Planners from Dover, Kohl & Partners

Planners from Dover, Kohl & Partners of Coral Gables, Florida, spent more than a week in the Spring Hill area of Mobile, Alabama, working with residents, city planners, and traffic engineers on changes to three major intersections. The Press-Register reported that “the current asphalt-heavy scenario will be replaced with tree- and flower-lined streetscapes” if a blueprint prepared by Dover, Kohl is acted upon. The planners were hired by a nonprofit group of volunteers, The Village of Spring Hill, which has raised more than $1 million in grant money and other donations. Mayor Sam Jones said the city would commit about $113,000 for sidewalks on Old Shell Road. A real estate investor, Johnny Roberts, agreed to revise a planned townhouse project to incorporate the group’s ideas, such as “making it more community-friendly and not an enclosed courtyard-type of development.” Linda St. John, president of The Village of Spring Hill, said Dover, Kohl will develop a form-based code to bring buildings closer to the street, allow multistory structures, introduce new parking and shared-parking rules, and institute new stormwater requirements. The zoning reform ideas will be presented to city planners. “The current zoning was written in the 1950s, and the city agrees that it could use updating,” St. John said.