A temporary pause on certain types of residential development has been instituted in the City of Foley to “allow time for updating key development ordinances that shape the city’s growth.”

According to the city, the move is aimed at protecting Foley’s small-town character while “ensuring future development meets the community’s expectations for quality and design.”

The ordinance places a temporary hold on residential subdivisions, multi-family housing, RV parks, mobile home parks and rezoning requests that would increase residential density. During this time, the city will focus on refining its zoning ordinance, subdivision regulations and other land development policies.

These updates will be coordinated with ongoing long-range planning efforts, including the update of the city’s Comprehensive Plan, to ensure a consistent and proactive approach to managing Foley’s future growth, according to a press release from the city.

This effort is aimed to be in support of the City’s 2025–2030 Strategic Plan, which outlines five strategic priorities. The first — Livable Community — states, “We will manage and keep pace with our growth with well thought out plans and a regulatory framework that is fair, predictable, sustainable and consistently applied to create and maintain a high-quality built environment.”

“We recognize that Foley’s success and attractiveness as a place to live have brought substantial residential development, but this growth must be balanced with our ability to protect the character of our community,” Mayor Ralph Hellmich said. “This ordinance is a necessary step to give us time to update our plans and policies in a thoughtful, strategic way.”

The pause will remain in effect through Oct. 1 for new subdivisions and RV/mobile home park applications and through Jan. 1, 2026, for more complex rezonings of residential and mixed-use projects.

The move follows a string of similar city council decisions across Baldwin County this year.

In February, Fairhope City Council approved a none-month freeze on certain multiple occupancy residential projects and subdivisions, giving city leaders time to address growth as well as allowing them to work on infrastructure upgrades.

"We're growing so fast. I do not know that anybody in the city appreciates that, and the council understands that people do not want this explosive growth," Councilman Jack Burrell said. "We do not want that either. We want smart growth. We do not want no growth, but we want smart growth."

On infrastructure, Burrell cited the city's water system as one of the services Fairhope needs to address before considering new applications for living spaces. He stated that the city has increased its water capacity by approximately 20% and that they hope that capacity can go up to 30-40% over the next couple of years.

"Our water system is probably the system that we have that's in the greatest need of upgrades right now, and that's probably where we're investing the most heavily," he said.

Fairhope’s most recent pause before this was in December 2021, which lasted a year.

Orange Beach followed suit in March, placing also a nine-month moratorium on certain residential multi-family projects and subdivision applications for the city to complete studies on utility and infrastructure capacity to get ahead of the "completely unprecedented growth" in Baldwin County.

The suspension covers any multi-family project that contains three or more units and subdivision applications containing three or more residential lots smaller than 9,000 square feet per lot, according to the moratorium document.

Mayor Tony Kennon said at the time that he thinks "every big city in Baldwin County" will approve a moratorium or something similar to evaluate the limits of infrastructure within the growth of the county.

"Everyone's looking at it in Baldwin County, and everybody in Baldwin County that lives here wants us to do it," Kennon said, "and, again, it's going to be some tough decisions to be made."