Fairhope staff recommend denying Pecan Pointe subdivision and every waiver at Hwy 104 and 181
Lieb Engineering wants to bond — rather than build — the turn lanes, sidewalks, stormwater pond and landscape buffer required at the Hwy 104/181 gas-station site, deferring the work until a future tenant breaks ground. Planning staff recommended denying the subdivision and all three subdivision waivers.
Planning staff urged the Fairhope Planning Commission to reject a three-lot subdivision at the southwest corner of Highway 104 and Highway 181, along with the three subdivision waivers the applicant tied to it.
Site map, Jun 1 meeting.
The request, filed as SD 26.08, comes from Lieb Engineering on behalf of Gold Kist Corner LLC. It seeks preliminary plat approval for Pecan Pointe, splitting a 4.7-acre B-2 General Business parcel into three legal lots of record. The site was annexed into the city as B-2 by Ordinance No. 1835 on Aug. 25, 2025, and holds the existing gas station at the intersection, which the applicant plans to redevelop.
Under the proposed layout, Lot 1 would take access from Highway 104, Lot 2 from a shared ingress/egress easement reaching both highways, and Lot 3 from Highway 181 via that same shared easement with Lot 2. Fairhope Utilities would provide water, sewer and gas; Riviera would supply electricity; AT&T would handle communications. A traffic impact analysis filed with the application assumes future tenants of a convenience store/gas station and two quick-service restaurants, and calls for right-turn lanes at the two project driveways.
The friction is over timing. In letters dated April 27, project engineer Christopher Jay Lieb, PE, asked the commission to defer construction of the ALDOT turn lanes flagged by the traffic study, the sidewalks and multi-use path along the highway frontages, the stormwater retention pond, and the landscape buffer required under the city's Tree Ordinance. Lieb argued that anything built now would only be torn up later during "extensive excavation, heavy equipment operation, and underground fuel tank removal," and that deferring the pedestrian work would let it be built as part of "a cohesive, uniform streetscape and a higher-quality finished product." He offered a performance bond or other surety to guarantee the improvements land before any certificate of occupancy is issued.
Planning staff were unconvinced. The staff report recommends denial of all three subdivision waivers — Sections IV.C.1.h (traffic), V.D.6 (pedestrian) and V.F (stormwater) — and denial of the subdivision itself, writing that staff does not support "setting a precedence to delay subdivision requirements to wait for future development activity." A fourth request, tied to the Tree Ordinance rather than the subdivision regulations, would normally be appealed through Municipal Court; because the applicant asked only to bond the landscape work rather than skip it, staff routed that piece through the commission as well and noted it does not support those requests either.
The Planning Commission was scheduled to take up SD 26.08 — and the related waiver requests — at its June 1 meeting at the Fairhope Municipal Complex, 161 N. Section St.
From the SD 26.08 staff report and waiver packet.
From the SD 26.08 staff report and waiver packet.