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By NOAH WORTHAM | Managing Editor

Over the last five months, small red signs have grown in number, appearing in resident’s lawns and nailed to trees, displaying in bold, red letters the phrase “No Convicted Felon Camp.” Soon, the controversy that began the large protest will be put to rest by a vote of the people on Tuesday, Aug. 27.

When Shelby County resident Leigh Hunt first found out that a transitional facility for formerly incarcerated persons was located directly next door to her own property in February 2024, she was terrified.

“It felt hopeless, and it felt terrifying,” Hunt said. “I felt like I had been punched in the gut when all of a sudden I realized that, for the last three years of living there, that my kids had camped outside (and there’s) no telling how many times at night that I’d been out there working in my garden by myself. Just all the times that I sent my youngest two kids out to get eggs from our chickens. Just how vulnerable we had been, not even knowing who was next door.”

Located at 33985 Highway 25, Harpersville in unincorporated Shelby County is the Breakaway Pointe Transitional Program, which housed formerly incarcerated persons who have been released from the criminal justice system. From 2014 to 2023, former inmates had been temporarily cycled through the living quarters on the property through the nonprofit Breakaway Pointe.

History of Breakaway Pointe

Breakaway Pointe was founded in February 2017 by Buck Phillips as a “ministry designed to restore individuals into productive members” according to government records. The organization based its efforts at the Dixieland Tradin’ Post at 33985 Highway 25, Harpersville, AL 35078.

“They wanted to work with Christian couples that needed an opportunity to get away and get restored for various reasons, but they also wanted to use it to help men that were coming out of our (LifeLink’s) specific program inside the Alabama prison system as a means for them to transition into society when they came out of prison,” said Randy Walker, a board member for Breakaway Point and the founder of LifeLink Career Resource Center which works to assist inmates in correctional facilities with reentry and integrating back into society.

The flea market continued to operate on the premises while also housing up to nine individuals at one time with the goal of helping them transition into a stable lifestyle.

“They were helping a lot of people,” Walker said. “There were quite a few men that transitioned out of our program at the Bibb County Correctional Facility into the flea market that they were helping.”

However, in 2018, one of the property’s owners contracted a terminal illness. In order to continue the ministry efforts, the owners decided to donate the property, flea market and Breakaway Point to the nonprofit, LifeLink Career Resource Center.

“So, what they decided to do rather than sell it was donate it to LifeLink,” Walker said. “That’s how we came about getting that property.”

However, according to Walker, after approximately six months, they determined that operating the flea market did not match the organization’s goals and shut it down. LifeLink also determined that the property as a whole was not appropriate for its services which focuses on work inside prisons.

“So, what the LifeLink Board of Directors did was turn around and donate that property from LifeLink into Breakaway Pointe,” Walker said.

Now, in ownership of the property, Breakaway Pointe continued to operate the facilities as a transitional space in unincorporated Shelby County. According to Walker, as of 2024, Breakaway Pointe no longer transitions ex-inmates through the facilities on the property.

The protest

In 2020, the nonprofit Breakaway Pointe engaged in a master plan development for the entirety of the 27-acre property in Shelby County which featured details on how the nonprofit would house former inmates and the various facilities that would be located on the property including manufacturing.

“The development plan for Breakaway Pointe is to become a manufacturing facility for construction related products plus other complimentary products and services,” read an official description of Breakaway Pointe on LifeLink’s website. “Revenue produced from products and services will help sustain organizational operations.”

The proposed facility would house approved CORE graduates who are released from prison and have earned the ability to enter LifeLink’s transitional process. LifeLink’s CORE—community, opportunity, reformation and education—is the part of a three phase program that aims to provide a process for incarcerated offenders and addresses “failed lifestyles that sent people to prison” and to “establish corrective behavioral practices that will keep people out of criminal activities,” according to LifeLink’s website.

“We sat around dreaming about what would work,” Walker said. “We already knew that what we were doing inside the prison was working and by then we’d had like three years of experience.”

If the development were funded and undertaken, the expanded Breakaway Pointe facilities in Shelby County would house CORE graduates under the supervision of the facility’s staff.

In February 2024, Hunt and other residents discovered the master plan project which had recently been uploaded to LifeLink’s website and began to protest Breakaway Pointe and the construction of the facility.

Public feedback led to the Harpersville City Council approving a resolution on March 4 opposing the construction of the proposed Breakaway Pointe Transitional Program, citing concerns that “the Town of Harpersville is not designed to and unable to support the construction and maintain the day-to-day demands of the proposed next step incarceration center.”

Residents of the Wilsonville area brought the same concerns to the Wilsonville City Council who looked into the issue and, during a meeting on April 1, unanimously voted to share letters by Fire Chief Davy Edwards and Mayor Ricky Morris addressing safety concerns at the location which would fall under the jurisdiction of the Wilsonville Volunteer Fire Department.

“It is my responsibility as the mayor of Wilsonville to ensure the safety of our fire department and citizens of the town of Wilsonville,” read Morris’ letter in response to Edwards. “In reading this letter from the fire chief, it has been made clear to me that a facility of this type would put undue burden on our fire department resources and in turn this could increase the safety risk to the citizens of Wilsonville.”

After the Wilsonville City Council meeting, Hunt began the website Stopbreakawaypointe.com and worked with other residents to gather funds and organize a protest of Breakaway Pointe and the proposed development on the property. Residents placed signs around Shelby County alongside highways and on lawns displaying the words “No Convicted Felon Camp.”

“My main concern is that, the more we’ve found out about this, the more that we’ve realized that for years, there have been people coming in and out of there that are convicted felons with no news to the community about that.” Hunt said. “Most people know who their neighbors are or at least they’re not constantly somebody different moving through next door. So, it’s concerning to me that we don’t know what’s going on over there, other than we know that felons have been regularly getting moved through there.”

However, according to Walker, despite the master plan, the full-scale facility that residents were in protest of was not something Breakaway Pointe was moving forward with.

“We’ve never made a proposal,” Walker said. “We’ve never really known what we were going to do.”

According to Walker, the project would cost millions and was not something they could feasibly do.

“We never knew if we were going to be able to do it because of affordability,” Walker said. “Our focus is on what we do inside the prison, and we’ve never had a vision for operating outside of the prison.”

Hunt questioned why the organization would go the lengths to draw up a master plan if it were never going to fully go through with the development.

“It just seems like (there is) a lot of planning and stuff to put on (the website),” Hunt said. “He had to have that drawn by somebody. People don’t do that for free.”

According to Walker, the creation of the master plan allowed Breakaway Pointe and LifeLink to present designs to a partner parole board and the Alabama Department of Corrections.

“Quite honestly, nobody to our knowledge, anywhere in the nation, has put together a framework like this,” Walker said. “It is a visual concept of a paradigm shift when it comes to dealing with people who are incarcerated and helping them cut back on crime, on recidivism.”

After the pushback from the community, Walker shared that they are not proceeding forward with building the facilities on the property in unincorporated Shelby County.

“We are not going to build any kind of housing on that property for ex-offenders,” Walker said.

Creating zoning

The initial draft of a zoning map for the Harpersville-Vincent zoning beat came about after Hunt approached the planning commission with concerns on particular land uses and regulations for new developments.

The property of Breakaway Pointe is part of unincorporated Shelby County and therefore, zoning regulations do not apply to it, only building permits. However, due to a unique piece of legislation, Shelby County is one of the few counties in Alabama that allows zoning in unincorporated areas.

“One of the unique things about this is, it gives the power to the citizens, not the county,” said Josh Osborn, manager for planning and community development. “We don’t get to decide where the zoning takes place, but the actual citizens in the community have the opportunity to carry a petition, if they meet all the requirements.”

Those interested in petitioning, must be a registered voter in that zoning area and need to be a property owner. As a result, on April 29, Hunt and a group of concerned residents delivered signed petitions to the Shelby County probate court asking for zoning which was subsequently signed by Judge Allison Boyd. As a result, a drawing of a potential zoning map for the whole beat was created.

“The Development Services Department took that action (and) we had to mobilize a plan,” Osborn said. “We took all the information we had. We had to start creating maps, looking at the land use for that area and then go back and study the comprehensive plan that reflects that rural residential community.”

The entire mapping zone under consideration consists of 301 registered voters with a total of 54,000 acres or 85 square miles and feature parts of Vincent, Westover, Harpersville and Wilsonville. The unincorporated areas consist of 28,000 acres or 44 square miles.

“And so, we had a lot of people from different communities,” Osborn said. “A lot of those folks were still from incorporated areas but they still had a desire to see property in the unincorporated areas develop in a fashionable way through zoning.”

After gathering public feedback and input at two meetings on June 20 and two meetings on June 25, the planning commission collected feedback one last time before voting on a finalized drawing on July 15.  That drawing was then subsequently approved by the Shelby County Commission during a meeting on July 22 after which it will finally go before the citizens of the beat for a vote on Aug. 27.

The vote

The controversial property at 33985 Highway 25, Harpersville where the flea market was formerly located, is now currently drawn on the zoning map as a Holding Zone after previously being utilized as commercial business district and allows for a single residential family dwelling.

If the proposed map is approved through the election, it would require the owner of former flea market property to go before the Shelby County Planning Commission to change the current zoning.

“This (would allow) that community basically to have a say through the planning commission,” Osborn said. “If you’ve got an undesirable concrete plant, for example, or a chicken factory coming in next door to you, nobody wants that typically in their backyard, whether you’re zoned rural residential or are a subdivision, for example, it’s already been developed. And so, we see that as a value given the opportunity through that legislation for the citizens to ask for zoning.”

If residents vote yes on the zoning map, any  individual or a company in the beat would have to go before the planning commission to change the zoning of their property.

“I think that it is beneficial because what zoning does is it creates guidelines to keep everything as it is right now,” Hunt said. “People live here because they like the way it is. So, this is just a protection that keeps it that way.”

Hunt expressed that she was fully in support of the zoning map and shared her reasoning.

“If it is something that’s good for the community and that the community is in favor of, all you have to do is submit a request to change zoning, and we wouldn’t have a problem with it if it’s not something that’s bad for the community,” Hunt said.

In an official release, the directors at Breakaway Pointe shared their position on the zoning map vote.

“To make our position clear, we are not opposed to eligible property owners voting for zoning restrictions on your personal property if it best serves you and your property’s potential,” read the release. “However, you shouldn’t vote from a place of unwarranted fear that has been fabricated by certain people who have absolutely no knowledge of our intentions. We will certainly be content with the outcome, especially since we have no current plans for the use of the flea market property.”

If residents vote no on the zoning map, then a system of zoning for the beat will not be created and properties will remain as they currently are.

The special election for the zoning map will take place on Aug. 27 from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. at Bakers Grove Baptist Church which can be found at 3333 Creswell Road, Harpersville, AL 35078. The election is open to registered voters who live in unincorporated Shelby County within the Harpersville-Vincent Zoning Beat.