FOLEY – Greenbelt zones will provide buffers between new developments and major roads in Foley.
The Foley City Council voted to give final approval to a zoning ordinance amendment to established greenbelt zones. Wayne Dyess, Foley executive director of infrastructure and development, said the zones will be an area between roadways and new developments that includes trees or other buffers.
“This would be a buffer area that will be required when you have residential development abutting arterial and collector roadways in the city,” Dyess said. “This area would be a green space. You could have sidewalks, lighting community walls or fences in this area. This is designed to create a more pleasant traveling environment, but to also create noise and visual barrier for the neighborhoods that are next to these arterial roadways.”
The greenbelt would include landscaping, trees, shrubs and ground cover to create a barrier along the front perimeter of a subdivision. The greenbelt would be at least 25 feet wide.
Dyess said the ordinance allows the Planning Commission flexibility to suit the requirements to a particular location.
“It is flexible enough to allow the Planning Commission to modify this where conditions might dictate,” Dyess said. “Those areas would specifically relate to the particular development around it to make sure it’s in the context of the surroundings.”
Areas where modifications might be allowed could include the downtown central business area, adjacent downtown neighborhoods, village centers with high street connectivity and developments with superior design, where the greenbelt may not align with the surrounding or adjacent development context.
The greenbelt zones will mitigate the canyon-like effect of long rows of fences lining major streets next to large subdivisions. Landscaping will break up the continuous lines and soften the appearance of perimeter fencing on the boundary of a subdivision.
The Foley Public Works Department is working on plans to plant trees along municipal rights-of-way, collaborating with a landscape architect for location, design and species recommendations.
The city project to replant trees is part of a broader effort to re-established the canopy that was lost in Hurricane Sally in 2020.
The ordinance will not apply to existing subdivisions. The requirements will be only for developments that will be built in the future.
Under the ordinance, the greenbelt zones will be maintained by the subdivision property owners association or the homeowners association.