DAPHNE — The Daphne Planning Commission on Thursday unanimously voted to recommend the City Council deny rezoning a property on Wilson Avenue.

The property is currently zoned as R-1, a single-family district. Engineers want it rezoned as R-4, two-family district, because of its close proximity to commercial buildings, Christopher Baker, an engineer with Hutchinson, Moore and Rauch, said. The City Council will vote on whether to rezone the land.

The plan is to erect a duplex on each of 13 lots, according to Baker.

“There is a hodgepodge of building and zoning,” Baker said of the area. A day care, a barber shop and a site where a church is being built, are situated near older homes.

“We’re filling a niche that the county needs,” Baker said of the duplex plans, referring to the need for affordable housing.

Christina White, a property owner on Wilson Avenue, said she believes duplexes will ruin the neighborhood; the kids won’t be able to play outside because you won’t know who’s living there, she said.

Bill Mayhan, also a resident of Wilson Avenue, said the street is not built for the traffic the duplexes would bring in.

Also on Thursday, commissioners voted 6-1 to approve the site plan review for Orleans Commons if developers agree to add acceleration and deceleration lanes, and pay for one-third of the cost of the traffic signal.

Commissioners Cathy Barnette, Chairman Jeff Carrico, DeLeon Thomas, Warren West, Don Terry and Fred Small voted in favor of the motion. Larry Chason cast the lone dissenting vote.

The Orleans Commons is a 56-unit apartment complex to be built southeast of the intersection of Pollard and Whispering Pines roads.

The developers have made some changes and agreed to others in order to secure a favorable recommendation for the site plan review.

The gravel parking lots, which brought discussion at a previous planning work session, will be asphalt, according to Justin Clements, a representative for Trustmark South.

Planning commission members Barnette, Carrico and Thomas voiced their opinions about the need for a traffic signal at the intersection, as well as deceleration and acceleration lanes into and out of the complex.

Clements said the project owners would pay $10,000 to help with the traffic signal because the development is smaller than The Park at Whispering Pines, a development to be constructed near the same intersection as the Orleans Commons. However, developers in June requested the project tabled because they are looking into other site developments, according to Baker.

In other business:

•The commission approved a motion on the site plan review for the Hyman Office Building Two at TimberCreek.

•The commission approved a motion for the preliminary plat review for 50 lots in Lake Forest. The lots, which were created in the 1970s, were grandfathered in with Lake Forest. However, they will fall under the new construction regulations, according to Ray Moore of HMR.