Two requests before the Orange Beach Planning Commission for housing developments near Sam’s store and northwest of Caswell received unfavorable recommendations from the panel. But that doesn’t mean the developments won’t proceed.

According to Commission Jack Robertson, the details included in the plans are why the commissioners voted against them. But both can proceed by using the current zoning – the zoning on the property when the owners bought – if they meet some infrastructure requirements from the city.

One is a 45-acre parcel at the northwest intersection of Canal Road and Sampson Avenue owned by attorney Daniel Blackburn calling for 76 single-family residences. The second one across the street from Sam’s is a development Greg Kennedy wants to put in 34 vacation rental cottages.

Robertson said the main problems commissioners had with the Blackburn request were a 60-slip marina and the lack of parking and easement problems on the west side of the property for an access road. In 2018, Blackburn made a request for 50-plus vacation rentals on the property, but the city council has been staunch against rezoning residentially zoned areas to vacation rentals “to preserve the sanctity of neighborhoods” and turned the plan down.

On the Kennedy request, Robertson said the proposal included gravel roadways and no sidewalks and commissioners wanted to see them included in plans.

Robertson said the city can’t stop them from building there but if problems arise from the plans the city can ask the developers to adjust them to meeting parking and infrastructure of if the plan could cause unsafe conditions.

The city council stopped a Dollar General on Canal Road just west of the Keg because it was determined delivery trucks would be a danger to the neighborhood. It also stopped a plan for a Popeye’s Chicken north of the Dollar General on State Route 161 because of safety concerns over traffic caused by a drive-thru.

“By-right” Blackburn can build 78 single-family homes under the current zoning and Kennedy could put up a 100-unit condo building on the parcel he is proposing for development.