A status conference regarding developer Nitin Kamath’s civil suit against New Rising Sun Baptist Church has been scheduled for Feb. 5 at 9 a.m. in the 19th Judicial District Court.
It’s the latest development in the suit, which Kamath filed in mid-2018 shortly after the parish attorney’s office recommended against granting building permits for Aztek Cove—the mixed-use development he planned to construct along six-acres of Highland Road near the Country Club of Louisiana. The church’s property on Highland is adjacent to where Kamath wanted to build Aztek Cove.
The Feb. 5 hearing comes at the request of Kamath’s attorney, Loren Kleinpeter, who wants an update from the defense after its attorney, Ronald Robertson-Johnson, was elected as a judge and subsequently filed a motion last month to withdraw as the church’s counsel of record.
“I need to know deadlines so I can get a trial date set,” Kleinpeter says of the planned conference, over which Judge Timothy Kelley will preside.
In the Dec. 12 motion, Robertson-Johnson cites his reason for leaving as the termination of his employment contract on Nov. 16, which became effective once he won an election for judgeship in the 19th JDC, rendering him unable to practice law as an attorney.
Rev. Ernest Mills, pastor at the church, says the church has since hired a new attorney but declined to disclose that person’s name to Daily Report. The East Baton Rouge Parish Clerk of Court’s office has yet to list a new attorney.
At the center of the legal battle is a dispute over a certain tract of land in the area that both parties believe they own. It could have been contiguous to Kamath’s thwarted Aztek Cove development, which stirred controversy among CCLA-area residents who were outraged that the 61,000-square-foot project was approved by the Planning Commission without public knowledge or input.
