Neighbors vocal about problems casino could bring to Gray area

The Terrebonne Parish Council’s Policy, Procedure, and Legal Committee, at its Dec. 10 meeting, listened to a couple of speakers oppose a lawsuit involving the construction of a truck stop/casino at the intersection of West Park Avenue and Coteau Road.

The site is roughly halfway between Bayou Cane and U.S. Highway 90, several blocks from H.L. Bourgeois High School.

According to parish attorney Courtney Alcock, Terrebonne Parish government denied NDR Enterprises a permit to build a truck stop/casino at the site. As a result, the company is suing the parish. “The judge has made no ruling,” she said.

Melva Theriot, who said she lives across from Coteau-Bayou Blue Middle School on Coteau Road, told the committee a store currently exists at the proposed truck stop location. Students from the school regularly patronize that store, she said.

Many elderly people live in her neighborhood, Theriot said.

“The lights, the neon for 24 hours will have a negative impact,” she said. “Often, there is prostitution associated with truck stops.”

“Between Coteau Road and H.L. Bourgeois, it’s a traffic area for students attending Bourgeois,” she said. “Big trucks will affect them negatively. My neighbors and I do not want the truck stop at the location.”

A Terrebonne Parish ordinance passed four years ago allows truck stops to be located along major thoroughfares only, meaning U.S. Highway 90, said Parish Council Clerk Paul Labat.

Prior to the ordinance, truck stops could be located in any commercial area in the parish, he said.

Another speaker, Sybil Guidry, told the committee the parish must obey the land use regulations concerning truck stops.

“Remember the ordinance and the promise,” she said.

Councilmember Teri Cavalier, whose district contains the proposed truck stop site, said Coteau Road and West Park Avenue is not a good location for the casino.

“Land use regulations say where truck stops can be,” she said. “People are upset.”

Cavalier pointed out no sidewalks exist in the area. Passing trucks can easily knock pedestrians off the roadway.

“How can someone think they can change the laws?” she said, concerning the parish’s land use regulations. “But this is America. I am supporting the ongoing legislation.”

Cavalier said more truck stops are trying to locate along the U.S. 90/Interstate 49 corridor.

At the Public Services Committee meeting also held Dec. 10, Al Levron, parish public works director, told the committee preparations for the widening of the oft-congested section of Hollywood Road from Tunnel Boulevard to Louisiana Highway 311 are in progress. That was good news to Councilman Harold Lapeyre.

“It’s a crucial project,” he said.

Engineering work is completed, Levron said. The state Department of Transportation and Development must approve right-of-way drawings. Also, the project still needs an appraiser and an abstractor, he said.

The council has authorized the engineering firm GSE Associates to move utility lines along Hollywood Road, Levron said.

The bridge over Little Bayou Black will be widened as the first step in the project.