HUNTSVILLE, Alabama – The Huntsville Planning Commission voted Tuesday night to approve a rezoning request for a planned high-end shopping center on a 126.9-acre tract at the northwest corner of Carl T. Jones Drive and Ledges Drive in Jones Valley.

The unanimous decision came after a public hearing was held to discuss whether the city should change the zoning from high-density residential and neighborhood retail to highway business C-4, which would allow for a wider range of retail and specialty uses.

Approved by the Planning Commission, the rezoning request will now move to the Huntsville City Council for another public hearing and vote in February.

An architect's rendering of a proposed 400,000-square-foot shopping center on the north side of Carl T. Jones Drive in Jones Valley. (Courtesy Raymond Jones Jr.)

The council chambers on the ground floor of Huntsville City Hall was moderately packed Tuesday night as residents approached the microphone to express their concerns about the proposed 400,000-square-foot shopping development.

Gary Smith, president of the Ledges Community Association, said his group is in favor of rezoning the property, but is actively working with the developer to come up with solutions and alternatives to provide safe access from Ledges Drive.

Smith said one of his group's biggest concerns is traffic "that will be resulting from the extensive shopping complex that's going in."

"We have been working with the Jones family, the developers of this property, to look at alternatives that might provide access from Ledges Drive into their new development," he said. "We haven't come to closure yet on that largely because we're not quite sure yet that the traffic studies have been adequate."

The shopping center would have three entrances on Carl T. Jones Drive and a fourth entrance from Ledges Drive, AL.com reported last month.

A Skipper Consulting traffic study found Carl. T. Jones Drive is "more than adequate to service this development, plus quite a bit more," Jones has said. Smith said the city of Huntsville also recently examined traffic on various portions of Ledges Drive, focusing mostly on the lower end closest to Carl T. Jones Drive.

Smith said the area's highest traffic periods typically fall on Thursday, Friday and Saturday. The studies that have been completed were conducted on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday.

"They haven't looked at the higher volumes of traffic on the weekends and have not yet considered the full build out of the Ledges community as part of the input for the types of access that might be required to provide safe access from the Ledges Drive area," he said.

Marie Bostick, Huntsville's manager of planning administration, said the city conducted a traffic count of the area and compared the results to Skipper's study.

"We took those counts and compared it to the data they used in the report just to validate it basically, and it did come out that it was validated based on the numbers that we got from our traffic counts," she said.

Developing the property with relatives, Raymond Jones, Jr., has said plat restrictions will be offered to prohibit mobile home parks, auto sales, bars, car repair shops and light manufacturing from locating to the property, which is across from Valley Bend in south Huntsville.

Huntsville resident David Nuttall, who said the plat restrictions "are not enough," told the Planning Commission it should take a look at the zoning laws as a whole and address what he sees is a "gaping hole in the zoning ordinance that doesn't allow for open space to be protected."

"What's being proposed looks like every other development," he said. "There's nothing new about it. It's parking in front of shops. That's not high-end or even remotely high-end in terms of visual."

Bostick said efforts are now underway to organize meetings and focus groups to discuss the city's future plans, which will "have a definite impact on future zoning."

Resident James Linderholm said there is plenty of "highway commercial that's underutilized right now."

"I'm not sure there's a compelling need to move this (land) from what it is," he said.

Jones has said the first stores at the shopping development could open as early as 2015.

Send Lucy Berry an email at lberry@al.com.