The plan for Bedico Creek, a proposed golf course subdivision northwest of Madisonville, must be reviewed and reapproved by the St. Tammany Parish Zoning Commission, the parish Board of Adjustments decided Tuesday.
The board, in reaching the 4-1 decision, agreed with parish Planning Director Sidney Fontenot that the plan contains "major changes" from the one approved four years ago and these changes require approval from the Zoning Commission.
Representatives of Upland Properties appealed Fontenot’s interpretation of parish regulations to the board, contending the new plan for Bedico Creek is almost a carbon copy of the conceptual layout approved by the Planning Commission in May 2000. They said the changes are minor. And if the board had agreed, the plan would have only needed the reapproval of the Planning Commission for Bedico Creek to be revived.
The board’s decision, which is final and cannot be appealed, means the project must pass muster with both the Zoning and Planning commissions.
Upland Properties, headed by Covington businessman John Poole, wants to sell the development site -- more than 900 acres along the west side of Louisiana 1085 just south of Interstate 12 near the Tangipahoa Parish line -- to Atlanta developer George McClure.
The deal would have had much smoother sailing if the project needed only Planning Commission approval of the new conceptual plans, said Leroy Cooper, engineer for Bedico Creek.
"If we have to start the entire process all over again," Cooper said, "neither the seller nor the purchaser may want to go forward with it."
Cooper said whether revisions to the plan are major or minor is open to interpretation. "We think they’re minor," he said.
Fontenot said the planning staff considers two changes to be major. They include the shifting of the major entrance into the subdivision 650 feet to the east along Louisiana 1085. The other change involved eliminating a cul-de-sac on a street within the subdivision by connecting it to another street.
"Personally, I think moving the entrance 50 to 100 feet is a major change," commission chairman Tim Ratcliff said.
When Bedico Creek was first proposed in 1996, the 988-acre tract was rezoned as a Planned Unit Development for 1,645 homes and a 27-hole golf course.
Four years later, when the conceptual plan was approved by the Planning Commission, the project had been scaled back to 942 homes and an 18-hole golf course on 597 acres with 334 acres set aside as a wetlands conservatory of pine savanna and pine flatlands.
Because construction of Bedico Creek did not begin within two years, as required by parish regulations, the Planning Commission must reapprove the conceptual plan.
The new plan, almost identical to the old one, has the same number of homes and three more acres of conservation space, Cooper said.
Source: Times-Picayune (New Orleans)