Simon Family Trust land to be developed

Ken Grissom

Breaux Bridge — Lafayette developer Odell Lamartiniere, whose zoning request to build up-scale townhouses was rejected by the City Council last fall, is pushing ahead with Plan B: cheaper houses on bigger lots.

Lamartiniere has bought property at Poydras and Gary from the Carl Simon Family Trust for $390,000, according to court records. He told the Teche News he could break ground in from two weeks to two months, depending upon the permit process and of course, weather.

“My original proposal was for a 60-foot lot with $190,000 house,” Lamartiniere said. “We couldn’t get that pushed through, so I did 70-foot lots and then I just stripped the house down to $139,900 so I can sell them faster.”

He said he is planning another housing development within the city limits in the not-too-distant future.

Lamartiniere’s request in September for a zoning change from R-2 to R-3 to allow for 5,000 instead of 7,500-square-foot lots failed to get the Planning and Zoning Commission’s approval.

“There were a lot of people against it,” Becky Blanchard, the city’s zoning director, told the council at the time.

“People who live in the area and also people who have children in a day care in the area were concerned about the traffic and the density of the population.”

Lamartiniere first asked to appeal the P&Z decision to the council and later asked to be taken off the agenda so he could modify his plans and re-submit them to the commission, but Councilman Gary “Bimmie” Champagne pressed for a vote to uphold P&Z’s recommendation.

The vote to deny the zoning change meant that Lamartiniere could not reapply for a year.

His current plan does not require a zoning change.