earlier speaking turn to oppose the measure.

Though residents related several personal anecdotes reinforcing their view that R-4 zoning isn't appropriate for the property, nearly all shared the same handful of concerns. Those include already-tight traffic access and the possibility of increased school-hour congestion along Third Avenue, storm water drainage issues in the low-lying area that they expect will be exacerbated by high-density development, and potential student overcrowding at East Elementary School as families move into the school district all at once.

Several residents who attended the contentious May 9 meeting, when the rezoning ordinance was first read, said after Monday's meeting they were also puzzled at the council's decision to approve the measure in the face of such vocal and visible opposition. Resident John Hamrick questioned during the meeting why the council would vote on the rezoning with the mayor and another council member not present to have their vote counted while addressing opponents' concerns.

For Cliff Harris, a member of the locally-based GLB Cullman, LLC group that owns the property and plans to erect apartment housing at the site, much of the opposition stems from residents' misunderstanding of what his group's proposal actually entails. Harris and advisor Todd Adkison each addressed the council and audience in the hope of allaying those concerns, with Harris noting (as he did on May 9) that he and other shareholders aren't absentee landowners seeking a quick route to revenue.

"Everybody involved in this project is from Cullman," said Harris, while showing a slide presentation that marked the proposed apartment development as "Old Edward Place."

"We live and work here; our children go to school here. We do drive on these roads every day," he said. "I would rather somebody who lives next door to me...do our projects for growth." Harris cited a housing needs assessment study released in 2019 by the Cullman Area Chamber of Commerce, noting its projection that the city is expected to need approximately 1,200 new multifamily housing units to keep pace with expected growth over the next 20 years. He also noted that current apartment amenities come nowhere close to approaching that need, and in fact are consistently rented almost to capacity.

Harris shared a slide that presented GLB Cullman's current proposal for the site: a 48-unit, two-story apartment development clad in brick and targeted at a price point of approximately $1,000 per month for a two-bedroom rental. He said GLB stands ready to commission a traffic study to inform the development's access layout for vehicles turning onto Third Avenue from the site, as well as to "over-design" the complex's storm water infrastructure to accommodate additional runoff and mitigate potential flooding impact.

In approving the rezoning, though, the council didn't approve the developers' proposal. That's a separate step; one that will come later, perhaps with changes, as GLB presents more detailed iterations of the project design to the city planning commission. The council's R-4 approval on Monday, though, removes what had previously been the chief hurdle standing between GLB shareholders and their hope to erect some kind of apartment development — whatever final form it might take — at the site.