Andy Bauer has been with the City Planning Department in Gulf Shores for almost 13 years, but he’s never seen anything quite like the situation with Our Pointof View Townhomes.

The 10-unit townhome development on the eastern end of Gulf Shores was wiped out during Hurricane Ivan and some of the owners are ready to start building back.

Owners next door at the Royal Palms Condominiums say they don’t mind if the owners rebuild, they just want them to do it all at once. The City Council recently agreed with them, following a Planning Commission recommendation that if the units are rebuilt, they must all be rebuilt at the same time.

An attorney for the Our Point of View owners, David Conner, argued against approving the “all or nothing” recommendation.

“What we’re trying to do is figure out how to get the most people back on their lots that they’ve lost the right to use as quickly as possible,” Conner said, noting that three or four of the owners are ready to rebuild.

Conner argued that city rules say townhomes can be built in increments of three to eight units.

“It’s a very unique situation,” Bauer said.  “The rules are, in a typical townhome development you can have a minimum of three townhomes per building roof or a maximum of eight, in a townhome building. Say someone comes in and builds a 50-unit townhome development, those individual buildings can contain a minimum of three townhomes or a maximum of eight.  The rules are for that situation.

“They’re not really to say you can only construct three at a time. It’s not restricting how many can be constructed at a time. It’s restricting how they can begrouped.”

Council members Joe Garris, Carolyn doughty and Mayor Rober Craft agreed with the Planning Commission’s recommendation, councilmen Jason Dyken and Steve Jones voted against the restriction and councilman Phillip Harris abstained.