Lakeview residents come out en masse to oppose used car dealership

Dozens of residents from the Lakeview community across from the Walmart Supercenter on John Hawkins Parkway showed up at the Hoover Municipal Center tonight in opposition to plans for a used car dealership.

A company called Najam LLC wants to put a luxury used car dealership on the property that backs up to Lakeview, behind Cadence Bank, IberiaBank and Zaxby’s, and residents there say they don’t want it.

About 80 people attended tonight’s meeting of the Hoover Planning and Zoning Commission, and most were there for the car dealership case.

Plans submitted to the city show a two-story building with 4,680 square feet on each floor. It would have a six-bay service area on the first floor and offices on the second floor. There also would be a 2,520-square-foot showroom and 172 parking spaces, including 117 spaces for car inventory, 37 spots for employees, 15 spots for customers and three spots in the showroom.

Plans show a 10-foot-wide undistrubed buffer and a 35-foot-wide landscaped buffer between the used car dealership and Lakeview garden homes, and access off both John Hawkins Parkway and Paradise Parkway, which leads to Lakeview and the Paradise Acres community.

Lakeview resident Janice Day told the zoning board she couldn’t imagine anyone on the board or the Hoover City Council would want a used car dealership at the entrance to their residential area.

Chris Meek, president of the Lakeview Residential Association, said after tonight’s meeting that a used car dealership would bring a lot of unwanted noise, lights and traffic. The neighborhood already has to deal with traffic from other car dealerships doing test drives on their streets, and this used car dealership would bring more of that, she said.

It doesn’t matter that it would be a dealership for used luxury vehicles, Meek said. She wouldn’t care if it were Nick Saban’s Mercedes dealership; she still wouldn’t want it there, she said.

Resident Wanda Smith said she’s concerned about blasting, which could cause problems for homes in Lakeview. The property in question includes a hill that is made of rock, and if the property owner doesn’t blast, a two-story building would look down on the garden homes next door, resident Suzy Knighten said.

Knighten said she doesn’t expect the undeveloped land to remain vacant forever, but surely the city can ensure that any development that takes place is more in harmony with their garden home community.

Residents said they would much rather see something like single-story office buildings, doctors' office or a doughnut shop on the property.

Najam LLC tonight was requesting “conditional use” approval to put the used car dealership on the property, which is in a “planned commercial” zone.

Hoover City Planner Mac Martin and Planning Commission Chairman Mike Wood told an attorney for Najam LLC that the city believes a used car dealership is not an appropriate use in a “planned commercial” zone. However, Najam LLC could seek to have the property rezoned to a C-2 commercial zone and then seek approval as a conditional use, Martin said.

Martin Evans, the attorney for Najam LLC, instead asked the zoning board to continue the case for a month while he studies his options. He is concerned that the current property owner, Cadence Bank, might not go along with a request to have the property rezoned, and his client’s contract to purchase the property is time-sensitive, he said.

Evans said after the meeting he was very frustrated to hear the city’s position on the conditional use request and wished he had known about it earlier. However, he and his client certainly want to follow the right procedures, he said.

The zoning board did not give a clear indication as to how it would rule on a request for rezoning or a conditional use request for a used car dealership if the rezoning were successful.

Evans said he believes the zoning board was impressed by the amount of opposition to the dealership, but he hopes the zoning board would be willing to hear his client’s viewpoint, and he believes the board would.

The Planning and Zoning Commission’s next action meeting is scheduled for 5:30 p.m. on March 12. The commission also has work sessions scheduled for March 8 at 5 p.m. and March 12 at 5 p.m. Work sessions are held in a small conference room behind the William J. Billingsley Council Chambers and are open to the public, but space is very limited.

This article was updated at 12:53 p.m. on Feb. 13 to add that, in addition to a 10-foot-wide undisturbed buffer, there also would be a 35-foot-wide landscaped buffer between the Lakeview neighborhood and the used car dealership.