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Long-range planning features multiple topics

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By Grace Lovins


The 2025 Birmingham long-range planning session, hosted each year with city staff and commissioners, on Saturday, January 25, gave the city commission insight into anticipated long-term projects and plans from the city departments for the upcoming year.


Commissioners and staff spend a full Saturday every year discussing the future plans of all city departments to get a feel for what they can expect to see taking place in the city. During this year’s session, big plans were presented from the city’s planning department related to sustainability and the city’s police department related to city hall renovations.


Birmingham Planning Director Nick Dupuis spent his time slot briefing the commission on a number of broad trends anticipated for the next year, identified by the American Planning Association.


What earned Dupuis a ‘gold star’ from two commissioners was his talk on the Birmingham Green: Healthy Climate Plan and city sustainability efforts as a whole. Dupuis updated the commission on the status with the plan’s implementation, noting establishing a full committee, budget proposal, residential rain garden program and schedule of deliverables that are in progress.


Dupuis also presented a new fee, called a congestion fee, currently being researched by the department. The idea is that a small amount of money per transaction for parking in the city would be put into a sustainability fund that would accrue over time. According to Dupuis, the city parks almost 3 million cars each year and the financial burden would not be placed solely on Birmingham residents.


Another significant item up for discussion was renovations to the city hall building. Commissioners discussed the topic in past meetings after the Birmingham police department’s accreditation assessment. As noted in past assessments, the accreditation of the police department could be in jeopardy due to significant concerns with safety, security and storage at their current facility inside city hall.


Birmingham Police Chief Scott Grewe walked the commission through the department’s plans currently in the works to address the issues, specifically their dispatch operations, interview room, lack of sally port and insufficient evidence storage.


Starting with dispatch operations, Grewe said the department is looking at expanding dispatch’s space by removing technology equipment that is no longer needed since the software they use has become cloud-based.


In terms of the building’s security, the department is looking to install new, 360 degree interior cameras for public hallways and department counters, as well as install a new access control system that uses key cards rather than an access code. New walls will also be constructed in certain parts of the building to enhance the security between the police department operations and other city hall operations.


Grewe explained that the department is also looking at ways to create direct access between the booking area and interview room. Currently, suspects have to be taken through multiple levels of the building to get to the interview room on the basement floor, which poses a safety issue. They will also be looking into developing a sally port, Grewe said. The current setup also poses a safety issue as officers have to park their cars and take a suspect through an area frequently used by the public to get them inside.


No formal action is taken by the commission during long-range planning. Commissioners can expect to see some of the items come before them as the year progresses.

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