Rouzan decision delayed
Servitude plans draw complaints
The city-parish Planning and Zoning Commission unanimously deferred final development plan approval for the latest phase of Rouzan on Monday because an attorney for property owners in the interior of the tract told them he had filed a preliminary injunction earlier in the day.
Rouzan is a mixed-use development by Tommy Spinosa under way on the south side of Perkins Road between Stanford Avenue and Lee Drive that has met with opposition from nearby residents since its announcement in the latter half of the last decade.
The key issue Monday night, however, was complaints by Bobby and Donna Welch that the latest phase, 34 single-family homes on six acres known as Creekside, would replace the existing servitude granted to them by the Ford family, the tract’s prior owners, and replace it with another, less direct, road.
Alexis St. Amant II, the attorney representing the Welches and the Hoovers, another property owner, told the commission that even though the Parish Attorney’s Office instructed commissioners they could decide the issue separate from the legal dispute, they would essentially aid a private developer in improperly expropriating someone else’s legal servitude.
“He’s asking you to assist him in expropriating it,” St. Amant said.
Bobby Welch pointed out the Ford family will and the servitude it granted have been approved by the court.
“We now do not understand how another branch of government is going to overrule the court and evict us from (the) servitude,” he said.
“It never occurred to us that we would have to fight for what was given to us in the will,” Janet Hoover said.
Donna Welch complained of disruptions in the gas lines and phone lines and the condition of the servitude during the work. She suggested the disruptions were part of a broader plan.
“They will see to it that our homes become their property,” Welch said.
Spinosa, however, called the entire issue bogus. He pointed out that the development’s opponents remain the same, hearing after hearing, regardless of the issue.
Spinosa said the subject of the servitude being declared sacred Monday night never came up in the hours of public hearings over the years.
The concept plan approved four years ago shows the portion that includes the servitude was going to be developed, and “not once did this come up,” he said.
Spinosa apologized about any service disruptions, but said the only one he was aware of was the city cutting services while it installed a lift station to improve sewerage for the entire area on land he donated to the city-parish.
As for complaints by nearby residents Angela Angelloz and Southside Civic Association President William Gladney that construction vehicles are using nearby streets, he said it is not practical to use the Perkins entrance for the work so far and that crews would do so when working on other portions of the development.
Gladney complained residents were promised an orderly development and got a piecemeal process of sub-phases and partial infrastructure development.
Commissioner W.T. Winfield said that while he supports Rouzan, “I just can’t see removing this servitude or eliminating the right of the existing property owners to have servitude.”
The plans may call for its replacement, Winfield said, but “right now they have an existing servitude that they can use.”
The Planning and Zoning Commission noted that by law, the court needs to consider the temporary injunction within 10 days, so the panel voted to defer the issue until its Feb. 13 meeting.