Pro golfers look to cash in at Capital One Classic
June 12, 2007
Beverly Boudreaux
June 14, 2007“If you don’t build it, he won’t come.”
The Terrebonne Parish Department of Planning & Zoning, and the South Central Planning & Development Commission in Houma, are turning around the famous phrase delivered in the movie “Field of Dreams,” according to the Parish Council’s Community Development and Planning Committee.
At Monday night’s meeting, the committee, along with several speakers, accused the department and the commission of applying overly-strict standards to the quality of the slabs of concrete underlaying new homes in Terrebonne Parish, and of requiring unnecessary soil-testing for lots intended for home development.
The committee also criticized the commission of trying to squeeze out independent contractors who provide home planning and inspection services for a fee.
The stifling bureaucracy is stunting the construction of needed housing in Terrebonne Parish, members of the committee said.
“Lafourche is building way more houses than we are,” Councilman Clayton Voisin told Planning & Zoning Director Pat Gordon. “We’ve got more builders than houses being built.”
He pointed out that British Petroleum is bringing new people into Terrebonne Parish. “We’ve got no houses for them,” he said.
People “want to buy a house, but they can’t because of us,” Voisin said. “They have to add certification for the slab. How many slabs have you seen fail in Terrebonne?”
“People are dying to come to Terrebonne, and we tell them to go somewhere else,” he said.
South Central Planning & Development Commission signed a recent contract with Terrebonne Parish to provide home planning, and inspection services, on new homes built in the parish.
However, contractors can bypass the commission, and hire third-party providers to perform the inspections, said commission CEO Kevin Belanger.
He asked the council for $300,000 so that the commission could submit all homes in Terrebonne to a pre-engineering process.
“We didn’t make the law about the slabs, we enforce it,” Belanger told the committee. “Third parties should exist, if (homeowners) choose not to use us,” he said. “We’re not being overzealous. They can get their own soil boring, and change the slab accordingly.
“We believe things are going well,” he said. “Give us time. You’ve committed to us for three years.”
Councilman Pete Lambert and Gordon got into a brief argument over whether soil testing is mandated by the state on lots before beginning home construction.
Lambert said that the testing was not required, while Gordon contended that it was necessary.
“If you build two houses next to one another,” and the soil is good on one home, “do you still have to (test the soil) on the other?” Lambert asked Gordon.
Karl Randall Noel, a contractor who is a member of the Louisiana State Uniform Construction Code Council, told the committee that “you don’t have to use soil boring on every single house.”
Earlier in the meeting, Councilman Harold Lapeyre asked Belanger, “Do they bore every lot in Texas? We need to change the law.” Belanger responded, “We can’t agree with you more.”
Lapeyere said that Terrebonne is “a beautiful, growing parish. We don’t need bureaucracy.”
Both Voisin and Councilwoman Arlanda Williams complained that neighboring parishes may be relaxing building code standards to the disadvantage of Terrebonne Parish.
Williams made a motion, which passed, requesting that the state legislative delegation from Terrebonne Parish remove the requirement for soil testing of lots in the parish.
Developers are “trying to bring affordable homes to Terrebonne,” she told Belanger. “I’m begging you. Ask them to take the soil testing out.”
