FAIRHOPE, Ala. — “Our goal is first to protect areas from flooding and storm-surge,” Wayne Dyess, Baldwin County Planning and Zoning director, said Tuesday, referring to his department’s proposal to zone parts of the county based on a state land use management law adopted by the county in 1972. “The plan will also have environmental benefits.”

Dyess said he expects the zoning plan to be presented to the County Commission for adoption no sooner than four months from now as they await a decision from the Alabama Attorney General regarding the legality of the county’s proposed method for defining zoning boundaries in flood-prone areas in unincorporated parts of the county.

The Baldwin County Commission is expected to formally request the legal advisory opinion at its Dec. 4 meeting.

Dyess and several members of his office presented a summary of the plan to the Fairhope Environmental Advisory Board on Nov. 14.

Jim Horner, the citizen advisory committee’s new chairman, said that the newly appointed members of the group understood the proposal better after the presentation. He said the FEAB will decide at future meetings whether they will take a position and provide any advice to the City Council regarding the plan.

The map created by the county, based on federal maps, would divide the county into 40-acre sections. If one part of that “quarter-by-quarter” section is touched by the flood-prone area, then the entire section would be subject to the new ordinances, Dyess said.

But one Bay Minette lawyer disagrees with the plan and has formed a group, the Baldwin County Property Owners Alliance, to oppose the proposed rules.

“It’s too expansive,” Danny Blackburn said of the proposed map. “That’s not in any way, shape, or form an accurate map of flood-prone areas.”

Dyess said the new map showing flood-prone areas of the county is based on current U.S. Corps of Engineer and Federal Emergency Management Agency data.

“There’s a lot of fear about zoning and what it will do,” said Commission Vice Chairman Ed Bishop. “But I think it will have an opposite effect if it’s passed. It can benefit people in flood-prone areas. However, I’m still open-minded about the process at this point.”

The county’s planning and zoning department has presented the proposed plan at various forums during the past few months. He also said that several meetings have been contentious and loud.

“Basically, what we’ve got here is urban sprawl,” Dyess said at the Fairhope meeting, referring to the U.S. 98 corridor from Fairhope to Daphne. He said the proposed plan would also have growth management benefits that would prevent sprawl.

“When people realized that we were really going to do it,” he said, referring to his department’s formal unveiling of the plan, “that’s when it really hit the fan.”