By Tara DeRock Mahoney
Senior Staff Writer

Madison City Council members tabled on Monday a request by Jeff Royal to rezone a North Avenue lot from R-1 to R-2.
   

Royal, who is in the process of renovating an existing historic house on the 2.21-acre lot, hopes to be able to subdivide the lot into three R-2 parcels, which must each be a minimum of one-half acre with appropriate street frontage. The lot is just .04 acres short of being large enough to subdivide into three lots under current R-1 zoning, under which residential lots must be at least three-quarters of an acre with approprivate street frontage.
   

After much discussion of the issue, most of which centered on whether or not the potential rezoning could be called spot-zoning—the city said “yes,” since there is no existing R-2 zoning adjacent to the property in question; the applicant said “no,” since there is no change in use proposed for the property—the council tabled the matter.
   

Royal could come back to the council with a modified re-zoning proposal, or he could attempt to purchase adjacent acreage that would allow the development to go forward without rezoning the lot.
   

The council also tabled a hearing regarding a potentially dangerous dog on Garnet Street in Madison, after the owner agreed to work with city animal control officials to either appropriately contain the male pit bull or neuter the animal.
   

City Manager David Nunn announced that city street crews officially moved into the new municipal building on Fairground Road in Madison; the new structure and new city fuel pumps are completely operational. Nunn said that he wished to publicly acknowledge and thank the Morgan County Board of Education and its school bus center for allowing city vehicles to share fuel pumps at that site in recent months as the new city pumps were being constructed and approved.

“They really helped us to bridge between these two facilities, and we’re grateful,” said Nunn.

Finally, the council determined that it will not hold its regularly-scheduled 4th-Monday council meeting in December, since that meeting would fall on the 23rd and some council members will be out of town for the holidays. The council instead plans to meet in a special called session at 8:30 a.m. on December 19 at the Madison Fire Station. They will be reviewing applications for 2009 alcohol licenses at that meeting, among other topics.