LEONARD GRAY

HAHNVILLE – Wal-Mart’s zoning compliance remains at question at its store in Boutte, but store management is determined to stay open. A court in Hahnville granted Wal-Mart a 10-day temporary restraining order Monday against St. Charles Parish from enforcing a Zoning Board of Adjustment order to shut down. The matter goes to court on April 12 at 10 a.m. before 29th Judicial District Judge Kirk Granier, where Wal-Mart will ask for a permanent injunction against the parish, allowing the store to remain open and recover damages. As reviewed by the petition filed in Granier’s court Monday, the St. Charles Parish Zoning Board of Adjustments revoked Wal-Mart’s zoning compliance certificate, posing the possibility of padlocking it for having an insufficient fence between it and the Primrose Estates subdivision. According to the Primrose Estates Homeowners Association, Planning Director Bob Lambert allowed Wal-Mart to erect a 6-foot fence without accounting for the 2 feet of lot fill used by the subdivision. That makes the fence, in essence, a 4-foot fence on the lots’ side. Aggravating the situation, along Wal-Mart’s frontage with Coronado Park subdivision, an 8-foot fence was built by Wal-Mart as requested by the homeowners there. On Jan. 17, Thompson Construction Co., on behalf of Wal-Mart, was granted a final certificate of zoning compliance, which was transferred to Wal-Mart on Jan. 19. The Primrose Estates Association filed a complaint petition Feb. 6 and, in a March 15 public hearing before the ZBA said the fence, as it is built at two different heights, does not provide the type of buffer between residential and commercial uses. Instead, Lambert should have required that Wal-Mart construct its fence 6 feet above the highest grade of the adjoining Primrose Estates lots, members said. In a 6-1 vote, the seven-member ZBA sided with the homeowners. Wal-Mart was notified by a March 23 certified letter which said the planning director erred in issuing the Final Certificate of Zoning Compliance, as the improvements do not comply with all of the requirements of the zoning ordinance. Lambert argued the subdivision ordinances require that a house slab meet the base flood elevation and that a lot need not meet the base flood elevation. Therefore, he said, the 2 feet of fill on the lots, which made the 6-foot fence a 4-foot fence, was not necessary to meet the lot requirements but created the problem with Wal-Mart. Wal-Mart argued as well the ZBA is improperly constituted, as state law requires the body shall be comprised of five members and may include two alternate members who can participate only if called upon to make up a quorum. As constituted by St. Charles Parish, the ZBA is comprised of seven voting members, each representing a council district. With this, Wal-Mart argued the ZBA’s action was illegal. If Wal-Mart is ordered to build a new fence it may file suit to recover damages. If ordered to shut down, the petition continued, further damages would be sustained, including loss of revenue and cost to remove merchandise from the store.