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By NOAH WORTHAM | Staff Writer

ALABASTER – The Alabaster City Council adopted a Floodplain Ordinance and approved two traffic light adjustments during a regularly scheduled city council meeting on Monday, Jan. 22.

During the meeting, the council held a public hearing and approved the adoption of the 2024 Floodplain Ordinance.

“This is updating an ordinance we had in 2013, and there’s a lot of clarifications on terms that were very vague,” said Brett Tucker, a city engineer for the city of Alabaster who prepared the ordinance. “When you pass an ordinance, people look at it and over time it develops and changes due to what they’ve experienced when they’re implementing it.”

According to Tucker, the 2024 version of the Floodplain Ordinance has grown from roughly 15 pages to nearly 45 and provides clarifications on terms from the previous version such as the definitions of is allowed to be developed and subdivided within a floodplain.

Those interested in learning more on the ordinance may read the entire document inside the packet agenda for the Jan. 22 Alabaster City Council Meeting on Cityofalabaster.com.

In other news, the Alabaster Council approved an agreement with Sain and Associates to provide traffic engineering services in construction with a traffic operations study at the corner of Highway 119 and Kent Dairy Road at a cost not to exceed $9,500.

“We get a lot of complaints and concerns about traffic flow in that area with the heavy traffic with Starbucks and the bank right there,” Councilmember Zach Zahariadis said. “So, we are actually entering into a traffic agreement study with Sain and Associates to try and figure out a better option to try to alleviate some of that traffic flow congestion.”

The city is also entering into an agreement with Sain and Associates to review and develop traffic control plans at 1st Ave. West and Navajo Trail and Thompson Road at a cost not to exceed $20,000.

“We are trying to do a traffic light adjustment, and we’re going try and make a few tweaks here and there to try to ease traffic flow in that area,” Zahariadis said.

During the meeting, the Council also approved an agreement with Hoar Program Management LLC for construction management for the Alabaster Recreation Center project at a cost not to exceed $182,988.

“That’s going to be regarding project management over our rec center as it is approaching quicker and quicker here soon,” Zahariadis said. “They are going to be handling the project management design phase initially so they can be our hands and feet on the ground—communicating for the city on our behalf with the design engineers to try to make sure that we don’t miss anything moving forward with this large project we got coming.”

In other news, the Alabaster City Council approved the following items on the agenda:

• An agreement with Gonzalez-Strength & Associates, Inc. for preliminary alignments and cross sections near the Carmeuse Quarry from U.S. 31 to Massey Road in an amount not to exceed $23,500.
• A resolution authorizing a funding request for the 2024 Miss Alabama’s Outstanding Teen Pageant to be held at Thompson High School in the amount of $3,500 plus lunch provided by the city.
• The appointment of Milly Stewart to the Medical Clinic Board with a term expiring Dec. 1, 2029.
• The appointment of Tracy Coyne to supernumerary place two of the Board of Zoning Adjustment for the city with a term expiring Dec. 1, 2024.