The City of Cullman has embarked on a months-long investigation into ways it can update its building and zoning codes for both developers and property owners, recruiting a Birmingham-based consulting company to spearhead the effort.

With multiple opportunities for public engagement ahead of forthcoming changes to the city’s existing building and zoning codes next year, city planners and elected leaders sat down Wednesday with planner Jason Fondren of the Birmingham-based KPS Group to offer a preview of how they’re approaching a task whose time, they say, has come.

“The idea,” said Fondren, “is to take all the old language in the ordinances that still works; that still has value, and to ‘patch in’ changes that are going to be integral pieces to the city’s approach to development. They won’t be band-aids that conflict with existing language found elsewhere in the city’s building codes, which is part of the current problem.”

Fondren said Cullman is eying a three-pronged approach to refreshing the legal groundwork for future development. 

In addition to an all-new “traditional neighborhood development district” plan — one that would accommodate modern trends in housing and business building that earlier generations never anticipated — the city also will overhaul its current subdivision regulations, as well as refresh its zoning ordinance.

“We’re looking at having the subdivision regulations ready by February, so that they could theoretically go before the planning commission in March,” said Fondren, noting that the zoning ordinance will take longer — possibly as long as a year — to revise.

The new focus on crafting neighborhood-friendly regulations may come as a welcome development to anyone who’s hoped that Cullman might someday make room in its rulebook for current residential trends like tiny houses, in-law garages, and mixed-use dwellings. 

“We are getting a lot of questions from people about tiny houses and small, secondary in-law homes,” explained Rick Fulmer, the city’s building, planning, and zoning director. “There are some long-term issues to look at with those types of dwellings, but I don’t think there’s any opposition to devising a way to allow for them, but what we have to get right is making sure we have an ordinance that takes into account how property changes hands in the future.”

 The city will announce public information-gathering sessions and provide detailed information about the changes it’s considering as the KPS-guided project moves forward, said Mayor Woody Jacobs.