Should there be a height limit on buildings in Baton Rouge? In a city that doesn’t have much of a skyline, it may seem like a funny question. But it’s one that city planning officials are mulling, and they’ve been meeting with downtown property owners to get their feedback.
Currently, the city-parish zoning code doesn’t limit the height of buildings anywhere in the parish. Earlier this year, however, the Zoning Advisory Committee—an informal group that advises the planning director—began discussing whether there should be limits and, if so, whether they should apply in all districts zoned for office use, which includes downtown, or only some of them.
“The issues we are looking at are should there be a height limit and, if so, should it be everywhere?” says Planning Director Frank Duke. “And, if so, should it be the same everywhere or should there be different levels?”
Duke says the discussions are only in the very preliminary stage and that before the matter would come to a decision, if it even gets that far, he wants plenty of feedback. To that end, he has asked Downtown Development District Executive Director Davis Rhorer to meet with downtown property owners and get their opinions on the issue.
Rhorer says he will schedule some meetings in the near future. In the meantime, he points out that the 2008 master plan for downtown, Plan Baton Rouge II, did not call for limiting the height restrictions of buildings downtown, though an earlier version of the plan in 1998 did suggest height limits.
“After Plan Baton Rouge in 1998 there were some recommendations about restricting building heights and the initial feedback was that people didn’t want to go there,” Rhorer says. “So in 2008 it is not even addressed.”
But Center for Planning Excellence President and CEO Elizabeth “Boo” Thomas has concerns about allowing unlimited height, particularly downtown. “When you have very tall buildings it’s not a good environment and doesn’t promote anything else around it,” Thomas says.
If building heights were restricted downtown, Thomas says CPEX would support allowing for exceptions if, for instance, a developer would agree to create additional parking or do certain landscaping. “All we want is good design,” Thomas says.
For now, it’s too early for such concerns, says Duke, who doesn’t have a particular timetable for resolving the issue. “We’re nowhere close to having any answers,” he says. “We’re just still trying to get feedback.”
—Stephanie Riegel
