City-parish eyes code changes for implementing FuturEBR

Now that Baton Rouge has a new master plan, it's time to start implementing the $2 million blueprint for land use and development, FuturEBR. But that's easier said than done and will require hundreds of changes to the city-parish Unified Development Code, or UDC. "This is a big deal," says attorney Charles Landry, chairman of the city-parish Zoning Advisory Committee at its monthly meeting earlier today. "Ninety percent of communities waste their planning dollars by failing to implement their plans. If we don't implement this, we will have wasted $2 million." As its name implies, the Zoning Advisory Committee advises the East Baton Rouge Parish Planning Commission, and has been charged with carrying out one of the trickiest parts of the new master plan—updating the city parish zoning code so the regulations on the books are in sync with the recommendations in FuturEBR. A 10-person ZAC subcommittee, chaired by local attorney Wayne Woody, will oversee the process of making nearly 200 recommended amendments to the UDC. That process is expected to take at least one year. All recommendations will still require approval by both the Planning Commission and the Metro Council. —Stephanie Riegel