Cullman will be getting assistance from the North Central Alabama Regional Council of Governments to make sure its zoning regulations are up to date to meet the future needs of the city.

NARCOG Executive Director Jeff Pruitt attended Monday’s meeting of the Cullman Planning Commission and said his organization will work with the city to look at zoning regulations, subdivision regulations or any other regulations that may need to be updated, and will then come back with recommendations on an approach the city can take moving forward.

“What we’d like to do is work with you closely to see what you need to do to get what you want to get going forward,” he said. “We want to work with y’all closely throughout the process.”

To start the process, Pruitt handed out a survey to the members of the commission that included several questions about the city, including neighborhoods that they like or don’t like or any issues that continually come up in meetings.

“We want to find out the direction that you want to go in,” he said. “We’re your regional commission and we work for you.”

Pruitt said he will likely attend next month’s Planning Commission meeting to go over the answers of the survey and discuss any of NARCOG’s findings in its review of the city’s regulations.

Cullman Mayor Woody Jacobs said the city’s zoning regulations could use an update to make sure the city keeps up with the growth that it has been seeing and developers have a clear idea of what they can do.

“We’ve had some large tracts of land annexed recently that could have some major development,” he said. “They’re going to want to know what they can and can’t do.”

City Inspector Rick Fulmer agreed that the city could use a look at updating some of its regulations, including the subdivision ordinance that he has been trying to get rewritten for several years.

“It’s hard to understand, and we want to be developer-friendly, but we want to protect the city,” he said. “I think this is an opportunity to update that ordinance and make it work.”

In other business, the Planning Commission: 

Approved a short-form subdivision request at Main Avenue SW and Park Drive SW.

Approved Heritage Village subdivision preliminary phase III.

Approved a site plan for O’ Reilly Auto Parts on 2nd Avenue NW. 

Approved a site plan for Boozer Eye Care on Field of Miracles Drive SW.