The Greater Lafayette Chamber of Commerce plans to take a close look at Lafayette Consolidated Government’s planning and zoning process, including a possible restructuring of its Planning, Zoning and Codes Department. At a general assembly meeting on Saturday, architect Steve Oubre and developer Robert Daigle, the team that designed River Ranch, will lead a discussion titled “Unified Lafayette/Growth with a purpose” which will focus on possible reforms to city government planning and zoning.
“We’re going to get under the hood in terms of discussing how to make good decisions on how we should grow,” says Chamber President Rob Guidry. “A component of that will certainly be how the consolidated government’s planning and zoning process works and how the department is structured in an effort to have it become as efficient and effective as possible.”
Guidry acknowledges the general assembly meeting could result in a vote to adopt recommendations to be forwarded to LCG. “It’s not going to be an ambush or contentious type proposal,” Guidry stresses. “I anticipate this being a recommendation from the business community who deals with the planning department on a regular basis.” The discussion will take place as part of the chamber’s annual Building Community Conference, which takes 150 community leaders out of town for a weekend-long conference to discuss the chamber’s role in serving the community. Representing LCG at the conference will be City-Parish President Joey Durel, Police Chief Jim Craft and councilmen Purvis Morrison and Don Bertrand.