Malia Riggs
Elmore Autauga News
The Prattville city council met Tuesday night for the first meeting of 2024 where they heard quite a few public comments from residents of Home Place regarding a projected rental home development called The Cottages at Prattville.
If built, The Cottages at Prattville will be west of Highway 82 and north of Constitution Avenue with street access to Coffee Exchange and just south of Hobby Lobby. If the plans are still the same from November’s Planning Commission meeting, the cottages will be a build to rent style of housing where it is projected that there will be 234 single and multi-family homes built on 44.89 acres. Construction would take around 18-20 months to complete and the homes would be around 1000 to 1500 square foot units according to Forge Residential Partners, the developers of The Cottages at Prattville.
The council postponed voting on the ordinance to rezone the corporate limits where the Cottages at Prattville will reside, if built. The vote was to rezone property located at Highway 82 East and Constitution Avenue from B-2, general business, and R-2, single family residential to PUD, a planned unit development.
The council postponed after hearing multiple points of discussion from residents of Home Place, Forge Residential Partners and discussions among council members themselves, who voted 4-2 to postpone the vote to rezone.
Councilor Marcus Jackson of District 2 brought the motion forward to postpone the vote due to recent meetings. Those meetings were held with council members, Forge Residential Partners and members of the Home Place community. Home Place residents and Forge at that time expressed the want to postpone the vote.
However, some members of the Home Place community did push for the vote to go forth as on the agenda.
“We were all able to sit down and talk for a couple hours and came together with wanting to work together for 30 days,” Councilman Jackson said in regard to wanting to work together to dispel all sides of concerns regarding the The Cottages.
During a public hearing the developer John Baumhauer of Forge Residential Partners came forward and expressed their need for a motion to push the vote until the Feb. 6th council meeting.
Speaking in favor of the project during the public hearing portion of Tuesday’s meeting, he said “based on the progress we’ve made at this point with the Home Place neighborhood, we think it’s come a long way, and we think we’re very close to getting there and addressing their concerns. We believe if we have a little bit more time and a little bit more ability to meet their concerns, we can make this happen.”
Prattville’s city attorney Andrew Odom confirmed that this is a procedural vote, “as far as this motion to postpone is not on the merits of the ordinance itself but rather as far as procedure and setting an offer for a vote on a different day, Feb 6th for the merits,” Odom said.
“District five, I’ve heard your voices and appreciate you coming out. I was at the meeting, and I agree there seems to be some buzz about working together, but at some point, the ideas from Home Place changed a little bit and wanted to go ahead and move forward with voting tonight. But I hear you guys loud and clear and stress that we move forward and don’t kick the can down the road,” Councilman John Chambers of District 3 said.
Many members of the Home Place neighborhood came forward, and even some who live outside of district five, where Home Place is and where The Cottages are projected to be built. They came and expressed their concerns. Some of their concerns are currently being unrepresented in district five, crime rates going up due to rental properties and a high traffic volume near their neighborhood to name a few.
All other ordinances and items on the agenda for the council meeting were adopted Tuesday night, including a new station alert system for the four Prattville Fire Stations. In closing comments Mayor Bill Gillespie thanked Fire Chief Brown and assistant Fire Chief Bingham and their staff for acquiring a $162,997.87 grant and stated that’s a great start for the new year.
