Rezoning request delayed after residents voice concerns
Published 6:00 pm Thursday, June 13, 2019
Jeff Davis Police Jury listens to opposition on mobile home park near Elton
JENNINGS — A plan for a new mobile home park just outside of Elton was put on hold Wednesday after the Jeff Davis Police Jury delayed a vote on a rezoning request after hearing concerns from nearby residents.
Police Juror Curt Guillory asked the Police Jury to postpone taking action on the request for two weeks to allow questions concerning the mobile home park to be addressed. Among the issues is the type of trailers to be located in the park and the type of commercial sewer system to be installed.
“I cannot approve the application without answers to questions which may cause problems down the road,” Guillory said after the meeting.
Property owner Kenneth Reynard said he planned to develop a “nice, clean” park with rental spaces for 12-14 mobile homes on Doise Road, just outside the town limits.
Plans for the park also include a security trailer, which would serve as a “seasonal retail space” for the sale of fireworks and snow cones, Reynard said. Other plans include an asphalt private road and benches with shade trees.
A management company would oversee the park, he said.
Before postponing the matter, police jurors heard opposition from nearby residents and property owners.
Among those was Kurt Gobel, who lives and farms in the area.
“I would not like to see a trailer park put there,” Gobel said. “I wouldn’t mind a house or houses, but a trailer park, I would rather not see. I don’t think it would benefit the area. We have a nice neighborhood. I think it would devalue the properties around there.”
Police chief Bruce Lemelle, who owns property just west of the proposed location, is not in favor of the mobile home park.
“If the guy would come in there and put some houses in, that would be different,” Lemelle said. “Trailer houses would bring the house values down.”
Lemelle said people need places to stay, but the concern is what type of trailer would be located in the park and what kind of people would live there.
“We’ve got a good neighborhood and our crime rate is tremendous back there,” he said. “We don’t have no crime back there. Everybody knows everybody. Everybody’s friendly back there.”
Regan Lemoine, who lives on Doise Road, said she would not want a trailer park in her neighborhood.
“Everybody knows everybody,” she said. “If you put a trailer park, it’s different people moving in and drugs, then we have crime, then it’s going to be too much, and I have kids back there.”
Russell Stinson, who also lives in the area, said a trailer park and increased traffic would disturb an otherwise quite community.