Gulf Shores is looking to expand the area of its Beach Walking Overlay District and is seeking to encourage certain uses compatible with the goals city planners hope to achieve in the coming years.

The proposed ordinance will have a public hearing at the Aug. 10 council meeting but must be advertised for 28 days before council can vote on the changes, likely in a September meeting. Gulf Shores City Council meets at 4 p.m. in council chambers.

In the city's Vision 2025 Plan developed in 2014, Gulf Shores seeks to "construct a walkable, energetic beachfront district to attract tourism, stimulate local business and encourage businesses with residential development."

Part of this new overlay change includes allowing property owners in the district to be able to rebuild after storms even if homes receive more than 50% damage or the current standard in the law's "savings clause."

"Current regulations allow legal nonconforming condominiums located within the Beach Overlay District, the Walking Area Overlay District and the Lagoon Pass Overlay District to be reconstructed," Community Development Director Lee Jones said. "The savings clause just means that those nonconforming structures or uses are saved. If houses are destroyed by a hurricane beyond 50%, they are saved. They can be rebuilt to their original plans and location."

And, while the rebuild rules in city ordinances will be amended in the district if council votes for the changes, Jones said this is just one change that will help toward developing the area.

"This is not the main part," Jones said. "The main part is to allow new residential and lodging uses only in mixed-use buildings. The intent is to preserve the Walking Area Overlay District for retail, restaurant, mixed-use (and other) uses."

Jones said another part of the city's development plan from 2005 focused on first redoing Gulf Place and then moving to the neighborhoods and businesses directly north of the Gulf beaches.

"This is a clear direction and clear vision going back to 2005 on the vision for the beach area," Jones said. "You continuously hear 'mixed-use pedestrian-friendly walking beachfront.' We've been making a lot of infrastructure upgrades, wider sidewalks, on-street parking, landscaping and extensive mixed-use development in the beach area and the walking district."

All the parts are slowly coming together, and the new ordinance will continue to encourage that vision.

"This expansion of the Walking Area Overlay District is just another step in creating that mixed-use beachfront," Jones said. "The issue that we're seeing without having the walking district more broadly applied is we're seeing a lot of the incursion of cottage subdivisions, condominiums, duplexes and single-family homes coming into an area that's envisioned to be retail, restaurant and mixed-use. We're seeing that coming closer and closer to the walking district where stand-alone use is not permitted."

Jones and city staff hope the expansion of the walking district will slow or discourage single-family developments within the walking district.

"Really what this is doing is preserving space for commercial activity with all the lodging that we already have in place down there," Councilman Philip Harris said. "We need things to do that people can walk to."

The current Beach Walkway Overlay District is bordered by West Second Street, West Second Avenue and across State Route 59 on East Second Avenue then south again on East Second Street to include all of East Beach Boulevard in between.

The eastern expansion will be along East First Avenue to just past East Third Street and along East Beach Boulevard. The western expansion will extend along West First Avenue to West Sixth Street and include West Beach Boulevard.

A northern expansion will extend on both sides of the street to Waterville USA but not include the attraction itself on the east side of State Route 59. On the west side of the state highway, it will extend north to Hog Wild Beach & BBQ and Gulf Shores Seafood.

In the proposed district, 60% of the land use is non-residential, 22% residential and 18% vacant.

Part of the new initiative also includes possible tax breaks for businesses meeting the vision plan's goals.

"It's an incentive-based overlay district for the most part," Jones said. "It has some density bonuses and height bonuses in exchange for public parking or public amenities or beach accesses."Gulf Shores proposes beach walking district expansion

In line with Vision 2025, would encourage multi-use projects