The City is seeking approval of a re-formatted version of the Zoning Ordinance. The primary reasons for the re-format are to make the ordinance easier to navigate, provide a digital version of the ordinance that can be more easily and accurately amended as the City Council sees fit, and provide more clarity to the regulations presented therein. Most of the proposed alterations are not meant to represent policy changes, but rather a reorganization of present policy. Below is a summary of alterations, including a few alterations that do constitute policy changes, to the Zoning Ordinance – Reformatted Edition

• Altered order of sections
• Extended deadline for zoning items (rezoning and conditional use applications) from 21 days to 28 days (per request of the Clerk’s Office)
• Added definition for “professional offices”
• Added “drive-thru” as a complementary term to “drive-up”
• Divided zoning districts into “agricultural and residential”, “non-residential”, “special districts” classifications with their own sections within the ordinance. These are called zoning sections in this guide.
• Replaced use classification lists in each district with tables in each zoning district section for improved navigation. The ordinance no longer employs the “cascading” method of use permissions.
• Added ability to consider uses not listed but substantially similar to uses listed in tables as possible conditional uses. More implied in current ordinance.
• Also present area and dimensional regulations in table format by zoning section.
• Streamlined use classifications within use tables. Current ordinance occasionally uses different terms to describe similar uses without giving a concrete definition for each (ex. Day care, day-care nurseries). Also, attempted to marry uses presented in base zoning districts and PUD districts to add consistency to the ordinance.
• Provide clearer version of sign criteria tables
• There are a number of additional non-substantive alterations in the text meant to provide clarity to the regulations.

For more information, please email zoning@hooveralabama.gov.

Click here to review the plan with proposed changes.