SPANISH FORT, Ala. — Residents will have one more chance to voice opinions on the city’s proposed Comprehensive Plan.

Citing the addition of “substantive” changes to the document, the Planning Commission accepted City Attorney David Conner’s recommendation and opted not to take action during Monday’s regularly scheduled meeting. Instead, the item will carry over to the body’s May 9 meeting when another public hearing will be held to hear both support for and opposition to the plan as drafted.

The plan is intended to guide the city’s growth over the next 15 years, but is also intended to be a “living” document that can be amended along the way to accommodate shifting populations, needs and circumstances.

In addition to a few minor grammatical changes, a portion of the document was rewritten by Conner during Monday’s meeting to address concerns regarding a traffic study initiated in 2007 by Skipper Consulting but never completed.

Mayor Joe Bonner worries that referencing the study in the plan insinuates two falsities:

• That the study was ever completed.
• That the city ever formally accepted any recommendations from any of the work that was completed.

Bonner said he would be more comfortable if the commission took every opportunity to “make these adjustments and sort these things out” before they make their ways into formal city documents.

Commissioner Kevin Diamond said he understands that the study was ultimately shelved because Skipper quickly identified the city’s desire to transform the U.S. 31 corridor running through the center of town into a boulevard was ill-advised due to the difficulty of obtaining the needed rights-of-way to line up intersections.

However, Diamond questioned why the study could not be revisited at this point as the Alabama Department of Transportation prepares to widen the corridor to five lanes.

“I just wonder if having that document would be helpful in any way,” Diamond said.

Conner said the short answer to that quandary is that the city could easily commission a thorough traffic study exploring the feasibility of creating more aesthetically pleasing — and arguably safer — medians along the corridor as well as intersections that line up properly and all of the necessary traffic and safety control devices.

“I can tell you what the wish list is. You just can’t make it happen,” Conner said. “You’d be working to create a document that really has no value.”

As written, the comprehensive plan would allow for future administrations to revisit the idea as land to line up the intersections becomes available.

In other business, the commission removed developer Nathan Cox’s request to amend the large-scale planned use development  surrounding his 12 undeveloped lots amended to allow him to run electricity to the sites. Cox has elected, instead, to petition for a variance that will allow the accommodation rather than set any precedent by seeking an amendment.

An informal work session will be held at 6 p.m. April 25 in the conference room at City Hall.

The next scheduled meeting of the Planning Commission is slated to begin with a 6 p.m. work session May 9 at the Gathering Place in the Prodisee Center, followed immediately by the regular meeting at 6:30 p.m.