The City of Mobile’s proposed Unified Development Code (UDC) zoning code rewrite has changed yet again. For environmental justice advocates, there is some great news and some very disappointing news.
During its first Public Hearing at the Mobile Planning Commission on February 25, 2021, Africatown stakeholders and environmental justice advocates from across the City of Mobile came together to raise serious concerns with the fourth version of the UDC (UDCv4).
The Planning Commission then convened two “business meetings” on March 8 and March 29 to consider changes to UDCv4, which effectively modified it to a fifth version of the UDC (UDCv5). The final recommendation of passage of the UDCv5 by the Mobile City Council was voted on at the April 1, 2021 Planning Commission meeting, which saw a few small additional changes made to UDCv5 just before the vote to recommend adoption of the zoning code rewrite to City Council. The Mobile City Council has now received UDCv5, but to-date no Public Comment opportunities have been set.
Back at the February 25th Public Hearing, MEJAC and the Mobile Alabama NAACP continued their environmental justice partnership to make specific recommendations to the Planning Commission in writing. To provide context for the changes partly resulting from environmental justice engagement and advocacy in the code adoption process from UDCv4 to UDCv5, our 10 CONCERNS about UDCv4 are provided below along with 10 UDCv5 UPDATES.
Use this chart for quick reference and to click through to more documentation of our UDCv4 CONCERNS below and how they were or were not addressed in the UDCv5 UPDATES:
v4 Concern 1) Protection Buffers – Partially addressed by UDCv5
v4 Concern 2) Africatown Tank Farm Expansion – Not addressed by UDCv5
v4 Concern 3) Industrial Blight in Africatown – Partially addressed by UDCv5
v4 Concern 4) CPTED limited to Africatown – Not addressed by UDCv5
v4 Concern 5) Industrial Landscaping in Africatown – Resolved by UDCv5
v4 Concern 6) Riparian Buffer exemptions – Not addressed by UDCv5
v4 Concern 7) Water conservation in Africatown – Not addressed by UDCv5
v4 Concern 8) Coal ordinance concerns – Partially addressed by UDCv5
v4 Concern 9) Oil tank design standards – Not addressed by UDCv5
v4 Concern 10) Affordable housing concerns – Not addressed by UDCv5
