Controversy erupted this summer when a barge cleaning facility was proposed for a 60-acre tract of industrial-zoned land that is next to a BREC equestrian park and less than two miles from a heavily populated subdivision. But a new map prepared by the Planning Commission staff shows almost all of the downtown riverfront as well as riverfront property near LSU and a residential neighborhood are also zoned M2, or heavy industrial.
According to the maps, prepared by Planning Director Frank Duke at the request of Metro Councilman John Delgado, more than one mile of the downtown riverfront from just north of the State Capitol to North Boulevard is zoned M2—including property adjacent to the new IBM office building and its adjoining multifamily complex, 525 Lafayette. The M2 zoning breaks for about 1,200 feet near the Louisiana Arts and Science Museum and the U.S.S. Kidd then resumes for more than two miles downriver to West Chimes Street.
What’s most troubling to Duke and Delgado, who has reviewed the maps, is that a neighborhood called College Park sits within the industrially zoned area. Houses there were developed before current zoning regulations, adopted in the 1980s, prohibited residential development in areas zoned industrial.
“This is a problem,” says Planning Director Frank Duke. “This needs to be corrected.”
Irrespective of any potential development on the M2 property that could pose a hazard to the nearby residents, Duke says the real technical problem with having residential neighborhoods in an M2 area is that the houses constitute what is known as a nonconforming use. If any of the houses burned, or if residents needed to get a permit to rebuild or renovate, they would not be able to because of the zoning restrictions.
“Those properties are at risk and that’s something we need to deal with right away,” Delgado says.
Delgado says he plans to meet with property owners in the area and ask them to seek a rezoning. If they don’t, the council, as a body, could direct the Planning Commission to consider a rezoning, as they did earlier this summer with the barge-cleaning site.
As for the rest of the riverfront property zoned industrial, Duke says he does not make policy and cannot comment on whether it should be rezoned. He points out, however, that LSU—which was vocal in its opposition to the proposed barge-cleaning facility—is much closer to other M2 tracts than it was to the barge-cleaning site.
Meanwhile, Council member Chauna Banks-Daniel has asked Duke’s office to look at zoning maps for north Baton Rouge, where her constituents live. Duke says maps show there are small areas near Southern University zoned M2 that could be rezoned to something more appropriate for the area. However, he says much of the property in that part of the city-parish is designated as industrial under the Plan of Government, over which the Planning Commission has no authority.
“If it’s designated industrial under the Plan of Government there is nothing we can do about it,” he says.
—Stephanie Riegel
