Editor’s note: This story has been changed to reflect the correct realtor organization, the Greater Baton Rouge Association of Realtors, that is opposing the site rezoning. Daily Report regrets the error.
Despite mounting public opposition to a proposed barge cleaning facility on the Mississippi River, support on the Metro Council to rezone the property on which the facility would be located is not unanimous. Metro Council members John Delgado and Chandler Loupe, who represent residents living near the proposed site, introduced an ordinance last month to rezone the 60-acre property from heavy industrial to commercial as a way of effectively scuttling the project. The Planning Commission voted earlier this week to approve that change.
However, several Metro Council members are against the rezoning, including Buddy Amoroso, Joel Boé and Scott Wilson, who say they will vote against it tonight. Boé says he spoke Tuesday to Ryan Heck, who also opposes it. Heck could not be reached for comment to confirm his position.
“I don’t think it’s as unanimous as some people think it is,” Boé says.
The rezoning measure requires seven votes to pass. However, a companion piece of legislation changing the city’s comprehensive land use plan also must be approved for the rezoning to go into effect, and it requires eight votes. Only 11 council members are expected to attend tonight’s meeting, as Councilmember Ronnie Edwards has been out on extended medical leave.
In other words, if four members oppose the comprehensive land use change—even if all the others support the change—it won’t pass.
That would be good news to the Greater Baton Rouge Association of Realtors, which is also lining up on the side of those against the rezoning. Former Metro Council member Mike Walker, now a realtor and a member of the board’s governmental relations committee, says the organization passed a resolution earlier this week opposing the measure.
“We are concerned about it because of basic property rights issues,” Walker says. “We don’t want to get involved in whether this facility has the right amount of air emissions. If air emissions is the issue then that is what needs to be addressed, but property rights should not be threatened because of it.”
Amoroso and Boé say they, too, oppose the rezoning because it violates basic property rights.
“The council is going to steal property rights from a property owner,” Boe says. “I think it’s just wrong, and I sympathize with the residents of the area on what the intended use is but the fact remains that property rights trump that.”
