Independent local reporting from the Eastern Shore
A property owner on Oak Road West is asking the city to annex a 0.57-acre lot so the household can attend city schools. Staff recommend zoning the single-family parcel R-1-4 upon annexation.
The city's Code Enforcement and Ordinance Committee is scheduled to take up a multi-family residential development moratorium ordinance at its 4:30 p.m. meeting Monday at City Hall. The discussion comes as several major multi-family projects sit before the Planning Commission and the City Council, less than four years after Daphne's previous apartment moratorium expired.
The Bay Minette City Council took up a state grant on May 18 to fund a veterans' display marking America's 250th birthday this July 4. The award comes from Alabama's A250AL Semiquincentennial Community Grant program.
RAM Hotels' Tru by Hilton and TownePlace Suites by Marriott — together adding roughly 200 rooms to the city's east side — hit construction milestones in March, with the first slated to open this fall.
At its April 6 meeting, the City Council took up Resolution 0426-01, authorizing the city to apply to the Alabama Department of Conservation and Natural Resources for federal-origin GOMESA funds toward improvements at the Kids Park. The city received a $1 million GOMESA grant for its Nature Park Master Plan in September 2025.
Among the items on the City Council's May 4 agenda was Resolution 0426-09, which would approve an application for a 700 Specialty Retailer of Consumable Hemp Products License for Bay Minette Liquor Wine Cigar at 712 D'Olive Street.
The Conditional Use Permit and Site Plan application would authorize improvements to the city utility's existing plant at 3499 West Street under case ZA26-000044.
The city's annual Independence Day display will return to the Alabama Gulf State Pier on Saturday, July 4 at 9 p.m. The City Council reviewed the contract and a related state-parks Memorandum of Understanding at its May 18 work session.
Honoring the fallen and welcoming summer — a guide to Baldwin County’s Memorial Day weekend.
The May 11 vote authorizes Mayor Sherry Sullivan to apply to the FHWA Safe Streets and Roads for All program. If awarded, the funding would target three Fairhope Avenue intersections — Ingleside, South Mobile Street, and Bishop — plus downtown pedestrian improvements. The city's 20 percent local match would be $1.8 million.
The Daphne Planning Commission is scheduled to review the site plan for The Retreat at Daphne, a 17.96-acre multi-family apartment project northwest of County Road 13 and the Milton Jones Road Extension. The item is the apartment component of the larger 134.31-acre Rowan Oak Planned Unit Development that the Daphne City Council annexed and pre-zoned in June 2024.
Resolution 1589, adopted April 20, authorized a $24,350 contract with Vector Disease Control International for weekly surveillance, larviciding, and adulticiding across the city through the end of the mosquito season.
Two change orders for the Valor Park construction project came before the council Monday. Change Order No. 1 was a no-cost schedule extension due to an ALDOT permit delay; Change Order No. 2 would add $45,914.58, bringing the total contract to $2,020,869.08.
An ordinance to regulate the local sale of consumable hemp products had its first reading before the Foley City Council on Monday. The measure would add hemp-licensing provisions to Chapter 5 of the city code, covering businesses within the city's corporate limits and police jurisdiction.
Tommy Tuberville and Doug Jones win their party's nominations for governor. Eight other races on Baldwin County ballots — including U.S. Senate, Attorney General, Lieutenant Governor, Agriculture Commissioner, and Public Service Commission — head to a runoff on June 16.
Spanish Fort's City Council on Monday considered Ordinance No. 738-2026, which would rezone about 1.5 acres at 11699 U.S. Highway 31 from single-family residential to light industrial. The Planning Commission, which held its own public hearing May 11, recommended a commercial designation instead.
Resolution 1592 was adopted at the April 20 council meeting, honoring the highway's connection to a Revolutionary War veteran buried along its path and the site of the Civil War's final major battle.
Resolution No. 1596-2026 was on the Spanish Fort City Council's May 18 agenda as old business and would authorize a municipal sales and use tax exemption for materials used in construction of the Mobile River Bridge and Bayway Project. The item was first presented at the May 4 meeting and carried to Monday.
Resolution No. 1598-2026 was on the Spanish Fort City Council's May 18 agenda and authorizes a $33,000 agreement with Sawgrass Consulting, LLC, for engineering and professional services on the second phase of a sidewalk project along Spanish Main.
A request to rezone two adjacent lots on Northrop Avenue from low-density multi-family residential to a business and professional district was on the Fairhope Planning Commission's June 1 agenda for a public hearing. The applicant is Thompson Engineering, on behalf of Gulf Health Hospitals.
The Fairhope Planning Commission is scheduled June 1 to consider seven separate requests from Verizon Wireless to install new small-cell wireless towers in downtown rights-of-way and at specific addresses across the city. The applications are listed as items 3.F through 3.L on the meeting agenda.
The Daphne City Council on Monday approved an architectural services contract with PCDA Architecture of Mobile. According to the firm's proposal in the meeting packet, the design work is the first step toward a $26 million project to add to and alter the city's recreation and senior center.
Seven items on Monday's council agenda tied to the planned Italian Village of Daphne at Highway 181 and County Road 64. The amended PUD Narrative bundled with the meeting packet would raise the apartment lot's maximum density from 10 to 15 units per acre, increase the building-height limit from three to four stories, and pre-zone an additional 2.78 acres at the north end.
The City Council on Monday considered a resolution appropriating $29,300 from the General Fund to participate in a short-form documentary produced by EMPOWERED. The series will air on public television stations in all 50 states and is hosted by Meg Ryan.
Two resolutions on the council's May 18 agenda would authorize a drainage repair at the 600 block of Ridgewood Drive in the Lake Forest neighborhood and appropriate nearly $451,000 from the city's general fund.
