The developer behind the thwarted Aztek Cove mixed-use development near the Country Club of Louisiana is in the midst of a legal battle with New Rising Sun Baptist Church on Highland Road, according to court documents filed with the East Baton Rouge Clerk of Court’s office.
This morning’s filing marked the latest development in the five-month legal battle between Aztek Cove developer Nitin Kamath, represented by attorney Loren Kleinpeter, and New Rising Sun Baptist Church, represented by attorney Robert R. Johnson-Robertson. The church’s property is adjacent to where Kamath is seeking to build the mixed-use development.
On June 6, Kamath filed a Petition for Judicial Setting of Boundary with the 19th Judicial District Court in East Baton Rouge Parish. In the petition, Kamath says the defendant should pay for the court to “fix the boundary between the Kamath Tract and the Rising Sun Tract” at the center of the dispute.
In its July 12 response, New Rising Sun Baptist Church denied 13 of the 14 claims made by Kamath, and instead sought to either be declared owner of the property in dispute, or monetary damages, if it’s determined not to be the lawful property owner.
Kamath denied the church’s allegations in a Nov. 20 response, and further claimed that “numerous errors” were made in the original property survey by Alphonse Fabre Jr.
The proposed development would have included more than 60,000 square feet of office, multifamily and retail space in two, two-and-a-half-story buildings in an area on Highland Road zoned rural.
Aztek Cove, which had been on hold because of a technicality surrounding the zoning code, stirred controversy among area residents and effectively died after the Parish Attorney’s Office recommended against granting building permits to Kamath this past spring.
