Ascension may set building setbacks

• By DAVID J. MITCHELL
• Advocate Ascension section writer
• Published: Oct 29, 2009

• Print
• Email
• Save
• Reprints
• Twitter
• Share

• Del.icio.us
• Digg
• Facebook
• Reddit
• 

GONZALES — An Ascension Parish Council committee has backed a proposed parish setback calculation to ensure buildings do not crowd land where roads may be built in the future.

Planning Director Ricky Compton told the Council Strategic Planning Committee Monday the changes came in reaction to a repeated issue involving simple lot subdivisions and partitions of land for the benefit of family members.

Compton said houses are being built entirely too close to private access servitudes that could one day be roads.

The proposed change defines the front of a home as the part of the house with access to a public or private road or a servitude set aside for such a road.

“However the property is accessed, that’s where we’re going to determine the front set back,” Compton said in an interview Tuesday.

On many family partitions, for example, a single large parcel with access to a public street is divided up into several lots with a servitude running along one side to provide access to the main road for the new lots in the rear.

Under setback language in the existing code referring to the “street,” some landowners seeking land divisions argued they only needed to apply side setbacks along the servitudes, although the homes faced them, Compton said.

In parish residential zoning categories, the front setback is 25 feet. Side setbacks are five to 10 feet.

The proposed shift would be made through definitional changes and additions to the parish development code and deletion of conflicting language in the subdivision ordinance.

Key to the proposed change is creation of the term “vehicle use corridor,” an area of land designated for vehicular use, including public or private servitudes or rights of way.

In a note that would be added to parish site requirement tables, front setbacks would be measured from vehicle use corridors or property lines to the closest part of a structure, including eaves or overhangs.

The committee also backed changes to the development code defining industrial development.

Compton told the committee Monday the clarification is needed so it is clear light industrial projects, such as warehouses, must comply with the parish storm water regulations.