Developers of new projects seeking to waive the sidewalk requirement in the city-parish zoning code will face a more rigid set of criteria under a set of proposed changes to the code that the Planning Commission will take up early next year.
Currently, the Unified Development Code allows sidewalk waivers for new developments anywhere in the parish. The proposed changes would limit when and where waivers can be granted. Developments that are a certain distance from other sidewalks, schools, libraries community centers and commercial areas, for instance, would not be able to get a waiver. Nor would new developments proposed for downtown, says Planning Director Frank Duke.
Though the Planning Commission has not yet weighed in on the proposed changes, the Zoning Advisory Committee, which advises the planning director and includes several representatives from the development community, approved the changes several months ago and supports them, Duke says.
The revisions to the sidewalk ordinance are part of a complete overhaul of the zoning code, which was outdated, confusing and contradicted itself in many places. The revision has been underway all year and is intended to clean up the laws and bring them more in line with the city-parish master plan for development, FuturEBR.
So far, the Planning Commission and the Metro Council have ratified several chapters in the code dealing with parking, landscaping, flood control and the Historic Preservation Commission. But several more chapters—including streets and sidewalks, nonconforming uses, signs and site plans—still need to be revised and approved.
Duke says the process will be months long. Portland, Oregon-based planner John Fregonese, who helped spearhead the FuturEBR planning process in 2009 and 2010, has been under contract with the Planning Commission to help implement the plan and revise the UDC. But his contract ends Dec. 31, and though he fulfilled his requirements under the terms of the contract, there is still plenty of tedious work to be done, Duke says.
“It’s taking longer to get it done than originally anticipated because of the number of staff and the pace at which we are trying to keep up with existing development proposal because we’re trying to do this without slowing anything else down,” he says. “But we’re making progress.”
—Stephanie Riegel
