* Covington Trace Ridge Apartments Update *

The Parish Council was notified Friday June 30th of a suit filed by Military Road Revitalization Company, LLC regarding the multifamily development moratorium put in place by the Council in Districts 1 and 2 (Covington area). The moratorium, adopted on June 1st, is intended to apply to multifamily developments in these districts due to concerns for traffic and unmet infrastructure needs. Military Road Revitalization Company is the developer of the proposed Covington Trace Ridge Apartments located in District 2 at the foot of the Claiborne Hill bridge. As of June 5th, three permits have been issued by the administration for the development though currently additional building permits are on hold.

Proposed Covington Trace Ridge Apartments

The moratorium was initially written and placed on the Parish website on April 4th, as required notice to the public of any new moratorium. The moratorium applied to residential multifamily zoning classifications. The draft moratorium was then introduced at the regular meeting of the Parish Council on May 4th. In addition, multifamily moratoria have been in place in Districts 12 and 13 (Slidell area) for some time due to concerns for inadequate infrastructure. A parish-wide development moratorium, adopted in March of 2022, is also in place to prevent dense residential developments from continuing to pop up, overwhelming parish infrastructure. None of these existing moratoria explicitly apply to multifamily developments in highway commercial zoning classifications.

After the District 1 and 2 multifamily moratorium was introduced by the Council in May, a meeting was held with District 2 Councilman David Fitzgerald, to unveil the Covington Trace Ridge Apartments development. The Councilman was informed that the multifamily moratorium introduced in this district would not apply to this development because of the highway commercial zoning in place at the proposed site. The Council therefore amended its multifamily moratorium to include highway commercial zoning classifications at a meeting on May 17th and adopted the moratorium on June 1st.

The Council has received some documentation regarding the development which includes three permits issued by St. Tammany Parish Department of Planning and Development.

Three permits issued by St. Tammany Parish and a permit from

the Louisiana Department of Transportation and Development

A traffic impact study created by Urban Systems Inc.

A permit issued by the Louisiana Department of Health

The crux of the Council’s concern is that highway commercial zoning exists throughout Districts 1 and 2, and St. Tammany Parish in general. By allowing multifamily apartment and townhouse developments to build without any notice to the public, the Council, or the Planning and Zoning Commission, opens the floodgates for dense residential multifamily development in areas most in need of infrastructure improvements. This runs contrary to the other multifamily moratoria already in place in the parish and the parish-wide moratorium put in place last year at the behest of the parish administration.

The prevalence of highway commercial zoning classifications currently in the parish can be seen by going to the parish’s GIS map which can be found here: St. Tammany Parish Government (geoportalmaps.com). (Click on the layers tab and select the zoning layer.) Highway commercial zoning of HC2, and HC3 allow for multifamily development.

St. Tammany Teachers Get Pay Raise

The St. Tammany Parish School Board approved a permanent pay raise for all employees during a special board meeting on Thursday, June 22. The plan will give certified employees a two-step $1,000 salary increase, with support staff receiving a two-step $700 increase. New stipends and supplemental pay are also being given to eligible school employees.

The pay raise comes in a time of desperate need, as retention rates for teachers all across the state are dropping.

This decision follows a push by the Teacher’s Union and the public in the legislature this past session, resulting in a $2,000 raise carved out for teachers in the State operating budget. The statewide support for these measures was incredible. The Louisiana Federation of Teachers reports delivering 1,400 notes of support to Senators and Representatives from teachers and school employees from all over the state.

From the Legislature:

Governor Signs Library Bill Into Law

Governor John Bel Edwards signed into law Senate Bill 7, now Act 436, recognizing the rights of parents to make decisions as it relates to sexually explicit materials in libraries. The Act requires libraries to adopt and implement policy language to limit the access of minors to sexually explicit materials.

The Act creates new policies for libraries to adopt, including definitions for appropriate and inappropriate materials for minors, as well as restrictions on library cards for minors, and an update to the library card system that requires a parent or guardian to select materials that may or may not be appropriate for their child.

All Louisiana libraries will be required to adopt these policies by the beginning of 2024, and begin to enforce them by June of the same year.

You can read Act 436 here:

https://legis.la.gov/legis/ViewDocument.aspx?d=1333281

Information about the St. Tammany Parish Library policy can be found here: