FAIRHOPE, Ala.—Two items on Tuesday’s Planning and Zoning Commission agenda could turn out a crowd, according to letters opposing the proposed Ansley Landing Subdivision and an e-mail alert sent by a local environmental group criticizing the latest plans for Fairhope Village.

“The first phase of Arthur Corte’s (planned unit development), the Shoppes at Fairhope Village, has proven to be a major environmental blow to Fly Creek,” said Jackie Wavrunek of the Fly Creek Preservation Association in an e-mail sent Thursday, encouraging local residents to attend the meeting. “The more people who speak against this, the better our chances are that the planning commission will consider our statements and deny approval of the residential request. The fire station placement behind Publix on Parker Road should also be questioned.”

Another item on the agenda could also turn out a crowd, based on several letters submitted to the city planning department in opposition to it, including one from Councilman Mike Ford.

Ford’s letter, written on his real-estate company letterhead, states that he owns property adjacent to the proposed 56-unit “multi-occupancy project” called Ansley Landing. That property is located on the north side of Gayfer Road Extension just west of Bishop Road, according to the commission agenda.

“If there is any way this project can be turned down, I venture to say most all the people you represent in Fairhope and the surrounding areas will be grateful to you,” Ford wrote on Aug. 21, referring his comments to the commission. “I would also like to see where the need is for this type of housing in Fairhope.”

The City Council has the final say on many items that come before the planning commission, and council members are required to recuse themselves when their private business conflicts with their public position, according to state ethics laws.

Although the commission agenda does not state that the “request of Volkert & Associates Inc. for Final Plat approval for Phase II of Fairhope Village, a minor division” is subject to a public hearing, the city’s planning director did confirm that a public hearing will occur for that last item on the Sept. 8 agenda. None of the other items, including the Ansley Landing request, indicate whether they also include public hearings.

“This is a minor subdivision with no improvements proposed,” said Jonathan Smith, the city’s planning director, regarding the request to subdivide the Corte property on U.S. 98 and Parker Road. “The minor subdivision is for the parcel I’ve heard Arthur Corte is donating to the city for a fire station.”

A planning department staff report recommends that the “minor subdivision” request be approved, “conditional up to the submittal of a satisfactory flow model and the plat signed by the surveyor.”

The request, if approved, would divide an approximately 39-acre parcel of this latest phase of the Fairhope Village project into two.

The larger property of 37.69 acres would lie south of the existing Publix Super Market shopping center, running along a segment of the northern bank of Fly Creek east of U.S. 98. The requested smaller parcel of half an acre would be located on Parker Road behind the super market, and is the proposed site of a new fire station.

“I’ve had a lot of trouble understanding what this meeting is all about,” said Jim Horner, chairman of the Fairhope Environmental Advisory Board.

Horner said discussions with city officials this week have not cleared up the matter for him, but he is concerned that the subdivision request will also grant a request to permit a 30-foot “wetlands setback” instead of an equal or larger “wetlands buffer” along Fly Creek, which is now required by current subdivision regulations.

He believes that Corte is seeking to obtain the right to setbacks instead of buffers, arguing that he is not bound by the current law because his project was approved when earlier regulations were in effect that did not require buffers, Horner said.

“It is inconceivable to me that the city will allow a developer to choose which regulations he must comply with,” Horner said.

The first phase of the project, Shoppes at Fairhope Village, which was developed by Regency Centers of Jacksonville, Fla., is currently the subject of a proposed consent order by the state environmental agency. That order would impose an $11,000 fine for repeated violations of clean-water laws during the past year and require various remediation efforts. The Alabama Department of Environmental Management’s proposed order issued in June required a 30-day public comment period with a possible public hearing based on the comments received.

The proposed order in the Shoppes at Fairhope Village case received more than a dozen letters and written comments, said ADEM spokesman Scott Hughes.

“They are still reviewing the comments that were submitted and have not made a decision on holding a public hearing,” Hughes said Friday, referring to the department’s enforcement group reviewing the case.

The Fairhope Courier has requested copies of all comments submitted, which Hughes said would be provided no later than early next week. He said ADEM has only held one other public hearing on a consent order, to the best of his knowledge, but that the Publix case in Fairhope has generated considerable local interest.

“The approved Shoppes at Fairhope Village site plan shows a 50-foot wetlands buffer, delineated to the point at which it stops on the plat,” the planning department staff report states. “The applicant contends that the PUD approval of a 30-foot setback applies to future development phases. The PUD was approved on Oct. 23, 2006, prior to March 7, 2008, when the subdivision regulations were amended and the wetlands buffer provision was implemented. The applicant has shown this transition from the 50-foot wetland buffer to the 30-foot setback.”

In a memo from the Fairhope Environmental Advisory Board sent to the council on Oct. 9, 2006, that group argued that setbacks would not adequately protect Fly Creek and adjacent wetlands.

“There is a significant difference between the designations ‘buffer’ and ‘setback,’ especially as regards a high-density subdivision where only 30 feet is required,” the memo stated. “Buffers are created to both absorb and filter stormwater before it reaches and swells creeks or rivers. To accomplish this, they need distance, and they need to be left in their vegetative state.”

Smith said the item on Tuesday’s agenda did not involve plans for the next phase of Corte’s development to build the residential part of the Fairhope Village project.

“When (he) comes back and tries to develop those lots in the second phase — however many hundreds of subdivided lots there are — that will be a much more intensive review process, I’ll tell you that,” Smith said.

The Planning and Zoning Commission meets at 5 p.m., Tuesday, Sept. 8, in City Council chambers.