Join MEJAC, the Mobile Alabama NAACP, and directly affected Mobile residents from across the city in taking a critical look at the City of Mobile’s proposed Unified Development Code (UDC) zoning code rewrite based partly on MEJAC’s UDC report, “Changes are Necessary for the Proposed City of Mobile UDC Zoning Code Rewrite”(https://mejacoalition.org/2021/01/19/final_udc_comments/).

We will open our panel discussions every weekday February 15-19 for a lively and revealing conversation about the Mobile zoning code and its proposed UDC rewrite at 11am followed by a brief audience Q&A.

To attend the Live Zoom Webinar, please click on the titles below to register for each event separately. Otherwise, you may catch it on Facebook Live via both the MEJAC (https://facebook.com/MEJACoalition) and Mobile Alabama NAACP (https://facebook.com/MobileALNAACP) Facebook pages.

Note: the Passcode into every Zoom webinar is 251000.

Monday, February 15 @ 11am
Episode 1:
We Can’t Breathe! How zoning “Protection Buffers” fail to protect in Africatown

Register (or watch On Demand after we air!): https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_-mq3lW0DS3SoF3nmk4vtIA

Tuesdayn February 16 @ 11am
Episode 2:
The many Missed Opportunities of the UDC’s “Africatown Overlay”

Register (or watch On Demand after we air!): https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_DuEQpKbaRiqlGDmWOxU4LA

Wednesday, February 17 @ 11am
Episode 3:
Above Ground Oil Storage Tanks shouldn’t poison community air

Register (or watch On Demand after we air!): https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_kuRmW4-BTViJo2IBGpmAKQ

Thursday, February 18 @ 11am
Episode 4:
Zoning and Mobile’s Affordable Housing Crisis

Register (or watch On Demand after we air!): https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_4rzHvv68RH-MoV3BqTmGhg

Friday, February 19 @ 11am
Episode 5:
More Dirty Coal Corruption?!

Register (or watch On Demand after we air!): https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_IMNFBfi-R7212ZgWKY0v2Q

Note: the Passcode into every Zoom webinar is 251000.

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TAKE ACTION!

Share our concerns? Let the City of Mobile Planning Commission know for their UDC Public Hearing scheduled for Thursday, February 25, 2021 at 2pm! There’s a DEADLINE for public participation!

You should write in your own words as much as you feel comfortable, but please be sure to tell them that you support the MEJAC and the NAACP recommended changes to the UDC including:

• strengthening the Africatown Overlay to do more to combat industrial blight, protect air and water quality, and prohibiting any new Above Ground Oil Storage Tanks in the neighborhood;
• strengthening “Protection Buffer” standards for residents living along industrial fence lines in places like Africatown, Crichton, Down the Bay, and Theodore;
• requiring new and upgraded Above Ground Oil Storage Tanks to be outfitted with vapor capture technology to prevent noxious and toxic vapor releases into Mobile neighborhoods like Africatown;
• either amending the Coal Handling Operations ordinance per MEJAC and NAACP recommendations or removing it entirely in favor of a separate public adoption process altogether; and
• amending Residential Zone design standards to expand access to affordable housing in Mobile, like the Stimpson administration said it would do in 2017.

SPEAKER DEADLINE: Wanna speak up at the public hearing? You MUST REGISTER by 12pm on Friday, February 19, 2021 here:
https://mapformobile.org/udc/#feedback

COMMENT DEADLINE: Written comments must be must be received no later than noon on Friday, February 19, 2021 and may submitted online by clicking here (https://mapformobile.org/udc/#feedback) or mailed to:

City of Mobile Planning and Zoning
PO Box 1827
Mobile, AL 36633

Send your comments to your Mobile City Councilperson (https://www.cityofmobile.org/government/city-council/), too, because if the Planning Commission recommends adoption of the UDC, the City Council will then conduct its own public hearing and vote to codify it into law.

You may watch the UDC public hearing on the City of Mobile’s YouTube channel LIVE on Thursday, February 25 starting at 2pm here:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCdLrEwf3ewSNmCNm21fVfNg

We publish our concerns for the enlightenment of our neighbors and in pursuit of environmental justice in Africatown and beyond.

As always, thank you for your interest in and support of our work.

-Mobile Environmental Justice Action Coalition & the Mobile Alabama NAACP