By NEAL WAGNER / Managing Editor

ALABASTER – The Alabaster City Council will make the final determination on rezoning for a proposed new 132-home development near the intersection of Butler Road and Mission Hills Road after the city’s Planning and Zoning Commission voted to recommend the rezoning during a June 26 meeting.

The Commission voted to recommend the council rezone about 20.5 acres from a combination of R-7 townhouse district and B-3 community business district to R-4 patio and garden home district. The City Council likely will vote on the rezoning during its Aug. 13 meeting, which will begin at 7 p.m. at City Hall.

The rezoning came at the request of Raush Coleman Builders and Alamerica Bank, which currently owns the property and has plans to sell it to the developer, according to information submitted to the city.

If the rezoning is approved by the council, it will pave the way for a new 132-home development connected to the Grande View Gardens neighborhood. A subdivision plan would still have to be approved by the city before the new development could move forward.

The original plan for the area called for a commercial development at the intersection of Butler Road and Mission Hills Road, but the developers said there is not enough traffic in the area to support businesses in the area, and the county expressed concerns about traffic accessing a business development at the intersection.

Under the current zoning, a developer would be able to build 55 single-family homes, 104 townhomes and about 40,000 square feet of commercial space. The 132 proposed garden homes under the R-4 zoning will be similar to the existing homes in the Grande View Gardens subdivision, according to the Planning and Zoning Commission.

“The reason for our rezoning request is to create a development that is more compatible with surrounding land uses, which are almost entirely single-family,” the developer wrote in a letter to the commission.

As proposed, the new 132-home development would attach to Sunflower Place, Marigold Drive and Gardenside Drive in the Grande View Gardens subdivision, and would extend Gardenside Drive through to Mission Hills Road.