hoover alabama reject islamic school rezoning
© 1819/XOver 175 people turned out for the Hoover Planning and Zoning Commission meeting in opposition to a proposed Islamic community center, December 1, 2025.
The Hoover Planning and Zoning Commission has voted to forward the request for the Islamic Academy of Alabama and Muslim prayer center, with a recommendation to deny it.

Approximately 175 people turned out for the meeting Monday night, most in opposition to the proposed zoning change that would allow the Islamic Academy of Alabama to move into Hoover's Meadowbrook Corporate Park. Public comments lasted 40 minutes before the vote to move the matter to the city council, with a recommendation to deny the project.

"At present, staff are unable to make a positive recommendation," Mac Martin, the city planner, told the commission during the work session portion of the meeting.

"We don't find it in alignment with the comprehensive plan," Martin explained as one of the main reasons before describing concerns with both the traffic study and occupancy projections.

The project scope seems to be "shifting and unclear," and "seems to change with each version of the traffic study," Martin said.

The original proposal was for a K-12 school and community center. The purpose and scope of the community center evolved through multiple iterations, shifting from occasional use to use multiple times a day and several days a week, as it would serve as a public prayer and events center. During the traffic engineer's presentation, the center was repeatedly referred to as a "Prayer center."

City staff also had concerns about capacity projections; the first proposal estimated 350 students, whereas the latest showed 400 students enrolled.

However, the building code calculates the occupancy rate at 20 square feet per student, allowing for 5,000 students. The city planner said that while the school was willing to cap attendance, the city would likely be unable to track and enforce its self-imposed limits.

Following the city planner's concerns, the meeting was called to order.

Lucas Gambino, presented the case for the school, disputing the city's concerns.

"We're not here to mislead anybody or trick anybody," Gambrino said about the changing scope of the community center, which was later called a prayer center or what he called an auxiliary center.


Comment: Not a promising opening gambit.


He said that the school was willing to cap their student population and the hours that the prayer center was open to the public, taking issue with the idea that the city was not equipped to monitor the school's compliance with those caps or concessions.

His most jarring comments came in the form of a threat on behalf of the Drummond family.

"The idea that holding these 200,000 square feet buildings hostage for a tech buyer to come in and occupy those buildings, when you have a developer that owns those buildings, that's paying significant carrying costs, on a monthly basis, for those buildings. It's gonna be asked to sit back and wait for a tech buyer to come in and occupy those buildings," Gambino explained.

"I tell you, the Drummond family's not gonna do that. They're gonna move forward and sell this building when they can sell it, and if it's a data center that they sell to, nobody's coming before this body. They're gonna move into that facility because they're authorized to do so, and that's twice the 50% question that somebody raised earlier. That's twice the existing traffic and volume." The crowd jeered at the prospect of the ultimatum school or data center near their homes.

Following the nearly 30-minute presentation by Gambino and the traffic expert, the public comments began.
hoover alabama islamic community center turned down
© abc3340.comThe Hoover, Alabama meeting was overflowing with around 170 locals opposing the motion to move the existing Islamic Academy in Homewood to Hoover
Jeff Wilson, the creator of the petition, stood up and said that over 1,700 residents had signed in opposition to the project. He detailed his daily experience with an already overwhelmed traffic corridor and noted that, despite the traffic study, he believes it would have a negative impact.

John Padgett, a homeowner with the residential property closest to the location, got up to speak. "I see the traffic backed up every morning already. When they start, if you add a few hundred cars to that, it's gonna be backed up past the stop sign," questioning the results of the traffic study that said the school would have zero impact on current conditions.

Padgett then described a recent incident at an Airbnb next door to his home.

"I want to be very sensitive and careful in the way I say this," he began, noting that he didn't want to seem as though he was attacking a particular religion.
"They weren't supposed to have any kind of big parties, but they had an Islamic wedding there."

"I was out of town. I got people sending me videos. They blocked my cars in my driveway. Just, they parked... I don't know how many cars, 30, 40 cars throughout the neighborhood. They park in my driveway, without my permission, blocking my car that I didn't know if I was there or not."
"They drove through my yard. Waving Islamic flags, out the window, and screaming things in Arabic," he described, saying that video existed of these things happening.
"We weren't there. Luckily, you know, I don't know what would have happened if I was there, and my wife was there by herself. It was very intimidating."

"There's different cultures, and there's different respecting boundaries. And that's all I'm saying. They didn't seem to think that was a problem to drive through my yard, leaving tracks in my yard, waving, holding flags out their trucks as they drove around screaming. That's my personal experience."
Padgett wasn't the only one to address the concerns related to faith. After numerous speakers addressed the zoning and traffic issues, a speaker came forward to share her experience.

A new resident of Hoover came forward to share her experience in the United Kingdom.
"I was shocked to witness the land that gave us the King James Bible, supposedly a Christian nation, overwhelmingly being taken over. I witnessed in the United Kingdom, especially, in Manchester, Birmingham, London, that the multiculturism did not work."

"The Muslims did not assimilate. In fact, the Brits bent backwards to accommodate their demands over and over, again, to the level of feeling the second-class citizens in their own country."

"The citizens could not even voice their grief because it was immediately associated with that type of phobia. They gave in an inch and were soon taken for rides, miles away, with no hope of landing back to familiarity."
She went on to describe ways that the locals changed their lives and culture for immigrants of the Muslim faith before being cut off by the chair of the commission, who was ready to call for a vote.
"In reality, they're not assimilated nor integrated. But, rather, estranged from our society. Would that not threaten our all well-being and city?"
she continued after posing questions about the need for a separate school.

The chair stopped her again before calling for a vote. Initially, a motion to send the request to the city council without a recommendation was made, but it did not receive a second.

A motion to move the proposal forward, with a recommendation to deny it, was then passed unanimously.

The City Council is likely to take it up at its first January meeting.