During 2022, Limestone County and the City of Athens continued to experience significant residential development growth.

County Subdivision Developments

In 2022, over 2,300 lots were approved by the Limestone County Commission. Of those approved, 77 percent of the lots are located in Limestone County’s District 2.

District 2 Commissioner Danny Barksdale did not appear surprised about the total from the past year.

“Since the year 2000, there has been 3,000 in District 2. The ones in District 3 are in the City of Huntsville and they would not appear on our agenda. We didn’t have to approve them,” Barksdale said.

Barksdale points out that many of the homes approved over the past couple of years are now built and ready for occupancy.

“Right now, there’s been a lot of building but they are just now beginning to be populated with folks moving into them. We did a traffic study probably a year ago and the only choice we have to facilitate the traffic is to improve the intersections,” Barksdale said.

Barksdale believes the roads can handle the growth and explained that a single lane road can accommodate 10,000 cars per day.

“We don’t have any roads that exceed that capability. it’s just getting them through intersections that will be our challenge.”

With the number of subdivisions popping up in District 3, Barksdale feels implementing subdivision regulations is past due.

“We need to strengthen our regulations. For example, on Capshaw Road, a new subdivision just went in. we should have had a turn lane there but our subdivision regulations didn’t allow us to require that. What we fail to get a developer to do today is something that may potentially cost the County something at a later date,” Barksdale said.

Barksdale is concerned about the rate in which his area of Limestone County is growing and believes it’s growing “too fast.”

“I like slow internal growth. Our growth is from people moving in here. We have people moving in here who have never paid a penny of Limestone County tax that we have to support. That’s the reason I am a fan of impact fees,” Barksdale said. “I wouldn’t mind putting an impact fee on those people asking them to help out with the growth costs.”

One example Barksdale used as to why he believes an impact fee is appropriate and sensible is the damage left behind when an out of town developer completed a subdivision.

“They brought property, developed it, and the trucking from the development tore up Wells Road. We spent $180,000 to repair that road. The developer is going to sell off all those lots and take his money back to Florence while we are stuck with the cost of repairing the road. An impact fee would have given us help on those costs from the people that caused the cost rather than putting the cost on the Limestone County tax payer.”

Large item and debris pickup is also a growing issue in the County.

“A lot of these folks moving in are moving in from municipalities that offer city services. It hasn’t dawned on them that they have moved into an unincorporated county that does not offer city services.”

City Subdivision Developments

For a developer to go vertical on a development in the City, they have to first undergo a lengthy approval process.

“I mean, to come into existence, right, there’s a process,” Erin Tidwell said. “So a major subdivision is anything with four plus lots; it’s going to have infrastructure, roads that become public streets, that type of thing.”

This approval process is overseen by the Planning Commission and is a multi-stage process.

“It has to go to Planning Commission, they have to get approval for a layout generally, and then they come back and they go through preliminary and then they come back and after they get their preliminary approval, they go into the infrastructure in the ground,” Tidwell said. “With all the infrastructures in the ground, the lots are where they need to be, they come back and they do final and the final means it’s pretty much ready. You’re ready to sell lots in that subdivision to go vertical.”

As of January 2023, nearly 3,500 dwelling units completed the process and are ready to pull permits.

“We’ve had [3,408] dwelling units, as of [January 2023], that have made it through that funnel. They are approved to pull a building permit. [As of November 2022] we’ve had 1,741 that have started that initial process to get layout approval or some type of that initial approval,” Tidwell said. “As of [January 2023], we had [1,928] lots that were in that preliminary stage. They’ve gotten their preliminary approval, they’re ready to put the infrastructure in the ground.”

In 2022 there were 436 permits issued for single family detached dwellings, 41 for single family attached dwellings (townhomes), and 17 for three or more family buildings.

“We have quite a bit going on and it’s all over the city,” Tidwell said.