Tuscaloosa Rezones Land on New Watermelon Road for Gas Station, Stores & 24 Apartments

Tuscaloosa will soon get five acres bigger as city officials are expected to annex two adjacent properties on New Watermelon Road where a developer is planning to build a gas station, a small retail center and 24 apartments.

The decision was the subject of an hourlong public hearing during Tuesday's city council meeting, where Tuscaloosa's representatives ultimately voted 6-1 to rezone it for the proposed development - a vote to annex the property into the city is expected in January.

The currently vacant land sits where New Watermelon Road meets with McWright's Ferry Road, which is in the middle of a transformative $75 million extension.  Hunter Plott and the John Plott Company plan to build a mixed-use development there - one of countless projects coming to the rapidly growing sector of North Tuscaloosa.

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The Plotts were represented on Tuesday by Jimmy Duncan with Duncan Coker Associates, who said one side of the property is meant to feature an 11,000-square-foot gas station with a fuel canopy and a separate 9,000-square-foot retail center.

Both were featured in preliminary architectural renderings from Ward Scott Architecture.

Those plans required the council to annex about 3.9 acres of the now-vacant land and rezone it for business use.

The Plotts also asked for about 2 acres to come in for multi-family residential use for the development of 24 apartment units on the new site.

Duncan said the plans call for 16 two-bedroom units, 4 single-bedroom units and 4 three-bedroom units.

The proposed development led to an hour of contentious but mostly respectful debate about the project and how to responsibly grow North Tuscaloosa.

Duncan seemed exasperated as he pointed out that residential and retail growth has been priority number one for this part of the city in countless planning documents spanning decades. 

"As an engineer, we use these documents to kind of see what we're getting into as far as what the plan is, so we don't have to come up here and fight over these projects. I feel like there are years and years worth of history that says this is what needs to happen here," he said. "This is the growth we all wanted - we're simply trying to follow the book and do it right."

Still, there were plenty of north Tuscaloosa residents there Tuesday night to vocally oppose the development, which will be the first major commercial project in a highly residential area.

"We've been up and down McWright's Ferry Road, and there's nobody who wants this," resident Alan Weldon said. "It's not needed, it's unnecessary, you can find all of these amenities within a mile of here."

Homeowners worried about their property values, increased traffic in the area, littering, the "criminal element" attracted by gas stations and more as they asked the council to turn down this request.

"I have emailed and texted, called and talked to many people out there and I haven't talked to one person who lives over the spillway who wants this development," Bailey Mapp told the council. "When I retired from the military, I could have moved anywhere, I've lived from north to south in this country, California to Carolina, but we decided to come back home so my wife could be close to her family. We bought the house that we bought because it was a part of Tuscaloosa that had been, up to that point, preserved as a residential district. We ask that you keep it that way."

The problem for the council, though, was that Duncan said the Plotts intended to build the gas station, stores and apartments even if they were not annexed into Tuscaloosa.

The annexation would of course benefit the developers - it would zone the apartments for Tuscaloosa City Schools, allow the stores to legally sell alcohol on Sunday and give the development access to city sewer systems - but the council said it will also allow them to have control over the quality and direction of the development.

"If this project is not annexed into the city, then I'm concerned about what would happen to the integrity of the communities and neighborhoods surrounding this property," Councilwoman Raevan Howard said. "Without this annexation, there would be no regulations, no standards concerning the building materials, no parking standards, no use standards - you could end up with a business that might seriously decrease the value of your home in significant ways by having a tattoo parlor at this location or a liquor store."

Others echoed her sentiment.

"Developers are going to develop and now they'll have an increased opportunity to do so here," Council President Kip Tyner said. "If it's going to be done, I'd rather it be done with regulations as opposed to no regulations."

Ultimately, the council voted 6-1 in favor of the rezoning. Only Councilman Norman Crow, who represents the district, voted against it.

For more coverage of City Hall and other news from around west Alabama, stay connected to the Tuscaloosa Thread.

Editor's note: the original version of this story and headline said the council had annexed these properties - the council voted to rezone the property, but did not yet annex them into city limits. That vote is expected in January.