FAIRHOPE – Voters in three Baldwin County districts will go to the polls Tuesday, Feb. 15, to decide if they want zoning in their communities.

Referendums are set in District 37, which includes unincorporated areas east of Fairhope, District 8, which includes unincorporated areas south of Fairhope and District 36 in the Seminole area in eastern Baldwin County.

Matthew Brown, Baldwin County planning director, said residents in each of the districts petitioned for the votes.

“This is strictly a citizen-driven process,” Brown said. “They initiated this. We’ve talked to some of them at meetings and listened to their concerns and explained to them how zoning might help them, but the decision is going to be up to the citizens in those districts.”

Clarice Hall Black, who has been helping organize the zoning effort in District 8, said residents are concerned about unrestricted development in their community. She said one example was a retail store and storage unit built next to residential areas.

“If you don't want that to happen in your neighborhood, you need to zone,” Black said. “You can dictate that you don't want mixed use. You would like it to be strictly residential.”

She said zoning would set limits on what developers could do.

“We need that instead of them just saying, ‘oh, it's cheap land. Let's just throw the quickest thing up.’ It doesn't even go with what's currently there,” she said. “That's the biggest problem. That's what we're really trying to combat is to get some type of organization for all the growth that's going on because it’s unzoned and until we’re zoned, it’s just going to keep looking like a hodgepodge.”

Elizabeth Gable Wilson is one of the residents organizing the zoning effort in District 37. She told Fairhope City Council members at a recent meeting that the response in that area has been very supportive to zoning.

She said that in the first 10 days of organizing the zoning petition, supporters gathered 450 signatures.

“That’s about 15 percent of the registered voters and we only needed 10 percent,” she said. “We had 120 days to do that, and we did it in the first 10 days. Our biggest obstacle was that people wanted to sign who were already in city limits or who were outside of this zoning group. So it was just a tremendous amount of people who wanted to be zoned.”

Wilson also said residents are worried about growth and development.

“Their concerns are the growth and not having a voice in what is said,” she said. “They would like to be notified when these developments come in. They would like for them not to be so dense. The density of the developments is a major issue.”

If voters in any of the districts approve the zoning proposal, the county appoint five registered voters from the district to form an advisory committee. The committee would work with the county planning and zoning to study current uses, lot sizes and other factors, according to county reports. The committee would recommend zoning designations for each parcel in the district.

The county Planning Commission will review the recommendation and make its own recommendation to the Baldwin County Commission. The Baldwin County Commission will make the final determination based the recommendations of the advisory committee and the Planning Commission.

Polls will be open from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. for registered voters living in the planning districts.

The polling place for District 8 is the Mars Hill Church at 17176 in Fairhope.

The polling place for District 36 is the Seminole Fire House at 33723 Lost River Road in Seminole.

The polling place for District 37 is 3 Circle Church at 10274 Alabama 104 in Fairhope.