By NEAL WAGNER / Managing Editor

The Alabama Supreme Court has ordered the Shelby County Circuit Court to reverse a 2012 summary judgment requiring Alabaster to rezone a piece of property to accommodate a proposed senior citizen apartment complex off Alabaster Boulevard.

In an opinion released on Jan. 24, the state Supreme Court overturned the Shelby County Circuit Court’s previous ruling, which would have required Alabaster to rezone a 19.4-acre piece of property near the Propst Promenade shopping center to allow the 144-unit apartment complex.

In 2009, the Shelby Land Partners company, which owns much of the land near the intersection of Interstate 65 and U.S. 31 in Alabaster, requested the city rezone the 19.4-acre plot from a community business district to a multi-family residential district.

If rezoned, Shelby Land Partners and the Alabaster Land Company, which owns half of the plot, planned to construct an apartment complex for low-income adults 55 and older.

After the Alabaster Planning Commission recommended the property not be rezoned in late 2009, the Alabaster City Council voted 4-3 on January 2010 to deny the rezoning request.

Shortly after the council denied the rezoning, Shelby Land and Alabaster Land filed a lawsuit against the city and the City Council members requesting the Shelby County Circuit Court grant the rezoning request.

In October 2012, the Circuit Court issued a summary judgment ordering Alabaster to rezone the property to allow for the apartment complex, calling the city’s decision to deny the rezoning “arbitrary, capricious, unreasonable” and “contrary to law.”

The city of Alabaster and the council members then appealed the Circuit Court’s decision to the state Supreme Court.

“We cannot say that the city’s decision to deny the application to rezone the portion of the city’s largest commercial area for multi-family residential use was not ‘fairly debatable,’ particularly given the (city’s) expressed desire to maintain the commercial character of the community business district,” read the Supreme Court’s majority decision, which was signed by Chief Justice Roy Moore and all eight associate justices.