Council approves conditional uses for former Mafiaoza’s space
The Mountain Brook City Council on Monday approved two conditional use applications for 2 Dexter Ave. in Crestline Village.
The building has been occupied by Mafiaoza’s Pizzeria & Neighborhood Pub, but property owner Len Shannon of the Shannon Waltchack commercial real estate firm told councilors that Mafiaoza’s has closed.
On Tuesday morning, the pizzeria confirmed via a public Facebook post that it is shutting its doors after 11 years in business.
“We had been working for probably nine months, since Mafiaoza’s was slow paying rent, to sort of get ahead of this,” Shannon said, “and we vetted a lot of different uses.”
The council gave its stamp of approval on Monday to Tom Carruthers of LAH Real Estate and restaurateur Frank Alverson. The two would like to split the space moving forward.
Carruthers said he wants to use about 1,500 square feet to open a new real estate office, while Alverson said he wants to use about 2,600 square feet to open a farm-to-table restaurant.
Shannon called it a “farmers market cafe.”
“That use here is fresh,” Shannon said.
Ideally, Alverson said his restaurant will be open for lunch and dinner during the week and open early for brunch on the weekends. The target opening date is spring 2020, he said.
“There are a lot of factors that go into that, of course, but that’s what we’re looking at so far,” Alverson said.
Mountain Brook Director of Planning, Building and Sustainability Dana Hazen helped guide discussion regarding the conditional use requests. She expressed optimism about the property's future and said the split use could work.
“I think it probably will,” she said. “I think they’re complementary enough.”
Fairhaven Drive property rezoned for townhomes
The conditional use approvals weren’t the only major developments to come out of Monday’s meeting. The council also voted to rezone 3790 Fairhaven Drive from Residence G-District to Residence-F District.
The move will allow developer Ron Durham to construct 10 townhomes on the property. They will be part of an 18-townhome development that sits on the border of Mountain Brook and Vestavia Hills, near Overton Village.
In 2018, the council voted to rezone the property to Residence G-District to make way for a condominium development. But Durham said that he didn’t generate enough sales interest to proceed.
“It became very evident that we needed to chart a new course,” he said.
According to a presentation delivered at the meeting, the townhomes will range from 2,500 to 3,000 square feet. They will have three bedrooms, two-car garages and go on the market for $600,000 to $700,000, Durham said.
No construction timeline was provided.
Council approves new budget
The City Council voted to approve the city’s budget for Fiscal Year 2020, which begins Oct. 1.
It projects $40.5 million in general fund revenues and $40.2 million in expenditures and transfers. That puts the city on track for more than $300,000 in surplus funds, City Finance Director Steve Boone said. In addition to its general fund expenditures, the city has budgeted $7.4 million for capital projects.
Mountain Brook is projected to finish the current fiscal year with $1.5 million in surplus funds, Boone said.
Council amends City Code
The City Council voted to amend Article X of the City Code. The amended code incorporates business offices and “soft services” into the permitted uses for professional district properties, which “establish an effective transition to residential neighborhoods” from commercial districts.
The code outlines five soft services that will be allowed: interior design/decorating studios, one-on-one personal training, photography studios, travel agents and professional consulting services.
“We have some service uses that kind of resemble office and they kind of resemble service and sort of fall somewhere in between,” Hazen said, “but they seem like they would fit in these professional, sort of transitional, districts.”
All uses in the city’s professional districts are conditional and require City Council approval.
Council prohibits employee parking on Canterbury Road
The council voted to prohibit parking on Canterbury Road for people who work in Mountain Brook Village. Police Chief Ted Cook and Chamber of Commerce Executive Director Suzan Doidge both advocated for the change.
Cook said employee parking on the road has interfered with business.
The council also discussed the possibility of reducing the parking time limit in Mountain Brook Village from four hours to three hours, but councilors decided to delay action until a later meeting.
In other business, the council:
- Proclaimed Sept. 17-23 as Constitution Week. The Daughters of the American Revolution encourage people to ring a bell on Sept. 17 at 3 p.m. to commemorate the signing of the U.S. Constitution.
- Recognized Mountain Baptist Church’s 75th anniversary.
- Proclaimed September as National Suicide Prevention Month.
- Created a planner position for the Planning, Building and Sustainability Department.
- Authorized the budgeted payment of $300,000 from the city’s general fund into the retiree medical insurance trust, for investment purposes.
- Authorized a 1.75% pay raise for all classified, unclassified and part-time city employees, including the city manager, effective Oct. 1.
- Approved a resolution establishing city employees’ and retirees’ monthly premiums for medical insurance, effective for employee payroll checks dated Oct. 4, 2019, and retiree premiums due Oct. 1, 2019. The premiums will rise by up to 6%, Boone said.
- Approved a conditional use request submitted by Matt Crane of Meta Fitness at 3150 Overton Road. His business will remain in the same shopping center but will swap spaces with Villager Yoga. The move doubles the fitness studio’s square footage.
- Awarded a bid for target equipment to be used at the police firing range.
At the end of Monday’s meeting, the council announced that it will hold a public hearing at its Sept. 23 meeting to consider an ordinance amending the Lane Parke Planned United Development (PUD) master plan concerning drive-thrus.
The topic drew impassioned responses from residents in August. An attorney for Lane Parke developer Evson, Inc. said at a recent council meeting that community input will be taken into consideration before presenting revised plans.