Hoover council rezones 6.5 acres off Valleydale Road as commercial site
The Hoover City Council tonight rezoned 6.5 acres off Valleydale Road next to Jefferson State Community College’s Shelby-Hoover campus to make way for a convenience store and small strip shopping center.
The property at one time had a mobile home park on it, Hoover planning consultant Bob House said. It now has one house, a couple of storage buildings, a mobile home and a barn, said Todd Thompson, an engineer representing property owner Shelia Vaughn.
The plan is to demolish the house to make way for the commercial development, Thompson said.
The property is currently zoned as an agricultural district in unincorporated Shelby County, and Vaughn was asking Hoover to zone it as a C-2 community business district.
The zoning change won’t take effect until Hoover annexes the property. Vaughn has an annexation request pending with the City Council. The council’s annexation committee on Dec. 19 recommended approval of the annexation, but Vaughn and city officials wanted to address the rezoning request first.
The state Legislature, about five to 10 years ago, changed the law to allow cities to zone property prior to annexation to give more certainty about land use prior to the annexation taking place, House said.
The property is at 4670 Valleydale Road, on the north side of the road and across the street from the North Shelby Fire Station No. 1, Thompson said. There is an embroidery and screen printing business to the east (zoned as a Shelby County B-2 business district) and Jefferson State Community College to the north and west (zoned for office and institutional use in Hoover).
The plan is to put a street between the convenience store and small strip shopping center to provide one access onto Valleydale Road, Thompson said. That road could be a cul-de-sac, or it could connect to the college campus, if the college and land developer come to an agreement, he told the City Council in December.
House said it would be ideal for the road to connect to the college campus and also allow the college to build a connector road from the east side of its property to the west side. It also would be ideal if the strip shopping center contained businesses that complement a college campus, he said.
The convenience store is expected to generate 172 vehicle trips in the morning and 160 vehicle trips in the afternoon, while the small shopping center should generate 65 vehicle trips in the morning and 55 trips in the afternoon, Thompson said.
He doesn’t believe the development would warrant a new traffic signal, he said. However, there likely will need to be a left-turn lane for eastbound traffic on Valleydale Road and a deceleration right-turn lane for westbound traffic on Valleydale, and the developer of the property is willing to provide that, Thompson said.
The developer would leave enough land for the planned widening of Valleydale Road in that area, he said.
The plan is to develop the property tastefully, modeling the convenience store after the Greystone Shell gasoline station, according to the person who wants to operate the convenience store there.
In other business tonight, the Hoover City Council:
- Approved plans for a clubhouse, pool and park for the first phase of the Lake Wilborn section of Trace Crossings. Signature Homes President Jonathan Belcher said it will be a $2 million facility with 8,500 square feet of covered space, 5,500 square feet of which will be heated and cooled.
- Annexed two vacant residential parcels on Strollaway Drive.
- Approved an agreement between the city of Hoover, CSX Transportation and Blackridge Partners regarding a bridge over a CSX railroad track. Tim Westhoven, the city’s chief operations officer, said the agreement basically obligates the city to take over maintenance of the bridge once it is built by the developer.
- Rejected a bid by a company called Diversified to supply and install an audio-visual system at the new 155,000-square-foot Finley Center at the Hoover Metropolitan Complex and authorized the mayor to negotiate with the company to get a lower price. Diversified was the only bidder for the job. The company offered to do the work the city wants done for $440,829.
- Named former Hoover Library Board member Michael Krawcheck as an emeritus library trustee, allowing him to continue to participate in board meetings as a non-voting member. His fifth four-year term expired in December, and the City Council named Ruth Cole as his replacement on Jan. 3.