The Islamic Academy of Alabama has formally withdrawn its rezoning application to the City of Hoover. While the Planning and Zoning Board voted last week to recommend that the Hoover City Council deny the application, ultimately, it would have been up to the council at its January 2026 meeting.
City Councilwoman Khristi Driver, the council's Planning & Zoning representative, confirmed to 1819 News on Sunday that the application has been formally withdrawn, ending a nearly seven-month process for the school to be granted a conditional use zoning permit to move to the Meadowbrook Corporate Park.
The first Planning and Zoning Board notice about the proposal was sent to nearby residents on May 23 for a June 9 hearing. The issue was then postponed twice at the school's request before finally being considered by the board at their December 1 meeting.
The board unanimously voted to refer the application to the city council, with a recommendation to deny the request due to concerns from the city planner and community opposition to the potential impact on traffic, as well as the city's long-term planning goal to make the office park a technology hub.
While the original application was for a K-12 school and community center, the representative of the traffic engineering firm hired by the school repeatedly referred to the secondary use as a "Prayer Center."
In a fundraising pitch on his personal Facebook page, Ziyad Awad, principal of the school, wrote, "Support the project of the new building of Islamic Academy of Alabama and a Masjid. An ongoing charity in this holy month, a project to purchase a new building for the Islamic school and a mosque for the Islamic community."
U.S. Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Auburn) expressed his opposition to the project in an interview following the vote.
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"There's a small school, that's a Muslim school, in that area. They want a larger area where they can build a bigger school, infiltrate more, and bring in more young people and teach them the Muslim faith," he explained.
"I'm a senator right now, and I'm going to fight it," Tuberville declared. "In the future, in a year, I'll be the governor. And I'll be damned if we're going to do that. In the state of Alabama, we're going to protect the people of Alabama. We're going to protect our Constitution. We're going to protect our state. We're going to protect our country."
The building that the school currently occupies has been on the market since March.
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