By MACKENZEE SIMMS | Staff Writer  

PELHAM – Despite concerns over the lack of a traffic light, the Pelham City Council approved a rezoning request for a property along Highway 11 on Monday, Nov. 18.

Located near the Grey Oaks subdivision, the 167-acre property along Hwy 11 was submitted for rezoning by developer 68 Ventures from a general business district to a mixed use neighborhood district. The piece of property is currently under contract by Tower Homes.

At the public hearing for the rezoning on Monday, Nov. 4, several residents of the nearby subdivision voiced their concern that building new homes would increase traffic, and those residents had already been fighting for a traffic light to be installed at the intersection of Hwy 11 and Grey Oaks Parkway.

The city of Pelham paid for a traffic signal warrant study on Tuesday, Oct. 22 to see if the location meets the Alabama Department of Transportation requirements for a traffic light. Of the eight hours of traffic observed in the study, the location met the criteria for a stop light for six out of the eight hours. Traffic would need to increase by 5 percent to warrant a traffic light.

In discussing the rezoning, Council President Maurice Mercer explained that the council was considering the rezoning as a separate issue from the traffic light.

“We’ve kept (the items) separate,” Mercer said. “It’s prudent to note that this particular ordinance that we’re looking at right now is only concerning the rezoning.”

The city council approved the rezoning of the property along Hwy 11 unanimously, but the Councilmember Chad Leverett clarified that the council considers installing a traffic light at the intersection of Hwy 11 and Grey Oaks Pkwy to be a priority.

“I think the council has made it clear at the last meeting and here in the work session, that (the traffic light) is a focus of ours to see that come to fruition before there’s ever any slab poured or anything at the property,” Leverett said.

In response to the resident demand for the traffic light, the Pelham City Council also approved a second traffic signal warrant study to occur sometime in 2025.

Mercer shared his belief that this second warrant study would reveal the need for a traffic light which could then be installed before construction is completed on the new homes.

“This change with the rezoning does allow for the applicants to move forward and start their process that could take up to 18 months before we even see homes going up,” Mercer said. “In that time of those 18 months, and possibly a little bit longer, it would give us ample time to address an additional traffic study, which we believe—based off of the amount of traffic we had—likely would warrant (a light) at that particular point in time.”

In addition, at the public hearing considering the rezoning two weeks ago, some Pelham residents voiced their concern about which builders would be hired to completed construction in the proposed subdivision.

Chloe Kelly, a representative from 68 Ventures, was unable to confirm who the builders for the 1D lot would be at the last meeting, but shared an update this week.

“At the last meeting, we were asked to confirm who the builders would be,” Kelly said. “We’d already been able to share that Tower Homes was a builder within the prospective development. At that time, we did not have an executed agreement where we could share who the builder for 1D was, but we have since executed an agreement that does allow us to share, and that builder will be Harris Doyle Homes.”