Scotty Prince says his dream died for lack of a motion.

The 63-year-old heating and air company owner envisioned using his property along Pocahontas Road near Bessemer to install three public storage units. But his request to rezone the property was denied as none of the Jefferson County Commissioners moved Thursday to consider it.

“This has been a dream of mine like 35 years,” Prince said of himself and his wife Kendolynn. “We have scrimped, saved, sacrificed, done without, drove old cars (and) didn’t go on vacations so we could scrape up enough money to buy a piece of land so that we could build mini-warehouses on them.”

When Commission President Jimmie Stephens called for a motion, no one on the dais said anything — not to approve it or deny it. County Attorney Theo Lawson confirmed that the request was denied because there was no motion to consider.

Prince’s previous zoning request was denied, he said, because of concerns about water runoff. Thursday, the denial came because his planned use of the land is not in line with the county’s recently approved Forward Together Comprehensive Plan 2025.

Michael Morrison of the county’s Office of Development Services said the county is looking to establish something “community based” where residents can walk to shop or engage.

“That particular intersection … there’s a lot of activity,” Morrison said. “There are some established neighborhood commercial-type stuff. That’s fine.”

Prince lamented that there are about 150 new houses in the area that would benefit from having a place to store things “unless it’s up at some Metro Mini Storage or something like that.” The applicant also cited a storage facility owned by Stephens, the commission president, and wondered about the difference.

Stephens said later that his facility on Morgan Road is in a commercial district and in the city of Bessemer, which is beyond the county’s jurisdiction. Prince’s property is not in a commercial district, which is a condition for locating storage facilities under the new comprehensive plan.

Stephens said the commission followed the county’s land use plan, which was just changed.

“If we would go outside of that to make a change so quickly, we would not be doing our job of improving the quality of life for the citizens,” he said. “I fully understand that gentleman wants to support his family. Sometimes unfortunate things like that do occur.

“But when we (weigh zoning requests), we consider the entire community, the needs of the entire community instead of the needs of an individual,” Stephens said. “His property’s there and (there are) plenty of good uses for that property that would coincide with the new planning that we’ve had. We will encourage him to seek those avenues to work with our land planning department to make sure the citizens are served.”

Also Thursday, commissioners approved 51 resolutions that were vetted during the body’s committee meeting on Tuesday. That included affirming the county’s support of the Northern Beltline project as an important infrastructure investment for the growth and economic development of Jefferson County. The new interstate is being built to connect the eastern area of the county to the west through a northern route.

The initial section of the beltline is now being built between Alabama 75 and Alabama 79.