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Photo by Lexi Coon.
Walter Schoel with Schoel Engineering discusses the roads neighboring the Overton Village Condos at the Planning Commission meeting on Oct. 2, 2017.
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Courtesy of city of Mountain Brook.
Under the new zoning, Fairhaven Drive on the Overton Village Building and Regulating Plan will be rezoned from secondary frontage to resident frontage to allow for residential properties.
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Courtesy of city of Mountain Brook.
A design of the proposed Overton Village Condos.
At their monthly meeting on Oct. 2, the Planning Commission discussed, among other cases, the Overton Village Condos. Previously in August, the Board of Zoning and Adjustment approved a height variance for the same project.
The commission unanimously approved a recommendation to the council to rezone the parcel of land — two-thirds of which sits in Mountain Brook and one-third of which sits in Vestavia — from mixed-use district to residential districts and to amend the Mountain Brook City Code to show residential frontage in lieu of secondary frontage on the Overton Village Building and Restoration Plan.
The original plan from 2007, which called for mixed-use development, was approved around the same time that the Overton Village Building and Regulating Plan. Director of Planning, Building and Sustainability Dana Hazen said because the Overton Village plan was written after the approval of the condominium project, the mixed-use zoning was laid in the plan and both the zoning and the frontage categorization needed to be amended in order to allow the updated version of the Overton Condos project to proceed.
“The proposal before you today is strictly for residential,” she said.
Under the new plan, there would be 31 dwelling units on the Mountain Brook portion, four of which are drawn to be townhomes. This is a decrease from the originally proposed 44 stacked flats.
The commission also unanimously approved the use of alternative exterior materials as discussed with the Village Design Review. Under the alternative materials, officials stated they would be using something similar to a hardy siding material such as fiber board in lieu of wood clapboard or painted brick in lieu of unpainted brick. Under this approval, however, officials will still have to revisit VDR with mockups of what they would like to use for a second approval before moving forward.
Members of the community also spoke during the meeting, citing concerns of traffic, the safety of roadways for families and overcrowding in the school system.
“I think we’re talking about one of the most congested areas in the city,” said resident Karl Moor. He, along with others, said adding housing to the area will only crowd roads more and create greater problems at intersections.
Commissioner and council member Phil Black also brought up the width of the road, which is currently about 20 feet. Walter Schoel of Schoel Engineering said that under the plan, the neighborhood streets would have 11-foot lanes totaling to 22 foot streets.
But Moor was not convinced.
“Widening these roads by one foot and repaving … that’s all good,” Moor said. “But something more serious needs to be done here or people are going to get hurt.”
Skipper Consulting performed a traffic study for the area to determine the impact of the proposed condos and found the results to be very similar to the study that was performed for the initial project from 2007.
Skipper stated that the “level of service on Overton Road would be acceptable and that a left turn lane on Overton (east bound approach) is warranted,” according to the agenda packet. Sidewalks will also be installed within the complex, one of which will extend to Overton Road to connect to Mountain Brook.
Durham agreed that the roads are narrow and that traffic in the area does create a difficult situation, but he doesn’t believe “what we are doing … is exacerbating that situation,” he said.
Because the condos would have mostly two-to-three-bedroom units suitable for a family, the possibility of overcrowding the school system was addressed as well.
Commissioners compared the development to Lane Parke which out of 276 units only has 31 school aged children. Durham said that he has spoken with Superintendent Dicky Barlow as well about the proposed development.
“I don’t know what the effect will be on schools,” Hazen said. “It is a real concern. Dicky Barlow has talked to me several times about the project to grapple just how it might affect the schools.”
Durham noted they don’t find it likely that they’ll attract school-aged families because there are no outdoor amenities such as a pool or tennis courts. The sales price is also slated to be about $300 per square foot, which is estimated to total in the mid-to-upper-$500,000's depending on the floor plan.
Because this project resides in both Mountain Brook and Vestavia Hills, officials in Vestavia will have to review the development as well. As of Oct. 2, Hazen said the Vestavia Hills Planning and Zoning Commission will be discussing it on Oct. 12.
Editor's note: This article was updated on Oct. 3 at 10:15 a.m. to correct grammatical errors.
