Things could be a bit busy at Fairhope City Hall today. A twelve month building moratorium goes into effect this week following a crush of projects that were delayed by COVID-19.
City leaders voted unanimously last week to apply the brakes on new projects effective tomorrow. That means the deadline for new applications is today.
Fairhope councilman Corey Martin said the moratorium will give the city breathing space to development its comprehensive plan.
“The timing is perfect. The comprehensive plan, we’ve been doing it for four months,” Martin said. “The moratorium is twelve months, and the comp plan was eighteen months, so they’re running parallel to each other.”
There were also practical matters to consider as well. Fairhope city workers who handle building permits were overwhelmed by developers seeking to break ground on new construction. Martin says that, plus a still-in-the-works comprehensive plan to determine what Fairhope wants itself to look like, made the moratorium a good idea.
“It would be a good time for us to push back and see if we can get control over this wildfire of development that we have going on,” he said.