Two Eastern Shore Residential Golf Communities Slated To Be Built Just 11 Miles Apart
By Rick McCann
Blue RAM Media/Gulf Coast News
October 14, 2025
SPANISH FORT, Ala For the second time during the past few months, developers have announced new golf course communities that will be built on the Eastern Shore in Baldwin County, about eleven miles apart.
The latest, called Longleaf, received the green light from the Spanish Fort Planning Commission on Monday night, Oct. 13, 2025, and recommended that the city council also approve the 702-lot project that will be built around a golf course already in operation.
Although the project is being called a “new” development, the golf and residential complex has been planned for almost a decade.
The Longleaf community is to be built around an 18-hole championship course that is already in place and has been maintained for many years. The county already approved the 1,650-acre parcel as a subdivision. The annexation of an adjacent piece of property on the south side of County Rd. 40 into Spanish Fort last year paved the way for this annexation bid.
For some, it looks like a beautiful community, but other residents are not happy about its size, location, or the strain on resources, the increased traffic, and all of the other things that come with rapid growth.
Some adjacent landowners plan to speak out against the project at an upcoming meeting.
“We’re not part of Spanish Fort, so we did not know that this was on the radar for the Spanish Fort City Council, nor for the planning board,” said White House Fork resident, Bill Jackson who is also a Captain with the White House Fork Volunteer Fire Department. Again, like I said, we just found out about it on Friday, and we would like to just slow things down a little bit and let us find out what we can do to work congenially, together.”
City leaders said the property owner, Long Pines, LLC., has done its due diligence, and while public input on the matter is welcomed, there is little that could stand in the way of a zoning change.
Officials in Spanish Fort believe that they’ll be able to handle the growth and be able to supply utility and water services for the new community.
With industry continuing to grow up the Highway 59 corridor and the Novelis aluminum plant to soon come online, Spanish Fort city leaders said developments like Longleaf will be a growing need in Baldwin County.
Recently, residents were able to defeat a shopping center project that a company wanted to build at the corner of State Highway 225 and Highway 31.
In March of this year, a large golf course community was proposed for the Barnwell community in an area just south of the Fairhope city limit.
The new private golf resort, The Point Clear Club, is expected to be built in the Fairhope/Point Clear area, designed by Tom Fazio. The 18-hole course is part of a larger resort development that will include homes, restaurants, tennis, and swimming pools, with construction expected to begin after final approvals are granted. The project is being developed by Daniel Realty Corporation and is located south of Fairhope Airport, near the Polo fields.
The 549-acre community will have at least 310 single-family homes.
Copyright 2025 Blue RAM Media. All rights reserved.
