Planning & Zoning Committee - Regular Meeting

for this Tuesday, July 28th, 2026. The first item on our agenda will be approval of the minutes from July 14th. So I'll ask committee members to review it.

I'd like to approve the minutes from the July 14th meeting.

All right, all in favor? Aye. All right, our minutes pass. Next item is zoning case ZAC 2026-08008. This case is a request by the City of Birmingham for approval of a text amendment to the floodplain zone overlay regulations, section 11, specific standards, subsection C, standards for manufactured homes and recreational vehicles to ensure the city's Floodplain regulations remain consistent with the requirements of the Federal Emergency Management Agency's community rating system. We have someone from PEP. Hello, Kim.

It looks like it's May. Our hazard mitigation team might come down, but I'm Kim Sprella, Service City Zoning Administrator. So the city participates in the National Flood Insurance Program, and we also participate in a voluntary incentive program called the Community Rating System. And that's the program where you meet certain requirements and and your city is labeled class 1 2 3 4 5 and so on and based off what your rating is you get a discount on flood insurance for your residents so we are currently a class 5 community and we just completed a crs cycle visit last year and it was brought to our attention by the consultant that in our zoning ordinance in the floodplain overlay section, we needed to change the word or to the word and. So in your packets, I attach the entire article to floodplain zone overlay in case you guys wanted to see the entire document. But the only change is in section 11 where we have struck through the word or at number three under letter C and we're adding, making it an and. And it's in red. So we're just removing that or and making it an and. So this will keep us in compliance with those requirements. We do not want to be retrograded. We're the only class five in the state, and we want to remain that way. And then hopefully next year we can apply to bump up to a class four.

Thank you, Kim.

Do we have any questions from committee? Yeah. So I heard this in the CAC, or no, Planning Commission. Planning Commission. Can you help me find it in the text of the document? Oh, absolutely. Because this last page is Section 10.

Can I come up and look? Sure.

Section 11.

Oh, over here. I got you. All right, got it.

It's a one-pager first just to show you the change right here.

Yep, got it.

And then behind this page is the text of the entire article. I know y'all probably, if y'all get bored and can't sleep at night, you want to read the floodplain overlay. It'll put you right to sleep. It's important. It's very important. It's very technical in its engineering, so that's not my lane. But you have the entire, I wanted you guys to have the entire document so you, for your reference. But we're only changing that one word on the first page from the or to the and. And that's what we call the free board requirement, the no lower than one foot and the manufactured home. So we had it as an or, and the consultant has required us to have it as an and.

So we... You can do manufactured homes in the city, they just have to be on a slab, right?

So for zoning, so we have, this would be manufactured home if it's approved by the Zoning Board of Adjustment and it's in a special flood hazard area. Zoning Board of Adjustment, we have about 20 conditions you have to meet to do a manufactured home and it has to go to the Neighborhood Association. and then it has to go to ZBA for approval. It's a special exception. But we do allow them, but they cannot be on wheels. And you can't leave it on the trailer. And then we have some other requirements in the zoning portion that requires you to have steps, to have a porch. We don't want it to look like... a trailer, for lack of a better word. We want it to look like it blends in with the rest of the neighborhood around it.

Okay.

Dr. O'Quinn, did you have any other questions? Nope. Any other questions from committee members? Seeing none, do we have a motion?

Motion to recommend this text change for approval to the full council.

Second.

All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? All right, that motion passes. Thank you, Kim.

While I'm here, could I bring up one other item, or do you want to officially go? It would be under old business. Yes.

Yeah, let's go for it.

It's just for informational purposes. We just found out about an hour ago that the Pratt-Ensley plan that is supposed to go before the council on Tuesday, that it was not advertised. in a newspaper of general circulation. So we're going to post on the SEAS website, on social media pages. We're still going to have conference room A open like we have before to meet with residents who show up to look up their properties, but we will have to reset that public hearing. And we'll have that on the agenda next week. I just didn't want you guys to be blindsided when you see that next week. But we just found out.

Thank you, Kim. So next week we'll have a new resetting of the public hearing. That's correct.

But since we do anticipate some residents coming for what was going to be the public hearing, staff is going to be happy to talk with them in conference room A, and we might can actually answer questions next week that they might not have to come back for the next one.

That sounds good. Having a Q&A available would be helpful. Absolutely.

And as I recall, weren't most of what we were doing there was just dealing with some of the queue conditions?

Yeah, Pratt-Ensley's, it's just, you know, the R's to the D's, the B's to the C's. We did expand. Wade's Sand and Gravel was half I-2 and half I-4. So we did propose to make all of them I-4 so their entire operation would fall under the correct zoning district. And then there were two areas where no development occurred that were upzoned to... industrial and they were never developed and we removed those queue conditions since nothing occurred at that site and they've actually been down zoned to single family which is what's adjacent which the neighborhood was in support of.

Alright, thank you for that refresher.

And just recollect my mind because I know some time ago I'm not going to say it's been a while but they had been having some prep and Ainsley meetings, you know, I think I put my memory certain right. So this is nothing that's just popped up out of the blue. This is something that's been ongoing.

So they've had, there were the framework plan meetings. Then the framework plan was adopted, and we had four community meetings about the zoning. At the same time, the planning staff continued the framework plan meetings. Okay. So this has been going on for at least, the framework plan started back about four or five years ago. But the rezoning meetings have been going on for two years. So this is not new information.

I just wanted to get that on the record to make it clear that this is, I'm glad you said that. Yes, ma'am.

And if they come on, you know, if anyone who has questions about the process, if they're here on Tuesday, we'll be happy to talk to them and share that information with them.

Yeah, so just, you know, just want to get that on the record that just, you know, they've been having, the meetings have been going ongoing. Yes, ma'am. Okay. Thank you, Kim.

Thank you, Kim. Any other older new business? Did they post maps and stuff on one?

Yes, sir. We've had all of the community rezoning maps have been on our website as well as the framework plans and in the the flyer that each resident in each community gets has a link to the map as well as the website. We also give them our email address and a phone number for them to call. and sometimes we have more phone calls. We've received quite a few emails on this last one, but all of the maps are posted on the city's website.

And they are all updated as well?

Yes, they are all current and up-to-date, absolutely.

Oh, I'm sorry.

Isn't there an Imagine BHAM site as well that has all of that?

So the Imagine BHAM site, because of all of the city website updates with the accessibility, we've actually taken all the plans off Imagine BHAM and they are directly on the PEP website.

Awesome. Thank you.

Yeah.

All right, Kim, thanks so much. Second?

Second.

All in favor?