The Tuscaloosa City Zoning Board of Adjustment on Dec. 17 approved a special exception allowing a medical clinic with a small birthing suite at 3073 Palisades Court in Council District 6.

Robin Marty, executive director of WAWC Healthcare, said the second‑floor suite is intended for planned, low‑risk births, will accommodate a single patient at a time and be staffed by two to three people — typically a midwife, doula and possibly a medical assistant. "No epidural or pain relief will be administered," Marty said, and any patient requiring more than six hours of care or advanced medical intervention would be transferred to a hospital.

The board heard a staff presentation describing site photos, parking and zoning. Staff noted the property is in an NC (neighborhood commercial) zone and that the petitioner had requested a special exception to operate a medical clinic with a birthing suite. Marty said the organization operates a smaller clinic on Jack Warner Parkway that already includes a birth suite configured for that facility but that the Jack Warner location has not been used for births to date.

Marty told the board the new suite would be used only "approximately 25 times this year at most," citing the limits of current malpractice insurance. She also described pending state regulatory uncertainty: she said the Alabama Department of Public Health (ADPH) promulgated rules for birthing centers that were challenged in litigation and that those regulations are under appeal. "That should come sometime this summer," she said, adding that the facility is prepared to comply with whichever ADPH rules take effect.

No members of the public registered to speak for or against the petition. Board members each said they had no issues with the request and found the location appropriate for medical use before voting to approve the special exception. The chair then announced the petition passed.

Note on transcript inconsistency: at one point the record lists the petitioner as "Robert Marti," but the applicant who addressed the board identified herself as Robin Marty and provided organizational affiliation and a local address; this article uses the name the applicant stated on the record.

The zoning board approved ZBA11925. No additional conditions beyond those proposed by staff were recorded in the minutes. The board did not record a formal roll‑call vote with names in the publicly available segments of the transcript aside from affirmative voice votes recorded by the chair.