Woman feels zoning is unfair
Published 12:00 am Saturday, October 28, 2000
LEONARD GRAY / L’Observateur / October 28, 2000
NORCO – For Kim Boudreaux Sellars, placing a trailer on Barreca Street seemed the perfect solution. She would improve the looks of the area, shethought, and provide a safe neighborhood for her teen-age children.
The St. Charles Planning Commission, Department of Planning and Zoningand Parish Council felt otherwise. Sellars’ application for rezoning the lotwas denied at the Oct. 23 council meeting, and that would seem to be theend of the story.
The incident, however, leaves larger issues unresolved. Where does she go,and what about others like her? Sellars said there are few options for single parents or young couples just starting out. Not many can afford some of the houses being built in thenewer neighborhoods, and prices to buy or rent older houses are more than she can afford.
With no place else to go, Sellars and her children live with her parents in Norco, where her roots run deep. A Norco native, her father andgrandfather all grew up there. Her great-grandfather, Anthony Madere, wassheriff from 1904 to 1912.
Now a customer service representative at Jani-King in James Business Park, where she was the October employee of the month, Sellars lives with her parents and hopes for a home of their own for herself and her children.
“I just felt like they didn’t give me a chance,” she said. Sellars added thatthere aren’t very many good places to locate a trailer on the east bank of St. Charles Parish, where she feels comfortable. One trailer site she foundwas too full, another was too expensive and the last was too dangerous.
“I’m not on welfare,” she added. “I work full time and take care of mykids. I felt like I was made to feel humiliated.”Planning and Zoning Director Bob Lambert said he sympathizes with her plight and encouraged her to seek out other possibilities. “I just thinkthere are options,” he said.
Marilyn Richoux of the planning commission said, “I really wanted to help this person, but in doing so I would’ve hurt the neighbors. You have tothink long term and my sympathies are with the people who have invested their life savings.”Richoux added that the parish council had passed a law banning the addition of more trailers into that neighborhood of Norco just off River Road. One of Sellars’ would-be neighbors, in fact, had earlier tried tolocate in a trailer in the 300 block of Barreca and was halted by the same rules now blocking Sellars. Now, that couple is living across the streetfrom where Sellars wanted to locate, in a house they built.
Richoux continued, “It was a tough decision, but I feel I made the right one. But it is a problem, and we do need a nice trailer park in the parish.”In a Sept. 12 letter to the parish council Sellars said she felt her trailerwould instead enhance the neighborhood. The lot in question adjoins theold St. Charles Herald office and is overgrown with high grass and weeds.Parish Councilman Lance Marino voted in support of Sellars’ application before the council, knowing he would lose.
“I felt I was in a really difficult position as her representative,” Marino said. “I wanted to protect the interests of her and her family, as well asthose property owners and their resale value.”Meanwhile, Sellars will continue to explore the options and hope for a fresh start. “I know there are a lot of people in similar situations, buteven worse off. If I didn’t have children, I could live in my car.”
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