By Crystal McGough
The Clay City Council passed Resolution 2017-06 with a 4-0 vote Tuesday night adopting changes to the council’s Comprehensive Plan of 2005, which laid out how the 2005 council thought the city would be zoned in the future.
Councilor Becky Johnson abstained from voting, as she owns property affected by the resolution and felt it would be a conflict of interest. Councilor Ben Thackerson was not present at the meeting
“Z-2017-01 and Z-2017-02 are two lists of properties that the Planning and Zoning Commission is recommending unanimous approval that these be changed,” City Manager Ronnie Dixon said. “Understand that these are just map changes so that when a builder or potential commercial developer comes in, they will be able to look at our maps and say that that parcel of land or that area of land is zoned Agricultural, or Town Center, or Rural Residential. It doesn’t affect anything that’s happening on the property now. It would only change if there was a change in the use of the property or a change in the ownership of the property, if the new owner elected to do that.”
Case Z-2017-01 addresses the rezoning on the city’s Comprehensive Plan of several properties on Trussville Clay Road and two properties on Old Springville Road, which include both homes and businesses.
In a public hearing held during the council meeting, Trussville Clay Road property owners Dan and Linda Hicks requested that their two properties be removed from the rezoning list. The council agreed to the request and passed Resolution 2017-06 with an amendment that the Hicks’ properties be removed.
According to Dixon, Case Z-2017-02 “is the Legacy Commercial, and that is a new district that Planning and Zoning created in order to allow businesses that exist today to continue to do what they’re doing for the long-term future. An example would be Publix. Publix may not always be Publix, but it will probably always be a grocery store.”
Dixon said that the Publix shopping center on Old Springville Road is currently zoned as Town Center, which would allow for small to medium businesses, such as doctors offices and small restaurants, but not for larger businesses that are supposed to be zoned as Highway Commercial.
The new Legacy Commercial zoning will apply to several businesses and shopping centers in Clay, including the entire area surrounding City Hall, the Publix shopping center and the dentist office building across Old Springville Road from Publix, as well as all of the businesses in the surrounding areas where Old Springville Road intersects with Dug Hollow Road, Deerfoot Parkway and Trussville Clay Road.
“Right now, every one of those is zoned Neighborhood Commercial, Town Center Commercial, or Highway Commercial,” Dixon said. “They don’t necessarily fit. Like a middle Town Center Commercial does not allow a large grocery store like Publix, even though there’s one built in Town Center Commercial. In order to fix the Comprehensive Plan, they came up with a Legacy Commercial District that says if you are commercial now, and you are operating a like-business, that you can stay that forever.”