The Mobile City Council convened on October 21, 2025, to address a wide range of administrative, zoning, and public safety matters. Key discussions centered on a proposed amendment to the vacant structure registry fees in the Henry Aaron Loop, which the council unanimously deferred for one week to review new language and ensure fee structures are equitable. The council also extensively debated the revocation of a business license for the 1608 St. Stephen's Road establishment due to noise ordinances and public safety concerns, deciding to delay the decision to request detailed activity curves and historical precedents from administration. Additionally, the council received detailed presentations supporting the Alabama Construction Trade Academy, a workforce development initiative funded by a permit fee on residential construction.
Ladies and gentlemen now in the hands of our capable city clerk, Ms. Lisa Carroll. This is the pre-meeting of the Mobile City Council Tuesday, October the 21st. We have approval of minutes from September 24th and September 30th. Any issues anyway. All right. Appeals, we have requests for waiver the noise ordinance on October the 25th from 5 p.m. till 10 p.m. on uh fleetwood drive. Okay. Public hearings today is the public hearing to consider the proposed conditional use permit for property located at 2316 Hillwood Drive West. Public hearing to consider the modification of a previously approved put for a property located at 550 Providence Park Drive East. Okay. Presentation of petitions and other communications to the council. Mary Palmer uh request for annual Boeington day to honor Chris Boyanton who was accused and hung for the murder of Nathaniel Frost. Um Lakeesha Clement comments about the revocation of Fat 2C Sports Bar. Oh, Valencia Green cancel. Ordinances held over 52046 about chapter 52, real property maintenance and enforcement article eight vacant structure registry for Henry Aaron Loop. Ms. President, um Mr. Runnels. I don't know that we distributed all the changes over to y'all, but um I think it's certainly something we should probably talk about, the various changes that we came up with, and I'll get these distributed out to everyone, but I wanted to run through a few of these um just so everybody knows kind of what they're looking at when you look at it. The intent of the changes were to remove some of the ambiguities with in the ordinance so that it's not so subjective to folks. Um, and then also to instead of requiring every every property owner within the Henry Aaron Loop to just register on their own. We now have shifted it to make the in this amendment. The city, if they identify a potentially vacant building, they will then place notice on that building, and then once notice is given, then it'll be up to that property owner to show that they are in fact not vacant or they need or they meet some exemption or that they are vacant and then they need to be placed on the registry and pay the you know the the registry, you know, bill on that. Um so it changes the obligation. Uh we removed several sections where it said the reason to the reasonable determination of the code official. We struck through much of that. I'll get all of this to y'all. I'm sorry you hadn't gotten it. There were some last-minute uh snafus with trying to get it, you know, all together. Uh one other big thing was the fee schedule. I think it's something worth discussing. When you get commercial structures without any residential units, you go to a minimum amount that you will be charged or a per square foot amount that it's in there. Currently, for the first year, it's a thousand dollars or five cents per square foot, and that puts a 20,000 square foot building owner in the same category as a 1,000 square foot building owner, and those two don't pose the same sort of public safety risk or the same um amount of vacancy. So I've we've restructured that and you really have two options. And here we we we made it where it's a thousand square foot is the smallest amount, but then 10 cents per square foot for the square footage amount, which then you know equals it out. So a 10,000 square foot building owner is gonna pay the same as a 1,000 square foot building owner versus a 1,000 square foot building owner paying the same as a 20,000 square foot building owner. That's not a fair deal, but we can structure it either way. We can make the fees less, or we can make the fee fees higher and come out with a similar outcome. I'll distribute these all to you guys, and uh maybe we can get a vote, but uh if not, you know, we can hold it obviously a week if if necessary. Sorry, it took so long to get through these. This is sort of a 10-pager that is not you know easy to get everybody on the same page. Council, are y'all won't like to hold it over for a week or especially if you haven't looked at the new language. I don't see the lead for it. I'm not gonna let uh the only thing that I didn't agree with is the uh language uh on five and ten cents. It's not clear if you're five cents up to a thousand square feet, ten cents for each additional thousand square feet, or if it's ten cent on a larger building per total total square footage. It would apply total square footage to the greater of. So the way it's structured currently is 1,000 square foot.