
Illustration courtesy of city of Homewood
The city of Homewood held a public hearing on Feb. 4 to address a proposed senior living facility development along Lakeshore Drive. The development would require a rezoning of theproperty, owned by First Baptist Church of Birmingham, that includes 101-109 Hugh Circle.
The city of Homewood's Planning Commission voted on Tuesday to pass negative recommendations to the City Council in regard to a rezoning request and final development plan approval related to a proposed senior living development off Lakeshore Drive.
The commission heard from Brian Hatcher of Kadre Engineering, LLC, the applicant requesting that the 7.07 acres, owned by First Baptist Church of Birmingham, be rezoned from the current zoning destination of Neighborhood Preservation District to a Planned Residential District in order to accommodate the senior living facility. The land consists of nine residential lots, including Hugh Circle ROW.
Hatcher was joined by John Chapman of Farris Properties, the developers in the project, and Gray Plosser of KPS Group as the consulting architect. The trio presented a PowerPoint detailing the proposed development, stating they believe it aligns with Homewood's master plan, which KPS helped create in 2004.
They also noted that the project would be executed by local vendors with Birmingham-based Atlas Senior Living being the operator of the project and Brasfield & Gorrie as the contractor.
"I think all of that is relevant and worth noting, because the project we're presenting tonight that will contain the 112 units of seniors housing for this site is being designed by locals, built by locals. It'll be lived in by locals, owned and operated by locals who will have friends, family, associates, who will occupy those units," Chapman said. "We do think it's very important that we have the fully local project team, and as questions are raised tonight and thoughts about other locations for senior projects that might be brought forth by other groups, those folks might not be a fully local team."
The development would be corporately owned, and Chapman mentioned that the nine parcels currently have a tax assessed value of $4.1 million, but they anticipate the project would assess for 10 to 15 times that.
Kadre is also requesting approval of the final development plan for the project that includes a three-story assisted living/memory care facility, 24 individual and attached residential cottages and a community clubhouse. The facility would also include associated parking, landscaping and other unspecified site improvements.
In preparing their presentation, a traffic study, done by Skipper Consulting, was completed to analyze the impact the facility would have on surrounding patterns. Plosser said the results pointed to a nearly unnoticeable impact at less than a 4% change.
During the public hearing portion of the meeting, Andi Sims and Jason Hopper, both residents of Ashley Circle, spoke on behalf of their neighborhood to oppose the development. Ashley Circle is part of a residential neighborhood and properties on that street back up to the proposed development, including Sims' and Hopper's homes.
The pair presented a PowerPoint of their own to highlight their concerns and noted that they previously held a neighborhood meeting and said that a majority of their neighborhood did not approve of the project.
The presentation listed eight main reasons they wished the project to be rejected, which include the following:
- Incompatibility with the neighborhood character,
- Traffic and infrastructure impact,
- Environmental and landscape impacts,
- Precedent and property values,
- Noise and light pollution,
- Insufficient buffers between the development and their properties
- Holes in the developers research and data
- Neighborhood rejection
"We're here to advocate for our neighbors, the preservation of our neighborhoods, character and to prevent adverse impacts," Sims said, "not just for here and our neighbors, but also for the city of Homewood. We think that Neighborhood Preservation District is there for a reason."
Sims also emphasized that the neighborhood has shared a petition online to gather support in opposition of the development, and over 150 signatures had been collected in just five days.
"I think the bottom line is that it's advantageous, possibly, for the church to go this route and rezone and sell," Sims said. "It's advantageous for the neighbors to retain it as an NPD for many, many reasons, and for the church to sell individually to nine individual homeowners."
After the presentations, the commission voted 5-2 on both the rezoning request and the final development plan approval to pass to council with a negative recommendation. There will be a second public hearing on the matter at a future council meeting.
Watch the full meeting below: