Town meeting will be held to air Bayou Gauche residents’ concerns
Bayou Gauche area residents bombarded the St. Charles Parish Planning Commission with questions about a North Carolina landowner’s permit request to extract minerals on land in the area and turn the hole into a lake for a future residential development.
Area residents filled the Council Chambers at last Thursday’s planning commission meeting to express concerns, as well as several additional neighbors who posed questions through representatives and phone calls to the parish Planning and Zoning Department.
After nearly two hours of residents’ comments, Parish Councilman Paul Hogan requested and got approval to table the project until they could hold a town meeting to address concerns about potential flooding, stagnant water, damage to the recently repaved Bayou Gauche Road and numerous safety issues.
Cecil Sumners, who requested a special permit to remove soil and make a lake on a 98-acre portion of his 439-acre site in Bayou Gauche, said clay removal is the focus of his request, but turning the remaining hole into a lake is part of a future planned residential development that got derailed by Hurricane Katrina. Sumners said he plans to resume that project with completion of the Sunset levee.
“I got into the business to have lots to sell,” he said. Sumners said, when he learned parish residents approved a 4-mill property tax for levee construction, he recognized an opportunity to sell the dirt to the parish for the hurricane levee.
“We’re gonna build a nice, big lake and get back into the development business,” said Sumners, who added he also wants to sell the dirt to the parish for levee construction. But Planning Commission Stanley Foster was among the people who wanted more information about Sumners’ plans.
“It just doesn’t strike me this is going to be a benefit to a residential community,” said Foster, who also identified himself as an area resident. “This is never going to be a lake in my opinion.”
Sumners, who referred to the hole alternately as a lake and a lagoon, maintained it would be a lake at an estimated depth of 20 to 30 feet.
This was a number that residents argued should have been in the permit application along with other, asking how they were expected to offer their input on the project without adequate information.
Planning and Zoning Department representatives told them the application was for minerals extraction, but residents adjoining Sumners’ property who received notices about the project told the commission their letters referred to a lake and they wanted more information about it.
The permit application outlines Sumners’ plan for extraction and a lake.
Planning personnel recommended the project for approval with the stipulation that the lake has a natural shape, which was outlined in the proposed site plan. They also said it met most of the department’s eight criterion.
Sumners’ permit application states he wants to dig and extract clay on a portion of his 439-acre property, which is in Bayou Gauche and Des Allemands. The property description states much of the surrounding land is being used as a pasture while there are single-family residences to the immediate north and south.
According to the application, “The applicant intends to sell the clay soil for the reconstruction of levee systems. Upon completion of extraction, the applicant intends to create a lake in the extracted soil pit.” It also states, “The applicant intends not to disturb the wetland systems present on the property.”
The recommendation is based on the department’s project analysis that states the proposed land use is compatible with the parish’s future land use plan for the area (low density residential with some neighborhood commercial use), as well as it being compatible with the existing neighborhood.
It also states the project would not increase traffic congestion long term and provide for “safe, convenient vehicular and pedestrian movement.”
As for potential nuisances, the analysis states the project “will remain mostly in its existing state” so potential flood and fire hazards “are not likely to be exacerbated.” Area residents strongly disagreed that the site plan adequately addressed or explained potential issues that could come with the work.
Several of them told commissioners that the trucks hauling dirt from the site would likely damage the newly repaved Bayou Gauche Road, as well as turn the road into a “race track” because they get paid by the load.Sumners said the trucks would use Bayou Gauche Road as entry and exit for hauling dirt.
Foster added he didn’t think anyone was really worried about flooding, but he agreed that the trucks “are in a hurry because they make money based on loads hauled.”
Resident Cheryl Hayden questioned only adjoining landowners like herself being notified about the project and did not feel she’d been provided sufficient information about the lake, including size and depth.
“I don’t feel it is going to affect only the property adjacent to this,” Hayden said of potential issues with drainage and flooding. “It’s going to affect the area.”Resident Stephanie Champagne also cited a lack of specifications with the site plan.
Bayou Gauche resident Catherine Porthouse questioned the dirt being suitable for levees, as well as the dust that could be generated with the excavation.
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