The much-discussed Fairhope development moratorium came up once again as a discussion item during last week’s Fairhope City Council meeting, as Mayor Karin Wilson urged council members to push forward with implementation.

“We need a moratorium because we are in emergency mode right now,” Wilson said. “We have enough development to last three years with what we have right now. We’re not taking the time we need to protect our citizens. That’s the only people we have to answer to – we don’t answer to developers.”

Wilson said she would like the council to move forward on a six month development moratorium, citing the backlog of applications sent to the planning department by developers hoping to get plans in before a possible moratorium would take effect.

“We’ve been inundated,” Wilson said. “The next 60 days would just be trying to keep up with what’s been submitted. There are a total of 472 lots on the January planning agenda and another 1,200 roughly in the pike, close to a quarter of what we approved last year for the entire year. It’s significant, and we already have significant problems.”

Planning Director Jonathan Smith said the six-month moratorium would really only give his staff time to work their way through the backlog of proposals they have before them now.

“Right now, we might get an item the day before we’re set to do a staff review and that doesn’t give us time to adequately address those issues,” Smith said. “We have to have complete applications and the time to be able to address them completely.”

Smith added that an original reason for proposing the moratorium was to give his department time to review and amend the subdivision regulations for the city, but he said it would “be overly ambitious at this time” to try to address those concerns.

Councilman Kevin Boone said he had concerns with bringing a proposal like the moratorium to the council to vote on so suddenly.

“I think something of this magnitude needs to have at least seven days public notice,” Boone said. “I’m not saying we don’t need a moratorium – I just think pushing it forward now would be railroading it.”

Wilson countered that people across the area were aware that the moratorium could be moved forward, as the council had discussed it several times in the past.

“We’ve been talking about doing this a while,” Wilson said. “The only thing I hear from citizens right now is ‘What are you going to do to help us?’ We have to become citizen friendly.”

Council President Jack Burrell floated the idea of a temporary moratorium for ten days that would allow for a halt on applications before the council took up the six-month ban at its Dec. 22 meeting.

“It would be a compromise and give the planning department a ten day reprieve,” Burrell said.

Boone said he couldn’t support adding any moratorium to the agenda that evening and was joined in his dissent by Councilman Jimmy Conyers.

“It’s not a function of not doing what the citizens want,” Boone said. “The right thing is not bringing something of this magnitude up 10 minutes before trying to add it to the agenda. That’s not enough time.”

Conyers said his major concern was transparency, something he said was important to the residents who voted him into office.

“The only mindset to me is that, in the interest of full transparency, there are developers that are part of our community, too,” Conyers said. “I’m in favor of it, but to slide it in ten minutes in advance, I think we’re going to get a lot of backlash.”

Wilson said she would bring the moratorium back up at the council’s meeting on Dec. 22.

“The citizens have already determined what they want from us,” Wilson said. “If you want to put it off, that’s fine. It’s just going to be 10 more days of more and more applications coming in.”