Two Petitions Seek to Bring 116 Acres Near Glover Lane Into Daphne for Housing

Two annexation petitions covering about 116 acres of rural Baldwin County land near Glover Lane and Friendship Road are set to come before the Daphne Planning Commission on July 23, according to the commission's draft agenda for that meeting, dated July 10. Both would bring the land into the city and rezone it for single-family homes.

Draft agenda for the July 23 Planning Commission meeting, showing the two annexation petitions under New Business, item 6.B.

The two requests, filed as separate items under New Business, involve nearby parcels at the Glover Lane–Friendship Road intersection. Each asks the city to take the property in and convert it from Baldwin County agricultural land to city residential zoning — a step that typically precedes new subdivision development.

The larger of the two, filed as ANX26-04, is a request from Mobama LLC to annex a 92-acre parcel southwest of Glover Lane and Friendship Road. The land is currently zoned Rural Agricultural under Baldwin County's District 15. The petition asks that it be designated R-1, Low Density Single-Family Residential, once it becomes part of the city.

The second, ANX26-05, comes from Bayshore Christian School Foundation Inc., which is petitioning to annex a 24-acre parcel just across the intersection, southeast of Glover Lane and Friendship Road. Like the Mobama property, the foundation's land is zoned Rural Agricultural in District 15, and it too would be rezoned R-1 upon annexation.

The agenda describes both items as presentations to commissioners rather than public hearings. Neither petition lists a staff recommendation, conditions, or an engineer, surveyor or agent — details the agenda includes for other items on the same docket. Nor does it say what the foundation intends to do with its 24 acres, or whether either owner has a specific development plan beyond the requested R-1 zoning.

Annexation by itself does not authorize construction; it moves a property from county to city jurisdiction and applies city zoning, leaving any subdivision or site plan for a later, separate review. Combined, the two parcels would add roughly a fifth of a square mile to Daphne's footprint.

They are the latest in a steady run of rural land moving into the city. Daphne updated its official zoning map in June to fold in the annexations, pre-zonings and rezonings it had approved over the previous half-year, and Baldwin County has faced the same pressure on its unincorporated edges — commissioners in June took up a 344-home development on Daphne-area farmland that would likewise convert Rural Agricultural county land to residential use.

The July 23 meeting carries other land-use business as well. Held over under Old Business is the Paradiso preliminary plat, a 12.36-acre, 12-lot subdivision southwest of Main Street and Jackson Oak Drive proposed by C.T. Morgan LLC, listed for a public hearing. Also on the New Business docket is the Pearl at Daphne Apartments site plan, a 29.05-acre project southwest of County Road 13 and U.S. Highway 90 from Mulberry-Daphne Apartments LLC, on land zoned for apartments, general business and golf-course use.

The Planning Commission meets at 5 p.m. July 23 in the Council Chambers at Daphne City Hall, 1705 Main Street. The draft agenda does not indicate whether the annexation petitions will return for a formal public hearing or a City Council vote at a later date.