GONZALES — A divided Ascension Parish Joint Planning and Zoning Commission on Monday killed a proposed comprehensive growth plan that has been in development for more than a year but has sparked strong public opposition at recent input hearings.
The commission also voted unanimously to create a new subcommittee to study a new master plan using an existing but ignored master plan dating from 1998 as a starting point.
The votes are setbacks for the parish administration and Planning Director Ricky Compton, who has worked on the plan and had asked commissioners Monday for direction on how to proceed with a plan that he said was not ready and needed some refinement.
“After 11 meetings, it was clear to us we have a lot more work to do,” Compton said as the meeting began Monday.
Compton has said that the old master plan was designed for changes to the parish’s zoning map “and was not a plan to address future growth, which is what we are trying to create.”
But faced with more than 100 residents, most, at times, raising yellow loose-leaf paper-sized signs that read “Ascension ‘Not 4 Sale’ Kill the Plan!”, the commissioners voted 4-3 to scrap the proposed new comprehensive plan.
The document and planning efforts have been funded with hundreds of thousands of dollars in parish money and federal grant funding, including money from the Baton Rouge based Center for Planning Excellence or CPEX.
However, opponents of the plan charged Monday that its “smart growth” concepts would allow too much density, destroy the parish’s quality of life and sell out the parish with low-income housing for a federal largesse of grant dollars.
“I don’t know what y’all got against Ascension Parish, but y’all ain’t helping the people that’s from Ascension Parish,” said Edward Gautreau of St. Amant.
Critics also argued for the plan to die Monday night after so much opposition during 11 input meetings between Aug. 24 and Wednesday. “The people have spoken as far as I can see,” said Ascension Parish resident Joe Nassar.
But before and after the public weighed in, the commissioners debated whether to give parish planning staff time to review and incorporate the public comments or kill the plan and start over.
Commissioner Robert Nance said he was bypassed in the early development of the plan and that the plan was not his document so he could not support it.
Commission Chairman Alan Krouse pointed out that Nance had been at several meetings, but Nance countered that he was left off a support committee that helped develop the plan and that Parish Council Chairman Pat Bell had appointed.
Commissioner Sherri Sliman, however, said she wanted to give the planning staff time to rework the plan in light of the comments from the input meetings since Aug. 24.
“I am in favor of the plan. I don’t mind saying this is a tool as a commissioner I need. I am in favor of this plan,” she said.
Voting for to kill the plan were Commissioners Milton Clouatre, Howard Dalton, Michael Marchand and Nance.
Voting against the motion to kill the plan were Sliman, Julio Dumas and Beverly Barre.
Krouse said he supported the plan but, as chairman, could not vote unless to break a tie.
The plan failed.
Commissioner Stephen Barrow, the ninth member of the commission, was absent.
When asked about the commission vote after the meeting, Sliman said it was “grandstanding, you can quote me on that.”
Marchand, who moved to kill the plan, said after the meeting he was pleased with the meeting and how the public represented itself. He said the commission has an opportunity to make true progress on a great document.
Asked about Sliman’s comment, Marchand said, “If I would have been grandstanding, I would have stood up.”
