Map provided by city of Hoover
I-459 apartment rezoning
The city of Hoover in April 2016 rezoned the 253 acres in yellow from apartment use to commercial use and the 20 acres in blue from apartment use to single-family residential use.
At least two landowners whose property the city of Hoover rezoned against their will two years ago this month filed a lawsuit against the city, claiming the city violated their property rights.
The 273 acres stretch along I-459 between Chapel Lane and Preserve Parkway, and the property owners staunchly objected to the rezoning when it happened.
Two of them — Meade Whitaker Jr. and his sister, Frances Schoonover — filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Birmingham on April 4 — exactly two years after the day of the rezoning.
In the lawsuit, Whitaker and Schoonover said they had asked the city of Hoover in 2006 and/or 2007 to rezone their 79 acres from apartment use to commercial use so they could sell it to be used as an extension of the Patton Creek shopping center. However, the city of Hoover denied their request to rezone the land for commercial use and the Patton Creek shopping center was completed without their land.
Furthermore, access to their property was permanently closed off, preventing it from every being included in the Patton Creek shopping center, the lawsuit states.
Whitaker and Schoonover said that, in April 2015, they entered into a contract with a development company called Hoover-Hidden Valley LLC for the purpose of building apartments on their land, in accordance with the multi-family zoning on the property.
U.S. Steel, which owned at least half of the 273 acres that were rezoned, had asked Hoover’s Planning and Zoning Commission to subdivide 139 acres or so into three lots and give approval for an access road for about 820 apartments. But the planning commission twice denied U.S. Steel’s request — in October and December 2015, citing an incomplete application.
That’s when the Hoover City Council, facing public pressure to reject more apartments, decided to rezone the property from apartment use to mostly commercial use.
Property rights
Whitaker and Schoonover claim in their lawsuit that the rezoning violated their property rights guaranteed by the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution. It also was an intentional interference with the contract between them and the apartment developer, they said.
The rezoning constituted a regulatory taking of property and hurt their property value permanently, they claimed. They are seeking a trial by jury and actual and compensatory damages, plus attorney’s fees. They also asked the federal court to set aside the rezoning and allow them to develop their property for apartment use.
Hoover City Attorney Phillip Corley said he plans a file a response to the lawsuit soon but could not comment further about the case at this time.
Bob House, the city’s former planning consultant, two years ago said land use patterns in that area had changed since the property there had been zoned for apartments in 1984. The land is no longer best suited for apartments, he said.
House said the Alabama 150 corridor has been saturated with commercial development and there is a need for more commercial development in the city. He cited a comprehensive land use study done for the city in 2003 that indicated the property in question was best suited for a mix of commercial uses.
Whitaker said it’s disingenuous for the city to claim that the property is best suited for commercial use because the city in 2006 blocked expansion of the Patton Creek shopping center onto their land.
Whitaker two years ago said the city’s decision to rezone land against property owners’ wishes was unprecedented, highly irregular, unconscionable, a gross violation of property owners’ rights and an egregious abuse of power.
His lawsuit also names Councilmen John Greene, John Lyda and Gene Smith and former Councilmen Jack Wright, Brian Skelton and Joe Rives as defendants, both as city officials and individuals. They were the ones who voted in favor of the rezoning. Skelton died in July 2016.