Lafayette Comprehensive Plan Scenarios Seek To Centralize Population

Over the past several months the city of Lafayette has been collecting community input to develop a Comprehensive Plan that hopes to guide and accelerate every aspect of the city's growth for the future.

Architect Steve Oubre along with Assistant to the City Parish President Carly Alm-Labar stopped by “Mornings with Ken and Bernie” this morning for our weekly “Lafayette Live” to give us an update on the Comprehensive Plan, and explain why the plan is so vital to the growth of the city.

To date, four separate plan scenarios have been created and will soon be voted on during community forum meetings. One of the four proposed scenarios is a "no plan" scenario in which the city continues on as it has been without implementing a Comprehensive Plan. Steve Oubre explained this "no plan" is actually the most expensive of them all.

The no plan is really what we've been doing for some time now. It does involve some planning, unfortunately the planning methodologies we've been using over the last 15 years or so are somewhat antiquated and we haven't seen the true impact until recent. Many of the things we've been doing are inefficient and costly and we cannot afford to continue them. - Steve Oubre

The three other proposed scenarios involve centralizing growth and future population in order to make more effective use of shared amenities.

Proposed Scenarios

Centralized Downtown - Centralize growth around core of the city.
Centralized "nodes" - Allow growth to occur in "nodes" or centers in order to mix uses in different parts of the city.
Current Corridor Development - Develop growth around the current corridors in the city. (Johnston Street, Ambassador, Evangeline Throughway)

Oubre reiterated the importance of the Comprehensive Plan in the city's development, as projections indicate that Lafayette's population will be seeing tremendous growth in the next 15 years.

If our community grows, and we're talking about 90,000 new people in the next 15 years, that's substancial. If we grow at that level, and we grow under the "no plan" scenario, we will place 90,000 people throughout our parish, which would never support mass transit on any level. Consolidating growth patterns, putting more people living downtown and in the corridors makes transit more efficient. Consequently we could begin utilizing more efficient mass transit. - Steve Oubre

The next Comprehensive Plan forum meetings will take place:

Tuesday, May 14^th, 4-8 pm, Rosa Parks Transportation Center, 101 Jefferson St.
Wednesday, May 15^th, 11 am-3 pm, Heymann Performing Arts Center, 1373 S. College Rd.

For more information, please visit PlanLafayette.com