Planning Commission approves rezoning, plat requests

The Homewood Planning Commission on Tuesday approved two requests regarding adjacent properties between Old Montgomery Highway and Montgomery Highway.

Pending City Council confirmation, a nearly three-acre land parcel at 1409 Wild Forest Dr. will be rezoned from R-6 residential to C-1 commercial.

Additionally, a two-story office building at 10 Old Montgomery Highway will be split by floor into two office condominium units.

Wesley Cline of LMOB Properties LLC, which owns both properties, presented the rezoning and preliminary plat requests to the commission.

“It makes sense,” commission member Mark Woods said of the requests.

Rezoning the Wild Forest land parcel from residential to commercial will bring into compliance an existing parking lot on the property, Cline said.

City code prohibits off-street parking areas in residential districts.  

“Now that we are in here trying to do a condominium on the office parcel next door, we’ve discovered that this is out of compliance,” Cline said, “so to bring it into compliance, it needs to be C-1.”

Cline said LMOB Properties purchased the residentially-zoned property from Covenant Presbyterian Church a few years ago. No further development is planned, he said.

The owners of 10 Old Montgomery Highway, an 8,820-square-foot building that houses a doctor's office, will use the rezoned parking lot.

“The existing doctor, Dr. Barry McLean, who owns LMOB Properties, is selling the upper floor — or the second condominium unit — to a doctor... who is currently a Homewood resident,” Cline said.

McLean is a general practitioner, and Cline said the proposed co-owner is a pain specialist. Cline said the pain specialist will renovate the second floor.

He also said the doctors plan to update landscaping, make parking lot repairs and repaint the building.

“There will be some things just to make it look new and fresh,” Cline said.

In other new business, the commission voted to move its July 2019 meeting from July 2 to July 9 to avoid conflict with the July 4 holiday. The December 2019 meeting date will be decided in September.

The commission had to postpone its December 2018 meeting by one week, moving it from Dec. 4 to Dec. 11, as the original date coincided with the Homewood Christmas Parade.

At the Dec. 11 meeting, the commission did not address two items of old business.

A request to move a lot line 5 feet between 808 Grove St. and 252 Allen Ave. will be carried over to February.

A rezoning request at 220 Wildwood Parkway is pending City Council action.

Mike Moseley, a developer, wants to build a five-home subdivision in a natural buffer on nearby Hena Street, but doing so will require rezoning the land for residential use. It is currently zoned for planned mixed use.

The buffer separates homes on Hena Street, Cobb Street and other roads from commercial buildings on Wildwood Parkway. It was established in the 1990s as noise and light protection for homeowners and is protected by covenants between the city and the owner of the Wildwood North property.

Modifying the covenant requires mutual agreement from both parties.

A public hearing will be held at the Dec. 17 City Council meeting.