Lafayette council tables Greyhound station vote
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LAFAYETTE — The City-Parish Council on Tuesday deferred a vote that could stop a controversial plan by Greyhound Lines to move its bus station to a neighborhood on Moss Street.
The move gave the administration more time to broker a compromise that would put the new station in a planned city-parish transportation center near Cypress and Jefferson streets downtown.
Council member Kenneth Boudreaux, who represents the Moss Street neighborhood at issue, has introduced an ordinance to repeal a zoning change by the council last year that allowed plans for the Moss Street Greyhound station to go forward despite opposition from the neighborhood and recommendations against the rezoning by staff for the Planning, Zoning and Codes Department and the Lafayette Planning Commission.
A vote on the zoning repeal was set for Tuesday by a council now filled with new faces, but Boudreaux asked to delay the vote for two weeks to give the administration more time to negotiate with the bus company.
City-Parish President Joey Durel has asked Greyhound to reconsider moving into the planned Rosa Parks Transportation Center, which is near the current Greyhound station in downtown.
Original plans for the Rosa Parks Transportation Center called for Greyhound to have a presence there, but the company withdrew before plans were finalized.
City-Parish Chief Administrative Officer Dee Stanley told the council Tuesday that Greyhound representatives have been open to negotiations but are concerned about whether moving to the public multi-modal transportation facility downtown would make financial sense for the company.
Boudreaux commented that the bus company should also consider the potential financial loss if the council repealed the industrial zoning for the property that Greyhound purchased on Moss Street — a move that would prevent the bus station from locating there.
“Sometimes they may need to be reminded that it could be a financial strain if they do not cooperate or comply,” Boudreaux said.
Zoning regulations generally prohibit commercial bus stations next to neighborhoods.
Greyhound and IberiaBank, which sold the property to the bus company, applied to rezone the land as industrial.
Despite objections of neighbors and recommendations against the zoning change by city-parish staff, the council voted to approve the zoning change last year.
Eight of the nine councilmen are new this year, and Boudreaux successfully persuaded six other members to revive the issue earlier this year.
