FAIRHOPE, Ala. — About two hours before Monday’s Planning and Zoning Commission meeting, the representative of four property owners seeking rezoning from residential to business districts withdrew the joint application from the meeting agenda.

The application sought to rezone four properties east of Greeno Road and north of Volanta Avenue from residential zoning designations to B-4 business districts.

“On behalf of the property owners for this application, we are hereby withdrawing the application from further consideration by the city,” wrote Dennis Frodsham, an associate broker with Coldwell Banker Commercial Reehl Properties Inc., in a letter to the city’s planning director. “The owners feel that the issue has become too divisive, and they do not wish to engage in a confrontational battle. Rather, it is their intent to work cooperatively with the city to arrive at a solution which will benefit all parties.”

A B-4 zoning district is “intended to provide opportunity for business establishments of a professional nature and is restricted to offices and businesses, which provide specific corporate functions or professional services to the general public,” according to city zoning ordinances.

The city planning department submitted a memorandum to the commission recommending denial of the application, stating that the application was inconsistent with the goals and objectives of the city’s Comprehensive Plan for land use.

A petition with 30 signatures from property owners in the nearby Colonial Acres subdivision on the west side of Greeno Road also recommended denial of the application, stating that rezoning in the area needed to comply with the city’s Comprehensive Plan.

Frodsham’s letter also addressed the application of the Comprehensive Plan to development in the area.

“We request that the city take action to study this issue in the context of overall planning for the Greeno Road corridor,” Frodsham wrote in his July 7 letter. “The owners would like to be involved as stakeholders in that process, as contemplated by the Comprehensive Plan (pages 36 and 60) relating to Greeno Road.”

Planning Director Gregg Mims said a group had not yet been appointed to develop a Greeno Road plan.

“That process has not begun, and I don’t anticipate that to happen before the August elections,” Mims said. “But I think at some point before the end of the year that process will start.”

An ongoing construction project on Greeno Road has caused controversy among some property owners there who have said the new medians being built are blocking access to their businesses.

Debra Green of Green Nurseries and Landscape Design Inc. on Greeno Road has been a vocal critic of the project, and said she is on the agenda of the Monday, July 14, City Council meeting to discuss the issue.

“We all know Greeno Road is going to be developed but there needs to be a plan in place,” she said. “I think it’s important that everyone with a stake in the issue be involved in the process and not just the usual exclusive group that gets appointed to such committees.”

She also said she thought that construction in front of her business had been ordered stopped this week until the issue could be heard at the Monday council meeting. But she heard Tuesday that the order may have been overruled and that construction would continue this week, she said.

City officials could not be reached before press time to confirm the construction status of the Greeno Road project.

The city’s Comprehensive Plan, which was updated in 2005-2006, sets out four community and urban design strategies, one of which addresses development on Greeno Road.

“Develop a specific form-based corridor plan to detail the growth, redevelopment, phasing, and urban design strategies that can allow Greeno Road to transform over the next 10 or 20 years,” Section 4.4.4. of the Comprehensive Plan states. “Seek private sector sponsorship and initiation of this plan to coordinate various stakeholders and promote the plan as an economic development tool. Any such effort should expand on the general design guidance provided in Section 5 adapting it for site-specific planning in the corridor.”

In other business, the commission:

•Announced another item on the agenda had also been withdrawn. The request of Charles Leon Saltz for a zoning change from a residential to a B-4 district on property located on the southwest corner of Fairhope Avenue and Bishop Road is now on the Aug. 4 planning commission agenda.

•Approved the request of David E. Diehl of EDS LLC for an extension of preliminary plat approval for phase two of the Sedgefield subdivision.

•Announced a meeting to consider adopting ordinances to allow accessory dwelling units in the city would be held today at 5 p.m., at the James P. Nix Center.

“It’s a preliminary discussion about whether to adopt regulations to allow them,” Mims said. “If and when it moves forward the public will be notified. It will then be brought back before the full commssion and require a public hearing, and then go to the council.”