The Alabama Senate voted on Thursday to repeal a controversial law passed last year, authorizing municipalities to annex county land for resort-style developments.
Senate Bill 12, sponsored by Alabama Senate President Pro Tem Garlan Gudger, R-Cullman, would repeal a law passed last year, sponsored by Sen. Jabo Waggoner, R-Vestavia Hills.
The law, then Senate Bill 322, cosponsored by Gudger during the 2025 legislative session, authorizes wet municipalities in dry counties to annex a “community development district.”
Municipalities are given the authority to annex at least 250 acres of dry county land, which may be non-contiguous to the municipality’s borders, for the creation of resort-style community development districts that allow the sale of alcohol.
The bill’s passage followed Cullman resident and owner of Trident Marina Jeff Tolbert’s 2024 proposal to invest $275 million in Cullman County to build a resort area on Smith Lake featuring a conference center, hotel, marina, small airport and golf courses.
On the Senate floor, Gudger stated that he supported the legislation last year due to the economic development it would have brought to the area.
“I love economic development. I thought this was a good bill last year,” he said.
Gudger, who first announced SB12 last August, cited hostility from the local community to the proposed resort development as his reasoning for seeking the 2025 law’s repeal.
“When I got home, I started listening to the people, and a lot of the people that were in my county did not want to change the way that the culture and the living was there on the lake,” he said.
The Cullman County Commission adopted an official resolution opposing last year’s bill last April, arguing that by allowing noncontiguous annexations, the bill would “create fragmented governance, complicate infrastructure planning, and potentially undermine local control over zoning, taxation, and public services.”
Opposition to SB322 also included speculation that the bill would allow developers to operate gambling institutions in annexed developments, prompting Gudger to present an amendment to ensure developers are not able to use the properties to operate a “casino, nor any other commercial or charitable gaming activities.”
However, following its passage, the law continued to draw opposition from several candidates in Cullman’s two special House elections last year alongside local community members.
“One of the hardest things that I’ve had to do is listen and realize that sometimes when we do things down here that we’re not always right, and that even though I think that this was a positive bill, as we moved forward, the people of Alabama in my district did not like it,” the president pro tem added.
SB322 took effect on October 1, 2025. However, the city of Cullman never elected to annex the land for the proposed development.
Newly elected Representative Cindy Myrex, R-Cullman, a Smith Lake realtor who campaigned on SB322’s repeal, is carrying a version of the legislation to repeal the bill in the House.
SB12 will advance to a review from the Alabama House Economic and Tourism Committee.
