Data center highlights Caddo Parish zoning limits

An example the commission cited is an elementary school built next to a liquor store or other business. The American Planning Association says without zoning ordinances, industrial operations can be built adjacent to homes, schools or parks.

According to the Association's website "it is a nonprofit education and membership organization committed to creating better communities and better lives."

Another important consideration, according to the APA, is preserving local character and protecting agricultural economies.

“Right now we have nothing,” said Erica Bryant, parish administrator, during Thursday’s Special Projects Committee meeting.

There are statutes to regulate issues like building codes, sanitation and manufactured housing but none that tell property owners what can be built.

“Businesses have the same right as you,” Bryant said. “So you can do whatever you want on your property, within the confines of the laws that are in place. We don’t get to tell them how to use their property.”

While examining the benefits and drawbacks of paying for a master plan, commissioners learned their effort may cost upwards of $500,000. Bryant said “ages ago” Shreveport paid around $400,000 - $500,000 for its plan.

The APA does not publish estimates for preparing a master plan. It treats planning costs as highly dependent on community size, scope of work, public engagement, technical studies, and whether the project includes zoning or development code updates, according to the APA.

The committee voted unanimously to request its administration provide a cost study for developing a master plan prior to the Aug. 3 meeting. 

Areas without zoning are those that lay beyond the five-mile radius around cities like Shreveport, Blanchard or Greenwood. The Metropolitan Planning Commission, for example, enforces zoning and development rules within Shreveport city limits and the five-mile boundary, according to the agency. 

“We had a law that allowed us to address it, but the law was changed. And because of that change, we had a responsibility then to go in and develop what it was going to look like for us,” Bryant said. “And we haven't done that in the six years that the law changed.”

Their discussion was prompted by an ordinance sponsored by Commissioner John-Paul Young.

It aimed to establish regulations for temporary workforce housing camps, sometimes called man camps, built to house workers for a construction, industrial, or energy project using trailers or modular units.

Young said his ordinance was drafted in response to constituent concerns.

Amazon Web Services and developer STACK Infrastructure are currently building a massive data center campus in rural Caddo Parish, called the Stateline Road Data Center.

Parish Attorney Donna Frazier presented an extensive legal argument challenging the commission's statutory authority to regulate temporary housing developments without a master plan. She addressed issues of jurisdiction, enforcement, zoning, home rule and duplicate regulations.

“That’s your way forward,” Frazier said. “You must have a master plan to regulate zoning.”

Bryant said, “This issue will continue to arise as you have industry growing in parts of your parish.”

The Bossier City-Parish Metropolitan Planning Commission, the Bossier City Council and the Police Jury are updating all land use policies and zoning regulations using Halff Associates, a Texas-based infrastructure consulting firm with an office listed in Shreveport.

An updated plan to manage future growth and development on the east side of the river will cost nearly $1 million, according to previous Center Square reporting.