FAIRHOPE, ALA. — A small group of developers, lawyers and city staff are often the only people at city Planning and Zoning Commission meetings. But Monday night’s meeting could be different.

Two cases on the Dec. 3 agenda involve controversial “big box” commercial buildings with square footage larger than normally allowed by city zoning rules.

The Wal-Mart east of Fairhope could not build within city limits because of the rule restricting the size of such buildings, said Gregg Mims, city director of planning.

However, city rules also provide for the creation of Planned Unit Developments (PUDs) that can include buildings larger than normally permitted by city law, he said.

Those two agenda items are likely to draw a crowd, one Fairhope resident said.

“Site plan approval for partial development of the Corte PUD, which was annexed in 1995 under B-2 zoning with provisions for a “big box,” is coming up Monday night along with the “Triangle” “big box” proposal right across the highway,” Debra Green said. “Should be a very interesting meeting with a packed house.”

A public hearing is scheduled on the request to change the Village North PUD to include a 46,031-square-foot grocery store. The project site is located at the “Triangle” property where Section Street meets U.S. 98, the undeveloped corner of a small urban forest called the “scenic” entrance to Fairhope.

The size of the grocery store in the existing PUD, created by ordinance in 2002, is 18,000 square feet, according to planning department documents.

Christopher Baker, director of planning for the project’s engineering firm, Hutchinson, Moore and Rauch LLC, said if the request is approved, the proposed Publix grocery store would be the economic center of that “village center.”

“We want to bring to fruition a project that the whole community can be proud of,” Baker said, who served as the city’s planning director from 1999 to 2005. “If the site plan PUD amendment is not approved by the city, I would expect the developers to decide not to bring this project to fruition.”

Baker said as the city director of planning, he worked very hard with city officials and the community in developing plans for the Village North PUD adopted in 2002.

He said that the city’s comprehensive plan envisioned a half dozen “village centers” located throughout the city, and Village North was planned as “the first and most important village center for the city.”

But he also said that “it fell short from an economic standpoint to bring it to reality.”

The original request to amend the PUD sought a grocery store building of 54,000 square feet. That size was reduced after an earlier review of the plans by the city.

One local resident who participated in the process creating the Village North PUD wrote one of the two letters on file with the city commenting on the project since the public hearing was announced. Both letters oppose the proposed change in plans.

“The City of Fairhope spent considerable effort and money in 2002 to adopt the existing plan for Village North,” wrote R. Jerry Jackson of Fairhope on Nov. 14. “I along with scores of other interested citizens took part in the public hearings that resulted in what I think is a very acceptable plan for development of this sensitive piece of property. … (The proposed change) would threaten the atmosphere envisioned in the “village” concept and merely hasten the day when Fairhope will look just like the rest of suburban America.”

The planning department’s “staff interpretation” that the commission will consider in making its decision Monday night, said that a meeting with the applicant occurred on Wednesday, Nov. 27.

“The applicant should reduce the 46,031 building square footage to 38,000 square feet,” the document states.

The commission’s decision Monday night will be an advisory recommendation to the City Council, which will make the final decision in the case, after another public hearing.

The “staff interpretation” included a letter dated Nov. 28 from Glen S. LeRoy, who was the city’s planning and architectural consultant throughout the Village North PUD approval process, according to the “staff interpretation” document. LeRoy is now the Dean of the College of Architecture and Design at Lawrence Technical University in Michigan.

His letter stated that the purpose of the letter was to comment on the size of the proposed grocery store and the 180,000-square-feet size of the overall project, and that he had reviewed the proposed amendment and commentary and the originally approved plan of Dec. 11, 2002.

“While a shift from an 18,000 square feet to a 40,000 square foot store may seem significant, it is more important to maintain the ‘character’ (of) a village center,” he wrote. “A 40,000 square foot store can be made to appear smaller in scale by ‘articulating’ the facade to make it appear like several smaller facades. … A larger footprint building can be designed to appear as a a series of smaller, but connected buildings.”

Christopher Baker’s Nov. 19 letter to the planning department that proposed the grocery store’s reduction from 54,000 to 46,031 square feet also refers to the other PUD development on the Dec. 3 agenda, the Fly Creek PUD, which Baker states has already received approval for a 52,000 square foot building.

“It is our understanding that the city recently approved another village center immediately to the north of Village North that contained an even larger footprint approximately 52,000 square feet,” Baker wrote. “The information available to us indicates the City made a determination that this village center and its inclusion of a 52,000-square-foot building was consistent with the city’s comprehensive plan.

Arthur Corte, the developer of the Fly Creek PUD, is seeking site approval for the commercial retail shopping center part of the project, according to the commission’s agenda.

That PUD is located at the southeast corner of U.S. 98 and Parker Road.

Baker said the Village North project has an overall limitation of 180,000 square feet, which has been maintained by changes in the sizes of other buildings, and the original PUD did include a 30,000 square-foot building.

“This rezoning request seeks to amend the approved plan in order to create a village that more creatively implements the city’s comprehensive plan,” the original request for the change in the Village North PUD states.

FYI

What: Public hearing on Village North PUD amendment

When: 5 p.m., Monday, Dec. 3, 2007

Where: City Council Chambers

Who: Fairhope Planning and Zoning Commission

The meeting is open to the public, and individuals may submit comments about the proposal orally or in writing at the meeting.