The Demopolis City Council voted to rezone the historic Foscue House on Highway 80 for short-term apartment rentals at their June 4 meeting.
The property was zoned for a hotel, but the owners told the Black Belt News Network that they asked for the property to be rezoned to a planned unit development to allow them to build some structures for short-term rentals before renovating the Foscue House itself.
According to the historical marker on the property, the Foscue House was built in 1840 for Augustus Foscue, a North Carolina native who owned more than 3,000 acres in Marengo County by 1850. Foscue’s daughter married the son of Gen. Nathan Bryan Whitfield of nearby Gaineswood Plantation.
The Foscue House was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1974. You can read more about the property here.
A restaurant operated in the house until recently.
In other business, the council was told that citizen volunteers will be collecting data on air, light and noise pollution in Demopolis.
Portia Shepherd of Black Belt Women Rising told the council that her organization is working with Brown University in Rhode Island to collect pollution information that will serve as a historical baseline.
The research is funded by the Dogwood Alliance through the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, according to Shepherd.
Shepherd said she was informing the council of the project “out of respect, so you’ll know what’s going on in your community.”
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