St. Tammany Parish council expected to vote on high-density moratorium

COVINGTON, La. (WGNO) — It’s the fourth largest parish in the State of Louisiana. Now, officials in St. Tammy Parish are concerned that its growth may be outpacing its infrastructure.

A quarter of a million people call St. Tammany Parish home.

Herb Gomez is one of them.

“I moved over here probably 30+ years ago and there was one stop sign on Highway 190, now there’s many,” said Gomez.

He says after Hurricane Katrina, many on the South Shore picked up their roots for the North Shore.

“With the development of this parish being having exploded almost exponentially over the last 30 years, it really needs to be addressed,” said Gomez.

That’s what St. Tammany Parish President Mike Cooper is hoping to do with a proposed moratorium.

“We want to stop property that is currently zoned and change it to something it’s not designed to be,” said Michael Vinsanau. He’s the spokesperson at St. Tammany Parish.

It’s a high-density zoning moratorium. Basically, it would put a pause on allowing the re-zoning of residential properties limiting it to one home per acre.

“You can still build under its current zoning classification, you can not change it to something that’s high density,” said Vinsanau.

The reason? Officials say the growth of the parish has outpaced the infrastructure.

Traffic is one of the main concerns.

“People are sitting in traffic now, we don’t know what it’s going to look like in two years, five years, ten years if you don’t do anything,” said Vinsanau.

This moratorium would not impact commercial, industrial or warehouse developments.