Fairhope’s potential “development moratorium” will remain on hold, as council members decided last week to continue discussions about the proposal.

During the Fairhope council’s work session, Council President Jack Burrell said he wanted to hear from the council and mayor their thought on the proposed moratorium.

“I think we really have to determine what is is we really desire to stop for now,” Burrell said. “I think there does need to be some consideration of those employed in this business whose livelihoods would be affected.”

Fairhope Building Official Erik Cortinas told the council the city’s Planning department had been “flooded” with applications for new subdivisions and developments in recent weeks, as local developers tried to get in applications before the moratorium could take effect.

“We’re getting in partial submittals that don’t have everything we need,” Cortinas said. “It’s got to be a complete application with all the data that is required for us to move it forward.”

The proposed moratorium could put a six-month freeze on applications involving subdivisions or multiple occupancy developments, which the Planning staff has said would give them time to review existing regulations and codes, as well as evaluate the current statuses of public utilities, traffic studies and drainage.

Mayor Karin Wilson said she was strongly in favor of moving forward with a study of the city’s utilities so that the city would know exactly where they were at currently.

“The most critical study is our utilities,” Wilson said. “We know this is important to our quality of life.”

Wilson said by having a complete utility study, the city can better know the impact that proposed developments would place on city resources.

The council agreed that a utilities study would help the city get more solid information on what concerns may need to be addressed.

Burrell said the moratorium discussion might need to be moved to a special meeting, in order to give ample time to fully discuss the matter.

He added no action would be taken on the moratorium at least until the council’s next meeting in two weeks, and possibly not even then.

“There’s no rush on the moratorium tonight,” Burrell said. “We’re not going to solve it tonight.”

The council and mayor also discussed Wilson’s proposal to hire an additional attorney to review current litigation pending against the city.

Wilson said she wanted to “have some fresh eyes on these lawsuits” and recommended the council hire attorney Matthew McDonald for that role.

“I feel we need a firm that absolutely has the citizens’ best interest at heart on everything we do in the future,” Wilson said.

Councilman Jay Robinson said he had received “nothing but glowing reviews” about McDonald, but said he wanted to see what it would cost the town to hire him.

Burrell told the council because of the way the state laws work, councils have to approve professional services contracts before fee negotiations could take place, but said he didn’t think it would be a major concern.

“I don’t think that he would advise himself for this position if that means our insurer is not going to cover those fees,” Burrell said.

Wilson added she thought the review McDonald will do will more than make up for any costs incurred by finding ways to reduce litigation fees.