STOCKTON — With a historic zoning referendum less than a month away, 91 residents of Planning District 3 gathered on Monday, June 8, at the Stockton Civic Club to discuss what supporters see as the community's best chance to shape future development in north Baldwin County.

Residents of the district will vote June 30 on whether to place the unincorporated area under Baldwin County zoning regulations. Polls will be open from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. at the Stockton Civic Club.

The referendum follows growing opposition to large-scale developments, particularly proposed utility-scale solar projects. Organizers collected the 124 signatures required — a certain percentage of residents within the district — to trigger the election in 24 hours and ultimately submitted 200 signatures to the probate judge.

If approved, a temporary five-member board of Stockton residents would be tasked with creating a zoning map with assistance from county planning officials. Supporters say the process would allow residents to decide how existing land uses should be classified and establish protections for the area's rural character and natural resources.

Friends of the Tensaw River President Meagan Fowler said development pressures facing Stockton are tied to broader national trends, including growing demand for data centers and the energy infrastructure needed to support them.

"First of all, the entire country is experiencing an AI boom," Fowler said. "We have, as a nation, fast tracked the build of data centers."

Fowler said demand for electricity combined with the region's existing transmission lines and federal incentives for renewable energy projects has made areas such as Stockton attractive for utility-scale solar development, where there are no land use regulations for private landowners.

Meanwhile, Friends of the Tensaw River continues to pursue other avenues to slow projects already in the pipeline. Fowler said the group's attorney drafted a memorandum outlining how Baldwin County could legally enact a temporary moratorium while officials seek an opinion from the state's attorney general. Legislation at the Statehouse this spring failed to move through all the necessary committees and chambers as two 11th-hour bills.

"The clock's ticking, and we could really, really use that moratorium right now," she said.

Fowler said concern over future development has spread beyond Stockton. Other North Baldwin residents in Rabun have begun collecting signatures for their own zoning petition after securing more than 60% of the signatures needed at a recent meeting.

"The Rabun community members that are taking on that initiative, they're going to start going door to door so that they can do the same thing that Stockton is doing," Fowler said.

She cautioned residents against what she described as coordinated campaigns opposing zoning efforts, saying people should be aware of outside influence.

The entire county is broken into planning districts outside of municipalities, but not every planning district has zoning, and it is up to the district's residents to enact zoning. Historically, rural planning districts with agricultural roots, like much of North Baldwin, have remained unzoned and unregulated by government, intentionally. John Murphy, a Stockton resident and Friends of the Tensaw River board member, said the push for zoning came only after residents explored other options, including a landmark district, historic preservation measures and appeals to state officials.

"It wasn't just something where we jumped straight to zoning," Murphy said. "We started looking at a couple things."

Murphy said zoning remains a difficult topic for some residents who have concerns about how regulations could be used and whether county leaders can be trusted to administer them fairly.

"There are some scary parts to it, and we have to look at it and weigh out what's better for us," he said.

Still, Murphy argued that zoning would give residents a voice they currently lack.

"It is just a control measure, and we can actually have some involvement," he said. "We can actually have a say."

While the debate has largely centered around solar development, Murphy said the issue is bigger than any single project as Stockton's undeveloped land continues to be eyed amid a continued population and development boom.

"Zoning is not necessarily the end all for this one," he said. "But zoning, there's a reason to do zoning now, and there's a reason for zoning going forward."

Residents of Planning District 3 will decide June 30 whether zoning should become the framework for managing future growth in the Stockton area. Similar efforts are underway in Rabun, while residents in District 1, which includes Tensaw, Lottie, Blacksher and Little River, are exploring whether to follow Stockton's lead.

Gabriella Chavez is a Report for America corps member who writes about growth and development in Baldwin County and our natural spaces for Gulf Coast Media. Your donation to match our RFA grant helps keep her writing stories like this one; please consider making a tax-deductible gift of any amount today by visiting https://tinyurl.com/yaf8yf5n.