Fwd: Tuscaloosa City Council rejects possible rezoning bid for Alberta tattoo parlor | TuscaloosaNews.com
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Subject: Tuscaloosa City Council rejects possible rezoning bid for Alberta tattoo parlor | TuscaloosaNews.com
By Jason Morton
Staff WriterPublished: Wednesday, August 14, 2013TUSCALOOSA | A request by an Alberta business owner to rezone two lots that could have cleared the way for a tattoo parlor at the entrance to the Durrett Grove subdivision was rejected by the City Council on Tuesday.
Councilman Kip Tyner, who represents the area, was adamantly opposed to the request that would have converted lots 45 and 46 of the Durrett Grove neighborhood to a business neighborhood, or BN, zoning. He supported his opinion by citing the wishes of Durrett Grove residents as well as the city’s Planning and Zoning Commission and Department of Planning and Development Services, both of which opposed the zoning change.
The zoning would have allowed Jason Lightsey, a co-owner of the Tattoo Experience, the option of relocating the business to the two lots while awaiting the construction of a new Tattoo Experience building near Alberta Baptist Church along University Boulevard East.
A BN zone would allow the operation of the tattoo parlor, but the 0.23-acre site’s current BGO zoning does not.
Lightsey said there were no definitive plans for the property and never said he intended to relocate the tattoo parlor here. He did, however, say plans for the site on University Boulevard East are not yet complete and that it would take at least six months to construct the new building once those plans are finalized.
But Tyner said during the council’s pre-council meeting that he was convinced Lightsey and Jason Boling, his business partner in the Tattoo Experience, intended to put the tattoo parlor at the entrance to a neighborhood that has been around for approximately 65 years.
“There’s commercial property every 10 steps that would not encroach or hurt this neighborhood,” Tyner said. “Alberta has many, many acres of vacant land.”
Tyner said he lives three doors down from the lots in question and that his grandmother lives next door, and to further limit a similar rezoning request, the councilman asked the City Council’s Public Projects Committee to support his request that the lots in question be rezoned to R-1, or single-family residential.
The committee unanimously approved a measure that will send Tyner’s rezoning request to the city’s Planning and Zoning Commission for consideration.
Lightsey and four other residents spoke during a public hearing prior to the rezoning vote in an attempt to urge the City Council to approve the rezoning.
“I give you my word that if you rezone it, (any new development) will be done nice ... and suit everybody’s wants and needs,” Lightsey said.
It was Tyner, however, who got the last word before he and his fellow council members voted.
“We want to keep this residential,” Tyner said. “It’s not me against anybody.
“This is me, first of all, doing my job. I’m representing my constituents tonight. I’m representing Durrett Grove.”
http://www.tuscaloosanews.com/article/20130814/NEWS/130819926/1007?Title=Tuscaloosa-City-Council-rejects-possible-rezoning-bid-for-Alberta-tattoo-parlor