City Council - Regular Meeting

We'll call to order tonight's Committee of the Whole for the July 21st Auburn City Council meeting. The City Council should have the minutes from the July 7th Committee of the Whole. Are there any additions or corrections to those minutes? If not, is there a move to approve? I move to approve. Second. Motion to second. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? And the minutes are approved. Questions on tonight's agenda? City Manager Crouch is not here, so thank you. Thank you, Scott, for subbing. Any questions for Mr. Cummings?

I would like to bring to your attention that we did provide some additional information related to item 8C1. It should be in front of you at your seat. This is related to the Auburn game day contracts. It's to basically replace the two sheets in your packet.

Any other questions? Is there a move to adjourn? Move. We will adjourn. We'll get started with the regular meeting right at 6 o'clock. You are welcome to have conversation amongst yourselves in the next few minutes. We'll call it order. Tonight's Auburn City Council meeting for July the 21st, 2026. Welcome all of you that are joining us in the council chambers as well as they're joining live on WA and I and they're watching through our streaming services. Lindsay with the roll call.

Adams. Here. Koblenz. Here. Dawson. Here. Griswold. Here. Moorman. Here. Parsons. Here. Taylor. Here. Whitten. Here. Andrew.

Here. Would you please rise for the Pledge of Allegiance and remain standing for a moment of silence. Please be seated. Earlier tonight during the Committee of the Whole, we had no action items to take place. We were handed a replacement for an item later on in our agenda related to the Auburn Game Day Enforcement Corporation. As far as announcements, just want to remind our community that Cheers on the Corner is this Friday night. It is an outstanding event put on by the downtown merchants in conjunction with many of our departments here in the city, and hopefully there will be good weather. It's a great time to kind of celebrate the end of the summer almost here in the city of Auburn. The streets will be closed, and it will be an opportunity to enjoy a good time with family and friends. I certainly encourage our community to be a part of that. Anyone else have an announcement they'd like to make?

I have one. Yes, ma'am. I have a community award meeting on Thursday, July 29th at the Boykin Center Auditorium from 6 to 8 p.m. Everyone is invited to come out.

Anyone else? Okay, well, may we have Auburn University Communications.

Good evening City Council and Mayor Anders. My name is Erin Mitchell and I serve as Auburn SGA's Assistant Vice President of External Affairs for this year. Thank you so much for allowing me to be here tonight and share a few updates on behalf of Auburn University. So for Camp War Eagle, Auburn has officially concluded its Camp War Eagle sessions first of the summer, welcoming well over 6,000 incoming students and their families to campus. Throughout the summer, new students had the opportunity to connect with peers, meet faculty and staff, and become familiar with both Auburn University and the Auburn community. We are so excited to officially welcome the class of 2030 to campus in just a few weeks. Auburn University Libraries recently received two honors from the Association of Research Libraries for their 60th anniversary documentary, Celebrating our RBD library and the national recognition highlights the library's commitment to preserving Auburn's history while showcasing the impact of one of the university's most iconic academic spaces. Auburn football took the national stage this week at SEC Football Media Days as the official kickoff. Head coach Alex Golesh made his conference debut and expressed confidence in his program and quarterback Byron Brown, marking the beginning of another exciting football season across the conference. Auburn continues preparing for the upcoming season, and we are all eagerly anticipating kickoff this fall. That concludes my report for this evening. Thank you so much, and War Eagle.

Thank you, Amber. We appreciate it. This time we'll open up citizens communications on items on tonight's agenda. This is only items on tonight's agenda. Uh, you will notice under ordinances, uh, part B and under resolutions, we have public hearings attached to those determinations. If you'd like to speak on either one of those, please wait until that time when we opened the public hearing. But if you'd like to talk about anything else in our agenda now would be the time to come forward and we'd ask that you give us your name and address for the record and you'll have five minutes to speak. Okay. Seeing no one, we'll move ahead with city manager's communications. Mr. Cummins.

Yes. First item I have for you is an announcement of a board vacancy. This is the Green Space Advisory Board. There are two positions. The terms begin August 8th, 2026, and end August 7th, 2030. Appointments will be made at the September 15th, 2026 council meeting. Next item I have is just a reminder of the additional information that we provided that are related to item eight C one.

Okay. All right. We'll be here with consent agenda.

Uh, moving on to the consent agenda. Does anyone like, would anyone like to remove any of the items for the, from the consent agenda for additional consideration?

HC one eight C two please.

C1, 8C2. Anyone else?

Yes, sir. May I remove item 8, Bravo, and 8, Charlie, 5?

8B and 8C5. Okay. Anyone else? Okay. 8B.

Okay. Item 8B is a resolution approving and adopting changes to the Engineering Design and Construction Manual, which provides The technical standards required for developments in the city of Auburn. The manual was initially approved by the city council in November 2nd, 2010, made effective January 1st, 2011, and has been updated periodically as needed through the years.

Move for approval.

Second. We have a motion and a second. Mr. Moorman?

Thank you. This is 100 pages long, but it doesn't appear to be that many changes in the document. Many or most of the changes have to do with streetscapes and right turn lanes or turn lanes and sidewalks and for the requirement for developers to pay into a fund if it's not appropriate for the work to be done concurrent with the project. I thought we already had such a fund in place, and I was wondering if you could explain how what we have is different from what this would institute.

Yes, sir. Happy to do that. I think there's a couple of funds we actually established in there in coordination with our city attorney. one of which is that we expanded was the sidewalk fund and the sidewalk fund we expanded to be a streetscape fund. Cause in a lot of cases, particularly downtown, um, there may be some redevelopment or development that's occurring on one particular parcel. that may require a sidewalk, may require street lights, may require street trees, whatever that may be as part of the streetscape. So we established it as a streetscape fund so that they could contribute into that and we can incorporate that into one larger project as opposed to, as some folks refer to, having a sidewalk to nowhere where it's just sitting on one parcel or an independent streetlight or a pedlight that's only on that one parcel. So it enables us to have a much better, broader project at some point down the road. But that was one of the funds we added in there. The other fund that they could pay into is a street improvement fund, and where that comes into play is, you may recall, in particular in Opelika Road where we had – We've had some projects where improvements were needed. Those improvements actually got onto neighboring property. So this enables us to be able to collect money from that one developer in order to put that money towards a larger project as we continue to redevelop and improve Opelika Road. And that would apply to any other street, but in essence, that was the one example that I had related to that. But it enables us to be able to do that without going through a development agreement and makes the project a little more nimble in being able to work and coordinate with our development community.

So we had a street improvement fund already?

or did not, that would be added with, with this acceptance tonight.

Okay. Did we have a sidewalk fund?

We had a sidewalk. We have a sidewalk fund. Yes, sir.

Any other besides a sidewalk that we already have?

Um, those are the only ones I can think of right off hand. We may have some others that we've established in there, but it's, it's the, those, you know, those are the main ones on the focus.

And so this expands it to a streetscape. Yes, sir. And, And street, I guess. Yes. All right. Okay. Well, thank you for that. I appreciate it.

Yes, sir. Mr. Cummings, traditionally, uh, since I've been on the council, I've always asked the, uh, council to delay a vote on these manual updates, at least for another two weeks that allows the development community and the people who work in that community and opportunity to ask more questions and make sure that they're not surprised by any of the changes in our discussion that we had the other day. You, you, uh, You believe that the staff has reached out to many people in the industry and that there's been an opportunity to evaluate this and to weigh in on these changes that have been made. Would you just speak to that, please?

I would. And we have always tried to have stakeholder meetings with... with particular designers for developers and developers as any would want to attend. We generally will have these meetings to where we present the ideas that we have for changes, solicit input for ideas of other changes for us to consider, Um, we also do that by outreach through email and other means, but, um, we've actually, you know, had, um, I believe three meetings, I know too, but, um, and, you know, we reviewed our recommended changes and then we had another meeting, um, where we reviewed them, you know, once again, after we, you know, and, and added all the comments and incorporated those to finalize those recommendations. Um, And, you know, we reviewed all those with those and didn't find any issues with what we had or were recommending with these changes, but actually collected some new ideas of things that we'll be collaborating with them on over the next year.

Thank you. Yes, sir. Anyone else have a question, comment? All right. We have a motion to second. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? And the motion carries. All right. 8C1.

Item HC1 is a resolution authorizing the city manager to execute game day contracts with the Auburn Game Day Law Enforcement Corporation and area public safety agencies or individuals for the purpose of providing supplemental public safety services for the sporting events and or special events at Auburn University for the time period of August 1st, 2026 through July 31st, 2027.

Move for approval.

Second.

All right. I have a motion and a second. I can't remember who asked for this. I did.

You did? All right. Thank you, Tyler. I'm going to keep these comments brief, but I wanted to highlight the importance of this Auburn Game Day Law Enforcement Corporation agreement. If you've ever attended one of our football games, basketball games, baseball games, and you've seen our public safety officers there, or if you've seen assisting agencies from Lee County or City of Montgomery, this is the agreement that makes that happen. and staff have been working very diligently on this to make sure that we get this agreement in place so that we have the resources available to help our public safety officers throughout this next year. What we've seen over the past few years is an increase in the number of events that our public safety officers are working. I think this past year, Auburn Athletics had at least 150 events, if not more, that number's not exact, that we had officers working at under this agreement. And as we see more international soccer tournaments and more concerts like Ella Langley that's coming, then this number is likely to go up. Uh, having an agreement like this in place that ensures that we're able to, uh, bring you in the best possible people from around the state to assist our, uh, public safety, safety officers is extremely important.

Thank you. Anyone else have a comment?

Um, first of all, I could not get a ticket either night for that LA Langley concert. Um, since July of 2004, I understand. the public safety offices of the university have merged with the town of Auburn.

Is that correct to say?

And so can you tell us what the relationship is and how this works and how well it has worked in the last 20 years, I guess?

Okay. I'll ask our legal counsel, Paul Clark, to speak to that.

Since the integration of the University Police Department and the Auburn Police Department in 2004, we worked extremely closely with the university on an annual basis to provide support for all of law enforcement and public safety requirements at the university. We've reviewed this in my tenure with the city attorney's office directly with Dr. Roberts and his staff to make sure that the contract is performing the way it should perform. We're in the process right now of rewriting the contract with the university or reforming the contract with the university to make sure that it is updated and have been working closely with the general counsel's office to do that. The game day corporation is a supplement to that agreement that merged the two police departments because there's no way that our public safety officers could staff in and of themselves any university event, particularly public football games. And so this game day corporation contract is extremely important, as Councilman Adams said, simply for the ability to use assisting agencies in performing those public safety duties at those special events, athletic events and other events designated by the university.

As I understand it, we're going to look at that contract tonight and then another contract, a separate contract for the continuation of the services and the relationship in a few months, I guess. That's correct. Okay. Who are the parties in the contract tonight? Who are the parties that will be negotiating? The three parties are the University, the City of Auburn, and Game Day Corporation. And the Game Day Corporation is made up of city manager and the heads of the two departments.

The finance director. Those are the officers of the corporation. and the game day corporation was authorized by this council uh in 2006 by a resolution that authorized the city manager to create game day corporation at that point in time it was the only vehicle available to provide workers compensation insurance to all of the outside agencies participating because their own agencies could not cover them for the duties that they were undertaking as part of this contract. And so it has become the vehicle to provide that workers' compensation insurance and to govern the relationship and the reimbursement between the city and the university for public safety officers. Thank you very much.

I appreciate it.

Anyone else? Okay, we have a motion to second. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? And that motion carries. All right, 8C2.

Item 8C2 is a resolution authorizing the city manager to execute a contract with Stivers Chrysler Dodge Jeep to purchase four 2026 Dodge Durango all wheel drive pursuits SUVs for the public safety department in the amount of $169,892.96. Move for approval.

Second. I have a motion and a second. Mr. Griswold, did you pull this one?

I did. Thank you. It says that our department's goal is to have a one for one officer to vehicle ratio, but while also increasing the number of spares. How many spares do we currently have?

I'm not 100% sure.

There must be some.

Yes, sir.

Okay. And these are expansion vehicles, additional vehicles to the fleet. That's correct. That were not budgeted. And later on in the agenda, we talk about how to – how to equip these vehicles and that comes out to another 18 K per vehicle. So, I mean, we're really talking about quite a bit of money here that was not in the budget. So I just want to bring that up. Thank you. Anyone else have anything?

Yeah, I know how Kelly feels about new vehicles and he's right on a lot of that. But on this particular situation, it's imperative that we get, uh, try to get each officer his own vehicle. So once we get that accomplished, The cost will work itself out, because if you give him a car he's got to take care of, he or she will take much more pride in that car to keep it up, and it won't run 24 hours a day, seven days a week, basically. And two, this is a great recruiting tool to offer an officer his own vehicle when it comes to work here. It's very competitive right now in the law enforcement arena. Hiring good officers and this is something we really need to recruit and not only recruit but if a burglar gets off I-85 and comes into Auburn and sees a black and white parked close by or in our neighborhoods, he's gonna think twice about burglarizing Auburn and goes hopefully somewhere else or go back where he came from. So I understand your concerns, Kelly, but this is something really needed by our law enforcement.

Yeah, I appreciate it, and I have no problem with trying to achieve the goal of one for one. I'm curious about how many extra vehicles we have on the sideline waiting for the spares.

I don't think they have very many. Unfortunately, we've had some accidents where we got some vehicles totaled out this year.

That's the next agenda item, the two that were totaled. I have no problem with those.

That's the reason we had four.

Chief, would you also say that, at least if this is a good recruiting tool, would it be a pretty good retention tool as well?

Absolutely. If you've got your own car, I mean, you can't beat that.

And if we're going back to just the financial piece of it, the... The cost to bring up a new officer after one leaves is not an insubstantial cost.

And, Tyler, that's a good point. It takes two years to get an officer up to speed if he stays with you. Another thing about this, if we have a tornado or something, Lord forbid, natural disaster, you can respond to the officers from the home to the scene much faster than you can having to come in and get assigned a vehicle and all that type of thing.

Mr. Cummings, related to the recruiting piece of this, and I know we don't have a public safety official with us tonight, but is it easy to say that the communities that we recruit officers against, per se, kind of like an athlete, this is something that they're doing is they're offering these vehicles for their, is that what we're facing as we try to hire new officers in the future?

And that's my understanding. And I think there's a lot of competition is, is, um, is chief Dawson related, um, related to it's, it's the, you know, it's, it's one of the things that, that makes it very difficult sometimes for us, you know, to attract and retain those officers. And so we're definitely working on, you know, trying to make sure we, we do that effectively. Um, Looking at HR director, make sure I'm saying that correctly. Yes. Did everybody hear that? Okay.

Any other comments?

How long have we had this goal for a one-to-one? I assume it's been a while, right?

Yes, I think it has.

Is there a reason it's not in the budget?

So every year when we get requests that come in, we evaluate basically looking at our budget, and there's some items that get moved to a contingent budget. So their contingent capital that we'll put in the budget, basically to watch the budget, and if monies are available as we move through the year, then we can release those and bring recommendations. So that's to say that the funds are available to pay for these. and we're moving those from contingent capital. So they were identified in the budget request. They were just not approved in the initial budget amount, if that makes sense.

Okay. All right. So basically, by the time we take care of the expenses in HC4, we're talking about $114,000. Well, let's not worry about the numbers. Okay. Go ahead. Thank you. Anyone else?

Okay, we have a motion and a second. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? And the motion carries. All right, 8C5.

Item 8C5 is a resolution authorizing the city manager to execute a construction contract with Thalamus LLC for a project to install a pedestrian signal at 320 West Magnolia Avenue in the amount of $91,000. Move for approval.

Second. We have a motion and a second.

Mr. Moorman? Thank you again. If anybody travels down West Magnolia, they know that pedestrian crosswalk is a serious thing. We already have one there. How will this differ in appearance and function what we already have there?

It'll operate as a traffic traffic signal. What we have now is, is students walk up, push the button. Some just walk across, but, uh, push the button, um, and, and start walking across the street. So it becomes an issue with, with traffic. movement, so the idea with this is students will walk up, push a button, and they'll wait for the signal to change. So this will actually be a full controlled traffic signal that'll stop vehicular traffic, but it'll allow the students to move across in larger batches as opposed to just a continuous stream. So the idea here is to try to improve traffic flow on Magnolia while protecting the pedestrians crossing the street. Does that answer your question?

Oh, yeah, and so it gives a specific amount of time for vehicle traffic to process through there as well. Absolutely, yes, sir. That's great. In doing some of the reading, I noticed that we're taking some of the equipment out of inventory. Is that correct?

That's correct. In order to move this along, and then we'll be taking – you know, some of the equipment and materials out of inventory and we'll replace that, those materials.

Gotcha. And, um, the university is helping out on it and, um, because it's one side is the college and one side of the street is the city. So that's very good. And we're under budget. I understand from you. That's correct. Okay. Good news all around. Thank you.

Um, our students, as y'all know, we, we have breakfast with them once a month and, um, They've been talking to us about this for a year or so and excited about getting this in place. We're gonna ask our students to be helpful. We're gonna try to retrain how they cross the street there and get them to all, as much as possible, go to the same location. But this has obviously been needed for a while and a source of frustration for a lot of people. I look forward for it to be installed and start working and hopefully we can retrain everybody's habits again. Anyone else? Okay, we got a motion and a second. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? And that motion carries. Do I have a motion to approve the balance of the consent agenda? So moved. All right, we have a motion and a second. Any further questions, comments? All right, all in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? And the consent agenda is approved. Ordinances.

Moving on to ordinances, item 9A1 is ordinance to establish 14 stop signs and two 25-mile-an-hour speed limit signs in the Oak Creek subdivision phases 1, 2, and 3. Unanimous consent is necessary.

I'd like to introduce the ordinance and ask for unanimous consent.

Second.

Motion to second, seeing none of the council have a problem moving forward with the vote on this decision. Seeing and hearing none, any comments or questions? Okay, Lindsey with the roll call.

Griswold?

Yes, ma'am.

Mormon?

Yes, ma'am.

Parsons? Yes. Taylor? Yes. Whitten? Yes. Adams? Yes. Koblentz? Yes, ma'am. Dawson? Yes, ma'am. Anders? Yes.

Item 982 is an ordinance to establish three stop signs and one 25 mile an hour speed limit sign in Swansbridge Phase 1B. Unanimous consent is necessary.

I'll introduce the ordinance and ask unanimous consent. Second. Second.

I have a motion and a second. Does anyone on the council have a problem moving forward with a vote on this this evening? Any discussions or questions? Okay. Lindsay?

Foreman?

Yes, ma'am.

Carson? Yes. Baylor?

Yes.

Whitten? Yes. Yes. Koblentz? Yes, ma'am. Dawson? Yes, ma'am. Griswold?

Yes, ma'am. Anders? Yes.

Item 9B1 is an ordinance authorizing the rezoning of approximately 1.15 acres to comprehensive development district on property located at 1117 South Donahue Drive. This is associated with the Lexington plan unit development of rezoning that will follow this petition. The Planning Commission unanimously recommended approval of this application at its June 11, 2026 meeting.

I'll introduce the ordinance and ask for unanimous consent.

Second. Okay. I have a motion and a second. Does anyone on the council have a problem moving forward to vote on this this evening? Seeing no hearing, we'll open to public hearing. If you'd like to address the city council, please come forward and give us your name and address. For the record, you have five minutes to speak to the council.

Brett asked when would the foresight group represent an applicant tonight? Um, this is a multi, there's a multi-stage here. We're going from SCCD to CDD and then CDD to PUD after this. Be happy to answer any questions if you have any on the overall project. Um, but, uh, I think that this, uh, fits in line with, uh, what the city is wanting here. So be happy to answer any questions. Thank you.

Thank you, Brett. Anyone else? We'll close the public hearing. Any comments or questions from the council?

I have some on the actual structure. Should I wait until the next item?

Whatever you like to do, son.

Fire it now.

Is that all right? I'd like for Mr. Baskin to come forward and answer a question.

Sure. Okay. I guess we should clear the air on one. Right up front. Will this development be primarily for students?

No. OK.

Uh, will there be reserved parking for the, for the residents?

Yes.

Okay. So if somebody's got my spot, they'll say, get out of my spot.

Yeah. So, yes. So for the, for the condos above, yes, they'll probably be designated spaces. Um, and then for the commercial at the bottom, the thought is, is that the entry for the residential would be through the back. we'll have like a back entry, right? And so we're reserving the frontage along North Donahue for the commercial and the parking on that side there. So it'll kind of be front and back is how we're envisioning the parking to work. And so it should be, but yes, I would envision us for the residential component that there would be designated spaces for each unit. Unit one would have these, you know what I mean? So that you don't have that situation.

there was determined that there would need to be 56 parking places. How was that determination made? So for the, um, and really that's a question to the, to the city staff, I guess.

Yeah. So essentially we're parking this at, um, one space per bedroom for the residential units. And then the commercial space, there's enough parking for, one per 277 square feet on the commercial side. Typically in a, if this was like just a strip retail building, the parking requirement would be one per 400. So we're over-parked on the commercial side, but we're basically providing one space per bedroom for the condo units above. Typically, right, especially where this location is, you know, we don't envision this, you know, a three-bedroom unit having three cars. If it does, we have three cars, but you're not going to see that. We have a mixture of two-bedroom condos and three-bedroom. You know what I mean? The majority of the units in there are two-bedroom, and then I think that there's, a handful of three-bedroom units within this.

I don't think we knew that. I don't think we knew how many bedrooms there were. I don't think we've gotten a floor plan yet.

Yeah, it's true that we hadn't, but I guess kind of the conversation for this PUD really did center around units. And with the zoning district of CDD, density is measured by the unit, not by the bedroom. And so that really would have been a secondary conversation that we would have had in the DRT process once we would have required the floor plans to move forward.

So in a PUD, you calculate it based on bedroom, I mean based on unit, not bedroom.

No, so this PUD particularly, it was about units. And that was kind of tied to the base zoning of CDD, kind of what we were talking about and what they were trying to do. But kind of with the flexibility of the PUD, I don't really envision a place where we'll have student housing where we're looking at it by bedroom. So so there is the flexibility that we can look at it by bed and by unit. But in this one in particular, we are looking at this by unit and the bedroom count was secondary. The bedroom count is only relevant to inform the parking spaces that will need it, that will be needed, that will be constructed once they decide to move forward with like, you know, that count.

All right. So some of this is kind of new to us, you know, we

happen to do different calculations and look at it a little differently you know we actually worked with staff on the park and we actually added some additional landscaped islands because staff was concerned that they didn't want this to be a big part you know what I mean an oversized parking lot so we added some islands and stuff and actually reduced some of the parking to accommodate some of what staff's comments were on our additional plan so Working through this process and identifying this is what we wanted, this is what we envisioned to do, working with Justice back and forth, we came up with what we felt like was the most appropriate parking ratio for the uses that we anticipated here.

And you've gotten 54 of the 56 identified, and we're probably okay on the other two. So there could be as many as three reserved parking places per unit, depending on the number?

Yes, if there was a three-bedroom unit, yes, it would have three reserved for it, yes. Getting a head shake here.

No, no, I'm sorry. That's all right.

Okay, well, thank you so much for that. No problem. I appreciate it.

comments yes mr. mayor I was thankful to be privy to preliminary meeting with the developer development services with you and I think this is an excellent example of this news this new zoning use this PUD it takes into account the the actual geographical parcel. It's a particularly, it could be viewed as a problematic parcel kind of tucked behind the frontage of the businesses on South College. So it's kind of up the hill a little bit and tucked away and has some frontage on South Donohue. I look forward to that development. That's a good-looking building, and it's going to be a really nice addition down there off of South College.

Thank you, Bob. Couldn't agree more. Anyone else? Okay. Lindsay, the roll call.

Carson? Yes. Thaler?

Yes.

Bitten? Yes. Adams? Yes. Koblentz?

Yes, ma'am.

Dawson? Yes, ma'am. Griswold?

Yes, ma'am.

Mormon?

Yes, ma'am.

Anders?

Yes.

Item 9B2 is an ordinance to rezone approximately 1.15 acres on property located at 1117 South Donahue Drive to establish the Lexington Plan Unit Development. The Planning Commission unanimously recommended approval for this application at its June 11, 2026 meeting. Unanimous consent is necessary and a public hearing is required.

I'll introduce the ordinance and ask for unanimous consent. Second.

I have a motion and a second. Does anyone on the council have a problem moving forward with a vote on this this evening? Seeing or hearing no, we'll open the public hearing. If you'd like to address the city council, please come forward and give us your name and address for the record. And you have five minutes to speak to the council. We'll close the public hearing. Any comments or questions from the council? Okay. Lindsay?

Taylor?

Yes.

Benton? Yes. Adams? Yes. Koblentz? Yes, ma'am. Dawson? Yes, ma'am. Griswold? Yes, ma'am. Gorman? Yes, ma'am. Parsons? Yes. Anders?

Yes.

All right. Item 9B3 is an ordinance to rezone approximately 1.09 acres from rural to comprehensive development district on property located at 1750 Miracle Road for the 1 Auburn Dumas lot. The Planning Commission recommended denial of this application by a vote of 3-6 at its June 11, 2026 meeting. Unanimous consent is necessary, and a public hearing is required.

I'll introduce an ordinance and ask for unanimous consent.

Second. Motion seconds. Anyone on the council have a problem moving forward with a vote on this? I see and hear none. I'll open the public hearing. If you'd like to address the council, please come forward and give us your name and address for the record, and you have five minutes to speak to the council.

Good evening. Brett Basquin with the foresight group, um, representing the applicant. Um, I understand, um, I've had conversations with several of you, um, as well in this particular development. Um, this is a self-contained. a project that was originally supposed to be built as fee simple town homes. During the course of that process, the adjacent development was tied up in litigation and Sarah Lane was never dedicated. It was built, but it was never dedicated as a public infrastructure, so the city didn't have rights. We technically didn't have any access rights other than historical access rights to our property. At that time, the project changed into a multi-unit development, and that's how it was built. They're in the process of our development. We were the ones that helped fund and secure. The right of way access on Sarah lane, uh, as part of that, before we were able to get Sarah lane done before the rest of Auburn farms was done. Um, and so there was history with this project. It's kind of why this project changed. Uh, currently what we're asking for now is we currently have an existing development is a hundred percent, uh, accessed and self-contained development. Um, it's under a DDH zoning, which has a, uh, up to two unrelated. Um, and these, these units are three bedroom, uh, units. Um, we were able to secure the adjacent property, the last residence on the original miracle road. Um, we were able to secure that property and add that in there. Now that we added that in, we hit the threshold, uh, to meet for a minimum of 10 acres for a PDD. And so the thought was we were going to change the zoning from DDH to CDD and then put the PDD overlay on it. We weren't changing it to CDD to increase the density. We're still meeting the density under the DDH requirement. We were essentially doing this to move from two unrelated to five unrelated. The request before you tonight is the piece that we are buying and adding in, changing that from rule to CDD. The next one is to convert our existing lot of record from DDH to CDD and then put a PDD overlay on all three. And so that is the intent of what we were trying to get done. Understand concerns with the future land use plan. and adjacent zonings. It's ironic that across the street is AU Club and it's CDD with the PDD overlay, allows five unrelated, allows short-term rentals. Yeah, we're DDH and it's kind of like, you would think that it would be the opposite. You know what I mean? And so, uh, essentially that's what we're trying to accomplish with the next three agenda items. Um, be happy to answer any questions if you have them. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Baskin, Mr. Baskin. We'll come back. We'll let everybody speak. Thank you. Thank you. Anyone else?

Yes, sir. This is my first time here, and so pardon me if I don't do something correctly.

Would you pull the microphone down closer to you?

Yes, sir.

Thank you.

Ms. Salata, will you state your name and address for the record?

Thank you. Susan Salata, 1632 Jamesburg Road. And what he's talking about, Miracle Road, is a very special place to us at Woodward Oaks. And I have very... important questions that I would ask as to how this would affect the rest of Miracle Road. So those are my questions and how it will go forward.

Okay. Thank you very much. Who will be next? Okay. We'll close the public here.

Mr. Mormon, you have a question? I think I see on this map that I think I see Mr. D's nightclub on this map here. Is that outside the project? It has nothing to do with the project. It's also outside the city limits.

So you asking that?

Well, he gave me a head nod. Okay. Can I ask Mr. Baskin to come back up? I've got one more question. Thank you for doing that. Um, I had understood that that was part of the amenities of one Auburn, but I guess not.

Um, there is a parcel. Um, so Mr. D's is, is, is, is another parcel over. So our, our parcel right now is currently it's two existing parcels and we were adding a third, right? The, Why ours is two parcels is the other parcel has floodplain on it, and so we carved that off. It's part of our lot. It's attached to our lot, but we carved that off so that when we're building our buildings, those buildings are not in the floodplain, and we have a separate piece in the floodplain. It simplifies the building process for codes.

And you mentioned Auburn Farms. That was just in passing. It doesn't have anything to do with this project. No, that's further east of this as well. And your comparison there was that it was DDH?

Auburn Farms is in a PDD. They have the DDH and PDD overlay. Them and Woodward are both the same. Okay. Just wanted to clarify that. Thank you very much.

Comments or questions for the staff?

I have some comments. Please. I have had the opportunity to meet with a developer of this potential property and the adjoining property and with Brett Basquin in talking through this. And while I don't have any issues or concerns with the three bedroom units and potentially having three unrelated, The rub here is that the request is for CDD, and the future land use for this area is neighborhood preservation, which would align with the DDH. Also, not to get entirely too technical, but the density is just slightly over at 4.09, if it were to be approved, which is right at the four units an acre that the DDH provides. However, in holding to the integrity of the future land use plan and to what is surrounding this area. It would be very difficult for me to approve rezoning to a CDD. The other option that was considered and vetted and not feasible was could this go into a PUD However, two things that eliminate that opportunity is one, this is the property that would come into this piece and add to it is already developed, and PUDs are typically for new development, not current existing development. And then also, any potential exchanges that we had discussed are on the wrong side of the creek. So it doesn't, Provide for a benefit for the city, which is, um, the piece of property just south of this, um, or I guess west of this, that could potentially tie into the greenway that would come this direction. And I really hate it because I, I value the investment that this developer has put into this area. Um, especially with Sarah lane and also with, um, other developments throughout the, the, the city. And, and I do value that, but we do have to hold to the integrity of our future land use plan. And for that reason, I will be voting against this.

Anyone else? Yes.

Go ahead. I'd just like the staff to address the rationale at the Planning Commission as to why they recommended denial.

Yes. So Planning Commission had similar hang-ups just kind of around the compatibility of allowing a rezoning of CDD in close proximity to existing DDH. Even though the density and the unit count would not be anything drastically different from what's already approved, the unrelated was a huge sticking point for the planning commission and not something they were willing to entertain. And they were also very apprehensive about is the spot zoning and just kind of on a map with this, not with CDD, not being compliant with the future land use, even though the density is compatible, but the unrelated and the family definition was something that was a bridge too far for the planning commission. And it was something that several commissioners stated.

Thank you.

Somebody have a question down here? I was simply going to ask if somebody was able to address the lady who spoke earlier on about her concern.

Yes, is there a general statement we can make about the impact to this development will be on Miracle Road?

So concerning Miracle Road, Miracle Road was upgraded as was Sarah Lane in order to serve the Auburn Farms. This developer actually facilitated getting some of that right-of-way secured in the final wearing surface down on the road. Those roads could become functional, and it was for the benefit of this project being able to develop from the start. Miracle Road was planned to be paved to Sarah Lane, and that's as far as we planned to pave it. The 1750 Miracle Road, while the address is off Miracle Road, the actual access is off what we now call the old Miracle Road, which leads up to that, so it's on actually a butt to Miracle Road. So, you know... At the end, it would have zero additional impact on Miracle Road.

Can we get some further clarification either from you, Justice, or from legal counsel on the spot zoning question there that the Planning Commission had and even further on the unrelated occupancy questions that were asked?

yeah so like uh like we talked about i think one of the things that we really try to adhere to uh when it comes to rezone is the future land use map and so the future land use map i know a lot of people talk about you know like some some people say it's a suggestion though it is in our comp plan we revisit it we look at uh the future land use for what we want to do the land in the future and its compatibility and one of the biggest things in the future land use map is neighborhood preservation and what that speaks to And so neighborhood preservation really has two meanings. So from a density standpoint, so that's number of beds or number of dwelling units per acre. And then there's also kind of a family definition. And so family definition for anyone who is not familiar. So that's the up to two unrelated or up to five unrelated. And normally we see that the up to 500 related in places where it's normally designated for student housing or STRs are also possible as well. And so that deviation from the family definition and the deviation from the neighborhood preservation of the future land use plan would put us at a liability of this decision being granted would be spot zoning. And I guess that was what the Planning Commission was really, really wrestling with. And that is what the legal counsel also echoed in the planning commission meeting as well.

I'll add to that that Alabama case law is very clear from the appellate level that cities in Alabama cannot have zoning regulations without a comprehensive plan in place. So our comprehensive plan must be the guiding force for all zoning decisions made by the council. And part of that comp plan is the future land use plan. It is a subset of the comp plan. So from a legal perspective, the future land use plan is extremely important to be preserved. in securing legitimate and defensible decisions by this council on especially rezoning requests.

Paul, what is needed to make a change?

Typically in rezoning, the appellate courts have said that a council needs a compelling safety, health, and welfare reason, especially when you're looking at a smaller parcel in relation to other parcels around it that have a particular zoning. And while this is a combined, a 10-acre parcel is surrounded by and adjacent to much larger tracts that have been zoned DDH where the family definition applies. It's extremely important that the council, in its deliberation and its debate, have and identify a specific safety health or welfare reason within its determination and discretion to rezone a piece of property under these circumstances.

Thank you. Anyone else? Okay. Public hearing is closed. Yes, ma'am. Okay. All right. So we'll go move ahead with the roll call. Ready?

Whitten? No. Adams?

No.

Koblentz?

No, ma'am.

Dawson? No, ma'am. Griswold?

No, ma'am.

Orman?

No, ma'am.

Parsons? No. Taylor? No. Anders? No.

Okay. Item 9B4 is ordinance to rezone approximately 9.92 acres from development district housing to comprehensive development district on property located at 1415 Sarah Lane for the 1 Auburn Walker Carlton Lots. The Planning Commission recommended denial of this application by a vote of 3-6 at its June 11, 2026 meeting. Unanimous consent is necessary and a public hearing is required.

I'll introduce an ordinance and ask for unanimous consent.

Second. Motion seconds. Anyone on the council have a problem moving forward to vote on this this evening? All right, seeing and hearing none, I'll open the public hearing. If you'd like to address the city council, please come forward and give us your name and address for the record, and you'll have five minutes to speak to the council.

and I am the resident of 1962 Miracle Road. Many of you know me and recognize my face, and some of you, I'm new to you all. But I wanted to say at this time, Miracle Road is a very important road, not only to the residents and those who drive the road, but to the city as well. Please keep in mind that we desire for that road to be paved. We just heard from this gentleman here that at this time the road is paved from North Donahue up to Sarah Lane. It disappoints me as a native of Auburn and as a resident of Auburn that the city can pave a six foot wide walkway from the overpass on Martin Luther King Drive all the way down As I was saying. It disappoints me as a resident of the city of Auburn to see that pavement has been placed down for a walkway, six foot walkway from the overpass on Martin Luther King drive all the way down to station 14 when here we are on Miracle Road and we need our road paved and that pavement was used for a walkway. I want each of you to sincerely consider our desire for Miracle Road to be paved. And whether that means getting involved with the developers who are developing the acreage and the land out there, I'm all for development. I want the city to grow. And the city is doing an excellent job with that growth. And I want to be part of that. But I also want to see Miracle Road not just paid from Donahue, but a commitment from the council that at some point in time, you all will have Miracle Road paid from Donahue all the way up to what is now known, I believe, as a new road that is from 677, no longer a county road, but have been renamed as something like Woodward something. I don't know. But that's what's right. Let's team up together and do what's right for the citizens of Auburn. Thank you so much.

Yes, ma'am. Thank you.

Thank you.

Anyone else?

Here I am again.

My name is Susan Salata. I live at 1632 James Park Parkway. right in front of Miracle Road. I just want to add a few words, and that is, many of us would like to see Miracle Road stay the way it is, undeveloped. One of the things that's happened out our way, we're all for growth, but just down the hill from there, there is a new development that is beautiful, and it's outstanding, it's super nice. All for it. But that's going to be around 210 houses right there. So when we talk about our buffer and our greenway in that area, and then you talk about Road 147 and all of the development that's going to come forward from there, you're looking at an area that's going to be affected greatly. And for our people in Woodward Oaks, that means so much. But not just for the people there, but now for the people there at Farmville, it's going to mean a whole lot. It's going to mean a whole lot because the development that's going to come forward is going to go all the way to the school. If you've been out to the new school, I rode out there today, there are not many trees there.

out there.

There's not much of a buffer area and I understand that the HUD, HUD development is going to touch base out there. So I would like to ask if there could be some kind of comprehensive approach looking at the development out there because it seems that it's coming from every area and And maybe when all this was approved, the other things had not been developed. But now that you look at the situation and you have developments coming from every angle where... I can't speak for anybody else. I'm asking, could we look at it comprehensively? What it's going to do to our water control, what it's going to do... I'm going to speak for the animals out there, the animals... They're crying from out in the fields, all the trees that have been cut down there from the schools all the way back. So on Miracle Road, again, I want to say it's a very special place. It's unlike other places around us. It is important. If we could keep, you know, the natural scene that God gave us, there's not many of those around. So I just ask for your consideration regarding that.

Who will be next? Any comments, questions from council?

related to this item. Yes. This request, it falls in the same regard as the item before this and same reasoning stands. Again, I understand the need and the request but to hold to the integrity of the future land use plan and the comprehensive plan that has had quite a bit of study and done on all aspects of planning in that area that we look at this and deny as well on the basis of the future land use and the family definition.

I know we talked a lot about this in the last agenda item. Any further questions or comments? Thoughts? Okay. Lindsay, roll call.

Adams? No. Oblentz?

No, ma'am.

Dawson? No, ma'am. Griswold? No, ma'am. Orman? No, ma'am. Parsons? No. Taylor?

No.

Whitten? No. Anders? No.

Ron, if I may real quick.

Please.

To Mrs. Shealy, I'm the council person for that area, and I'm happy to meet with you in the coming days to discuss Miracle Road in that area. And I've had extensive conversations with Mrs. Salata as she as well as staff. So I just want the public to understand that we are having those conversations, and we will continue to have those conversations. So thank you for your comments.

Y'all ready to move ahead on item five?

Yes, Kevin. One additional comment. Could staff give a quick rundown on what it takes to get approval for a paving of a section of road or a piece of road? I know that's, you know, we have, I don't know how many dirt roads we've got in the city limits, but that's certainly one of them. What would be the next steps? How would that be moved along? I know the developers have to pay for paving in front of their properties, but is there another path forward?

So we've got a few dirt roads, and we maintain those through Public Works now. I don't know how many miles. I was looking at Public Works Director Dan Ballard to see if he remembers.

I couldn't tell you off the top of my head, but I can get that information to you tomorrow.

Don't need it. Yeah, I mean, we would look at those from health, safety, and welfare standpoint. I think the people who bought the houses, bought those on the dirt roads, it's been – position on those to maintain those you know and keep those accessible um i think there's one residence that has direct access off of miracle the dirt road portion of miracle road is is as it is today um as that area redevelops and or develops then you know then the opportunities to some do some things differently with that um but i think the The lion's share of the traffic is actually migrating over to the road that goes through Wilbur Oaks. And so we actually, the council abandoned a large portion of the Miracle Road right-of-way, I believe, in the last year. And as Wilbur Oaks continues to build out, James Burke Parkway then becomes that direct connection between Donahue and Farmville Road. So that's to take the bulk of that traffic off. So the traffic on Miracle Road should be quite limited, you know, from this point moving forward. I don't think I answered your questions for us to question, but, but it's, I think it's, um, you know, if the council wants us to explore that, then, then, then the council can ask the city manager to look into that and provide recommendations back. I think the thing is, it's not just putting asphalt down on dirt road. we would have to basically build a new road with that. So I'm looking at city engineers to see if he agreed with me.

And the restoration of multi-use paths doesn't have anything to do, does not have a connection with our road building throughout the city.

That does not. That's actually offering a... an option to vehicular traffic to give people a multimodal opportunities. Um, particularly when you're dealing with, you know, with a multi-use path.

Thank you, Mr. Cummins. When we just, when we make the determination as to what roads will be resurfaced or rebuilt, I know we oftentimes maybe still currently use a third party that comes and does a, almost a scientific evaluation of our roads and makes recommendations to the city as to ones in the most dire need of, uh, of work. I know also that we've made a pretty significant commitment to resurface in over the next five or six years in our budget. Um, where does, and I guess the new engineer, I don't know if you, Michael, you've had a chance to obey, but where does a paved road that needs rehab and a resurface fall against a dirt road? That's going to need a lot of work and really just start over almost.

I'm going to put them on the spot here and just, I did want to make a point though. If you look at all the dirt roads we maintain, the volume of traffic on those roads is very, very minimal. And so, you know, I think, you know, one may have three or four houses on it that we maintain. And so, you know, when you look at that of, you know, one house, you know, a few houses, you know, that's quite an expense, you know, for that level of service on that. See if City Engineer has anything to add as far as the evaluation of our streets.

So we do evaluate our streets basically by a third party and gives us a payment condition index. Within that payment condition index, our goal is not to always go for worse first. That doesn't make sense. Our goal is to preserve as many lane miles as possible with the budget that's given to us. So imagine Suge or imagine like College Street or those roads, they deteriorate rapidly. we would prioritize those however a dirt road still falls in that condition a dirt road is still a traversable right-of-way section right it can still be traversed you can still be you know people can go back and forth to their property it may not be to the condition that they want it to be in However, it doesn't justify the need to build that type of street section at that time. If you only have two or three cars a day, does it justify building a standardized street typical that would require a curb and gutter and that one residence would be basically essentially receiving a benefit and at the cost of the rest of the system itself? So you could build a street that, that far, but for just one residence, but that costs to build and maintain that street section would take away from the maintenance budget of other street sections. Whereas you may 40 or 50 homes or other neighborhoods rather than just for one home in and of itself. Whereas a street typical that is dirt road still can convey traffic and get people to and from their home, which can be maintained at that appropriate level. So there are a lot of, a lot of areas in Alabama that have found that out. And there are a lot of counties that cannot maintain that budget and have gone backwards. And so streets that used to be paid have gotten to a condition where they cannot maintain it with their budget and have returned back to dirt roads. So, uh, that, that can occur. So in this section though, it is a very extensive length to get back to that property. it would be an incurred cost to maintain that too as well.

It's got another question that Ms. Salado brought forward. There's a lot of planning. I've been to a lot of meetings to discuss the land use of different parts of our community and what will be built where and why it will be built there. Just in general, just a couple of comments about how we go about making those kind of decisions about what's residential, what's commercial, where our roads go, all the things that go into planning, annexation, how those things work, and maybe Justice wants to weigh in on that.

Yeah, I mean, I can start off on that, but I think that, you know, because, you know, when we refer to the comp plan, the comprehensive plan, it is a comprehensive look. All of our departments are providing input to that comp plan. You know, we look at where our infrastructure can handle intensity of growth and, you know, where we have the streets, you know, where we have water, where we have sanitary sewer, you know, where our stormwater conveyance can handle that density of growth. And so that establish, you know, that that's used to help establish what kind of densities that can support intensity of use. Um, you know, where, but, you know, getting into commercial, industrial, um, into, into residential and then, you know, panning away. And that's why you see the further. away from the core of town, you see, you know, a transition go from, you know, a DDH or an LDD, you know, four to five units per acre to transition into a residential of three acres and larger lots. And so that's kind of a, you know, major over, I guess, a... broad overview of how we do planning, but we look at this very extensively. I'll let Justice see if he's got anything to add, because he definitely holds the land use plan overhead every time we look at something that comes in.

I would second pretty much what Mr. Cummings said, that it is, first and foremost, land uses are informed by infrastructure capacity, and then secondly, by the fiscal responsibility of maintaining that, just kind of like Michael talked about. I think that's one of the things that is forgotten, that if you put density in places where you cannot service it, it eventually will become a strain to the system. And so first and foremost, utilities, infrastructure, if we can support that from a capacity standpoint, and then secondly, just kind of the fiscal responsibility of maintaining those services in those areas.

And then thank you for mentioning that about the services. Public services are very important to us.

Thank you. Any other questions before we move on to item five?

Any other comments? Yeah, I just got one question. So how many roads in Auburn are still paved? I mean, dirt roads. Because I wasn't aware. I was thinking maybe Miracle Road. I didn't even know it was still a dirt road.

I can't give you an exactly. Is it a lot of them?

Is it a few?

I can't give you the exact mileage, but we have currently five unpaved roads that we maintain, and I can give you the mileage. Yeah, I can gather that later.

We can provide that later, I think, but he's right. I was thinking it was like five. There's only a couple that come to mind on a routine basis to me that we deal with.

Any idea of the number of people that are serviced by those?

I was saying earlier, not very many. There's one on Miracle Road. There's, I want to say, three, four, or five houses on Bonnie Glen Road, and some of the others are just really just short extensions that we may have one or two houses on.

They're, they're all very low density, single family residential.

Yeah. And if there were any high intensity, uh, development on those roads, then they would obviously have to be paid. We wouldn't, they would not be able to support the traffic.

Hmm. So, so on those dirt roads, um, the residents that are on those roads, how many requests did you get for the roads to be paved or people actually trying to get those roads paid or.

Yeah, so I was going to say, I think this is almost like a corner of the conversation at Planning Commission, just kind of whether that be the Bonnie Glenn show up or, you know, just kind of the different folks on dirt roads do show up to the Planning Commission whenever a plaque comes through, and that's one of the things that come up. But then also it's a conversation in annexation as well, and the Planning Commission has really held firm on kind of getting to the bottom of it. If something is on an existing dirt road, and that was one of the things, if you guys remember, was a there was a point of discussion to not include things in the optimal boundary that were on existing dirt roads, because that then would be adding to that maintenance schedule of having to pave that road and then take care of it for what would be existing low density houses. And so the concept of conversation about paved roads, should they be paid? When will the city pave them that comes up at planning commission every every couple months, pretty much like I said, it's been a factor in the decision for the planning commission, not to annex and not to recommend annexation to you all because of that cost.

And these roads were gifted to us from Lee County in an annual allotment because of the annexation around those roads. And to Justice's point, that led to us acquiring those streets.

You good? Okay. Anyone else? Okay. We'll go to item five.

Item 9B5 is an ordinance to rezone approximately 11.01 acres from comprehensive development district to planned development district on property located at 1415 Sarah Lane and 1750 Miracle Road for one Auburn multi-unit development. Planning Commission recommended denial of this application by a vote of three to six at its June 11th, 2026 meeting. Unanimous consent is necessary and a public hearing is required.

I have a point of order. Is it required for us to vote on this item since the other two were not approved?

It's not required, but it's cleaner for the record, if you would. Okay.

I'll introduce the ordinance and ask for unanimous consent.

Second. Motion seconds. Anyone on the council have a problem moving forward, we'll vote on this this evening. Seeing none, we'll open the public hearing. If you'd like to address the council, you have five minutes. Please come forward and give us your name and address for the record.

You all have seen my face earlier, Jesse Shealy, located at 1962 Miracle Road. There's been several conversations here tonight from these gentlemen concerning Miracle Road and the disadvantages to the city for not paving the road. but we understand that the city is growing. You have a brand new school high school that's coming up right around the corner. You have development from Woodward Oaks that just took over 677. Hopefully that role will be paid and all of those individuals and residents from Auburn farms that are coming in. I'm asking you all diligently tonight. Miracle Road is annexed into the city of Auburn. It is a city road. It is maintained by the city. And while I'm one resident, and let me correct the record, I'm not one resident. Mark Dumas lives at the end of that road. And that's Miracle Road as well. There are other land owners that are located on Miracle Row. I have been very patient. A lot of things have happened to me. You all have never had a timber rattlesnake put at your gate. How does that make you feel? As a resident of Auburn supporting development and someone dislike you so much that you're on that road that they come and try to scare you, put fear in you. I'm not going anywhere. I am going to stand firm on what I believe. And I believe and stand firm that Miracle Road should be paved due to the surrounding development that is happening and the traffic. The developer talks about running the traffic through a neighborhood. What sense does that make when you have a public street They're not happy that I'm there, but I was there before them and I plan to stay. I plan to stay. And I plan to see Miracle Road be paved. I am patient and God is gonna let me live a long time. I'm praying to 100 years and Miracle Road will be there for the city of Auburn. So please don't disregard, don't let us down. Keep the road open for the city. Even if we have to live on it for a length of time until the city can obtain the funding to pave it, let us live on a dirt road. Thank you ladies and gentlemen for your time.

Thank you.

Thank you.

We'll be next.

close public you any questions or comments from the council okay roll call no ma'am Dawson Griswold no ma'am no ma'am Parsons no Taylor no no no

Okay, moving on to resolutions. Item 10A1 is a conditional use approval for the Neos Church for an institutional use, a church on property located at 665 Opelika Road. The Planning Commission unanimously recommended approval at its July 9, 2026 meeting. A public hearing is required. Move for approval.

Second. I have a motion and a second. This time I'll open to public hearing. If you'd like to address the council about this, please come forward and give us your name and address for the record. And you have five minutes to speak to the council.

Hey, my name is Rudy Sardinas, and I'm the lead pastor of Naos Church, and I live at 2260 Brock Drive in Opelika, but I do much of my business here in Auburn, and we're just grateful to partner with the city with a new church that's going to preach the gospel, help people find hope, community, and a place to call home. So I want to thank you for previously approving that, and if you have any questions, I'm here to answer them. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Anyone else? We'll close the public hearing. Any comments or questions from the council?

I assume that there has been no complaints about the church's activities up to this point. From citizens.

Well, they've not had any activities at this point. They have not occupied the building, so they've got to get the conditional use approval. So previously they had secured conditional use approval, but it was for an incorrect footprint of the building, so they're actually utilizing a much larger footprint, so they're coming back through. So they have not occupied the premises at this point.

I have a couple of questions for the applicant, if I may.

Yes, sir. Would you please come back? Yes, sir.

I should have sat closer to the front row here.

Thank you. Do you have an estimate of the number of services you plan to host?

Well, right now we're a new church, so we've been building our team, and right now we're averaging about 65 people with children on that team. We hope that sometime next year, you know, church takes time to grow, and we're more of a, organic grassroots startup. We're not funded by any larger organization. So we're hoping that sometime next year we may have an additional service, but that would be, you know, sometime from now. And then at that point we would definitely work with city planning if we needed to expand the space or add additional, you know, measures to make sure that the building is as good. But as of right now, I don't foresee us even surpassing the, occupancy that we'll be presenting to inspections.

Okay. And currently, do you offer child care outside of church services?

No, ma'am.

Okay. Thank you.

I have a question, too, if you wouldn't mind. Sure. Could you give us a quick overview of what the confusion was between the initial conditional use request and this one?

Sure. When we leased the building, our landlord had previously secured a conditional use approval, there was a much smaller church that was going to be utilizing the space. So we leased the building with the understanding that we could simply move in, do a little bit of work, and get going. As we got doing that work, the city notified us and said, hey, we have to get some other things in place before you guys can move in there. So we want to honor the city and make sure that we are a healthy part of the community. But that was simply the The confusion there is that there was a different group that was going to use a different portion of the building, and for us that was going to be too small and not good logistically.

So you aren't the original applicant from the first conditional use?

From November of 2025 or December of 2025, no. Got you.

Thank you.

Any other questions?

Do you plan to possibly occupy the additional space? Yeah. In the building if your church grows to that point?

Our hope with Conversations with the Landlord is to, in the future, purchase the building and, yeah, utilize, I mean, God willing, utilize the whole 16,000 square feet. But as of right now, we're using about 6,000 and some change of that space. But that would be future, future use, which then we would have to submit new plans and go through the whole steps to make sure it's all good.

Justice is there, is there adequate parking right now in that facility for the, for the size service that they.

Yes. And so like you talked about, uh, I think he had the, I guess you said 65 is kind of what they're averaging. I think at max, I think you said it was about 80, uh, kind of, kind of what, what y'all were, the map, most of y'all, y'all had seen, um, there isn't enough parking space for that just cause I mean, as you know, I mean, those are, those are families going and so it's not 80 separate, you know, individual driving. Um, so yeah, there's adequate parking for, for the size of services that they are currently talking about.

What about if you were to, to max out the current space that you use now is it, how many people would it take to do that?

I believe, um, we're still working on plans. I believe that the, you know, occupancy was, was well with under 300. We would not be able to physically fit while the occupancy of the auditorium may show, for example, I think it's like 125 people physically fitting with a platform and everything. 125 chairs is unrealistic. I don't foresee us having one service where we are maxing out that much. Typically in church spaces, you're looking at 70% to 80%. occupancy is when you would bump up to the service. So even if we did have, let's suppose a church of 300, we would be having multiple services where the parking lot is not overfilled. Um, but that is certainly something that we would work with the city, making sure that, um, if we had to, I don't think that that would be a problem, but if we had to converse with other business owners to rent parking spaces, that is something that we would work with the city and also the other property owners. Okay. Those are good problems to have. Excellent problems.

Is part of y'all's plan potentially to have a school, whether it's nursery or one, three, four, five?

That would be awesome. I think the goal of every, you know, I would hope the goal of many churches would be to offer a place where their families can have education on campus as well. That is not something that is in our docket. anytime soon as we are simply trying to get, you know, the main, um, congregation and all that established.

If approved this evening, is it for the entire building? Um, or would just the space that they have allocated, like the previous request was for that space.

Yeah, that is correct. And so the site plan, they are bound to the section they've identified as a sanctuary. And then that is, there is a capacity tied to that. Like you mentioned, it's $270 for the sanctuary space. Also, like you talked about, from a functional use of the space, they really wouldn't even be able to have that many people in there. But they would be constricted to running the sanctuary space, just kind of that they've identified as a church, and then the rest of the space is office. So if they wanted to expand the church use into the rest of the building, they would have to come back and get another conditional use approval.

And if a school were ever, um, projected that would also require an additional, um, conditional use approval.

That is correct.

Okay.

And just to add to that, if I may, um, yeah, we, you know, have a lease agreement with the building owner to just lease a certain portion. If he leases that back half out, that's completely separate from us. And if the space is empty and we want to do something in the future, then we would go through the steps to make that possible. Thank you. Any other questions for the pastor?

Are you going to maintain vehicular access from both DeKalb and Opelika Road?

Can you clarify that question?

Right now, according to the packet, you can drive in either from Opelika Road or from DeKalb Street. So you're going to still have two entrances?

I've driven down that that street or that alleyway. Um, I don't believe that that is in the property owners like property. Um, there are certainly some low hanging trees or that maybe y'all shall address with the, uh, the property over there, but we will definitely maintain landscaping, make sure that it is a beautiful part of the city. And, um, yeah, we'll do our best to work with the building owner to make sure all that stuff's maintained.

Justice, is that a public street off of DeKalb?

No, it's not a public street, so that is just an access. So even though it's not a corner lot, it functions as a corner lot with access off of DeKalb and Opelika Road. So, yeah, the lot is not changing at all. This is just approving a use in the structure.

Okay.

All right. Any other questions for the pastor?

So it's more of a justice question. So there is, theoretically, there's access.

Yeah, that is correct, and so they do take access from Opelika Road and DeKalb, but I guess if we were concerned about access off of Opelika Road, they would have the safety valve of DeKalb, which I think a lot of parcels on Opelika Road do not have a side street option, and so they do, this parcel does.

But it sounds like that safety valve is overgrown and cars are unable to drive on it?

I would be surprised if our people were using that entryway. You know, as we've been, as I've been coming in and out, I never used that access, but great question. I'd have to... look into that further and maybe provide some answers to justice.

Is there any way justice that we can ensure that the landlord, um, or it, it, it, it, it might be Nios, um, maintains that so that vehicular traffic could have an option to go both ways. Yeah.

So ingress and egress concerns are definitely a, uh, relevant thing to make a condition on. I mean, I think that'd be something that within your purview, kind of from a condition standpoint, from an aggressive standpoint,

So that's up to you if you want to make that, but you think that's more appropriate if they come back for an expanded, expanded, expanded request at this stage, do you think. Their size is sufficient off of like a road.

I would say so, uh, currently. And I think kind of, if they, if they were to grow and they were kind of reaching their capacity, we'd probably have another pre app and then that would trigger the whole, well, yes, probably a traffic study. And then we actually need to talk about that second access. So, so I think. For what they are approved for now from a capacity standpoint, I think that's probably down the road. But definitely that is something, if they were to come back to us with a greater congregation, we would definitely look at that and kind of require them to utilize that second access.

And if they go to, I would like to add to that, if they go to multiple services, we're probably going to have to discuss logistics, and that could come into play at that point. Perfect.

It looks like it roads four lanes through there, right? Is it still two lanes, east and west?

Yes, in that section. Or five.

Or five with the turn lane, sorry. That's correct. Okay, thank you.

All right.

Thank you.

Thanks. Thanks for your patience. All right, any other questions, comments?

I still have a question for staff. You're good. For staff, okay. Looking at the satellite view of the property, I don't see a road at all going out to DeKalb.

Yeah, so it's not a road. It's kind of like a stem, and it looks like a flag lot, but they have access off of Opelika Road, and then they also have access off DeKalb. And so it's 665 Opelika Road. So it's kind of narrow, flares out, and then a stem goes to the east to DeKalb.

Okay, so it goes into a parking lot. that's back behind that hype bar and grill.

That is correct. It does look like a parking lot, but that is one lot. All of that is one lot. And so that property has access off of DeKalb and Opelika Road. And so oftentimes you see that on these big arterials where the original property owner, once it was subdivided, they made sure that they still maintained access on the side street when they carved out a piece that was further up.

All right. Thank you. All right. Anyone else? Okay, we have motions second. All in favor, please say aye. Aye.

Any opposed?

And the motion is yours.

Moving on to item 10 a two is a conditional use approval for the prosper at Plainsman Lake for an outdoor recreational use a subdivision amenity. Uh, this includes a pavilion pool and playground on property located at 1827. Can I pass a public hearing is required for approval.

Second motion. Second, I'll open the public here. If you'd like to address the council, please come forward and give us your name and address for the record. And you'll have five minutes to speak to the council.

We'll close the public here.

Any comments or questions from the council?

This just appears that the developer is trying to do something nice for the development. City's trying to help him get it done. Is that a fair statement?

Yes. And this was, this was also a technicality just kind of with the, how this was plotted. And so when they plotted it, they, they, did not label this appropriately, had they labeled it appropriately, a conditional use would not be required. But if that was something that they just didn't label. And so this is just amenity for the residents. They cannot be out there selling tickets to, you know, access, access to the pool, uh, to the general public. This is just for access for the residents.

You have questions? There had been no complaints about this potential project.

No, I think if anything, one of the comments that I get is demand for pools. The developers know what they're doing, kind of including pools in their developments.

You're complaining about a pavilion pool and a playground. You're a dud.

All right, we got a motion and a second. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? All right, motion carries.

Okay, moving on to item 10A3, is conditional use approval for 805 Gentry Townhomes. It's for a performance residential use, a multi-unit development on property located at 805 Gentry Drive. A public hearing is required.

Move for approval. Second. I have a motion and a second. I'll open the public hearing. If you'd like to address the council, please come forward and give us your name and address. For the record, you have five minutes to speak to the council.

Brett Baskin with the Foresight Group representing the applicant, Mr. Warren Jolly. This is a parcel he acquired. We're removing 18 three-bedroom trailers that were in pretty rough condition and replacing those with 16 two-bedroom units. We're decreasing the density and decreasing the bed count here at this particular site. I'd be happy to answer any questions if you have, but it's pretty straightforward based upon the site plan that we have there. Thank you.

Anyone else? Okay, we'll close the public here. Any comments or questions for the council?

Over the past decade, we've been renewing Opelika Road slowly, one parcel at a time, and making infrastructure improvements. And over the past several years, we've seen improvements we've seen several, uh, redevelopment opportunities that have come to us on that block road. And this is, uh, uh, this is yet another one. So, uh, uh, I'm excited about this and I hope that we see more in the future.

Anyone else? Uh, have one question. Um, first of all, this looks like a great project. It it's, It's really going to bring the neighborhood up a little bit, I believe, our lot. But there is a road down through the middle of this property. It's 1.67 acres or something. And that road appears to go into the property next door or an alley or something. Is there any issues with...

developing the land so that that road is closed and it no longer is an access or do you have to maintain access to the property that's behind it so this this uh this was a major point of discussion just kind of internally uh with the applicant and also with uh planning commission so the location and the design of that easement is uh is to be compliant with the with the renew up like a road plan and so there's supposed to be a road that connects north dean uh to gentry drive and this this piece being the bookend on gentry drive is important that we get that easement and so one of the things that we're still working out is kind of the location and so there's a condition that planning commission put on it that It has to be mutually agreed upon by the applicant and staff, the location and design of it. So what that means just kind of with location alignment, where's it going to go? There's still a lot of moving parts with the Renew Up Like a Road plan that we're still kind of working through. And so the design will be will be favorable, not just to staff account what we want to match the plan, but also for the surrounding property owners to maximize the uses around it and then the future uses plan for it. So the so that the easement will not be a detriment to the property. So we're going to design it that way that it's not meaning that you'll keep the easement. Yes, so the goal is to keep the easement, like I said, so that way it complies with the renewed Opelika Road plan because the goal is to get access and open up these deeper parcels that only have narrow access on Opelika Road and give them access to the back of their lots as well. And so there's just retail streets, all the details with it, but... The goal is to give them more options for subdividing and more access points than Opelika Road to increase the capacity of Opelika Road.

And you've got it figured out?

It is something that will be figured out, yes.

And Sonny, once it's figured out, hopefully that is the inflection point for Opelika Road redevelopment to really take off, is to be able to open up those narrow parcels so they can be developed and it's not going to cause us a lot of traffic issues.

And it's been a significant effort on our part to make sure that we are getting those easements set aside so that we can come back and have that cross-access and be likely a public access cross-access through the developments. So we worked with this one. The current location that's proposed on here is very strategic in us to be able to move traffic from Gentry through to the next parcel and continue to move towards North Dean Road.

Anyone else? All right. We've got a motion and a second. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? And the motion carries.

That's all the items we have on the agenda.

Okay.

At this time, we'll open Citizens Open Forum. If you'd like to address the council, please come forward and give us your name and address. For the record, you have three minutes. We'd ask that you address the council.

Robert Wilkins, 261 Denson Drive, Auburn, Alabama. Good evening, Mayor and Council. Is it worth your time? Five weeks from today, many of you will have the opportunity to head to the polls on August 25th. Yet there is a quiet truth that deserves to be spoken plainly. Six of our eight wards will stand in complete silence on the ballot. By Alabama law, because no challengers step forward, Those six council seats were already decided, deemed elected at the last council meeting. Their names will not even appear. For most voters, the only choice on the ballot will be for the mayor. Only residents in Ward 5 and Ward 8 will vote for both the council member and the mayor. Everyone else, six entire wards, will vote only for the mayor. This is not a full election for our city council. It may raise a sober question we must all ask ourselves. Is it worth your time to show up? I believe the answer is yes, more than ever. Consider our history, from the founding fathers who risked everything so citizens could govern themselves, to the brave men and women who marched in Selma for the right to vote. Every generation is forced to protect this sacred duty. They understand that voting is not just a right, it is a responsibility passed down through blood, sweat, and unwavering faith in self-government. Your vote matters because this is how we shape Auburn's future. Low turnouts means fewer voices decided for everyone. When good people show up, we strengthen our community and we remind our leaders that citizens are paying attention. Please mark your calendar for Tuesday, August 25th. Check your ward polling location. Take a few minutes out of your day to vote. It is one of the simplest yet most powerful ways we exercise our responsibilities as neighborhoods and stewards of the city we love. Our children and grandchildren are watching. They deserve a city where people refuse to sit silent, instead show up, because we still believe self-government works when we work it. Thank you. God bless Auburn. Who will be next?

Okay, we'll close this in its open form.

Anyone on the council have anything they'd like to say? Okay, is there a move to adjourn? So moved. We're adjourned.