Good Friday news about my new parish!

Archdiocese to meet with residents next week to discuss plans for new church near Mandeville

By Christine Harvey, The Times-Picayune The Times-Picayune

 Nearly two years after St. Tammany Parish government shot down its plans for a large church, school and 1,400-home development north of Mandeville, officials with Most Holy Trinity Catholic Church will meet with residents next week to discuss plans for a new church development at the same site.

 The church has operated since its inception in 2006 in the former Mr. Fish pet store on the U.S. 190 service road.

The Rev. Rodney Bourg, the church's pastor, and representatives from the Archdiocese of New Orleans, which owns 360 acres east of Westwood Drive for the development, will host the meeting Tuesday. It starts at 7 p.m. at the church's temporary home, the former Mr. Fish pet store on the nearby U.S. 190 Service Road.

The site is slated to include the church, as well as a funeral home and cemetery, on 54 acres between Dove Park Road and a planned extension of Judge Tanner Boulevard.

But perhaps of equal interest to some neighbors, the plan also includes a bypass road connecting Dove Park and Judge Tanner that is expected to keep traffic from clogging Westwood Drive, as well as Beech and Orleans streets.

The meeting will take place exactly one week before the St. Tammany Parish Zoning Commission hears a request from the archdiocese to change the zoning designation on the parcels slated for the 25,000-square-foot church, the funeral home and cemetery.

The archdiocese wishes to change the designation from A-1, or single-family residential, to community-based facilities district for the church, and to public facilities district for the funeral home and cemetery.

The Zoning Commission will meet May 3 at 6 p.m. in the Parish Council's chambers on Koop Drive near Mandeville. The Parish Council will make the final decision in the matter sometime after that.

Mandeville City Councilman Marty Gould contacted Bourg last year about building a permanent home for Most Holy Trinity, which began holding services in 2006.

The discussion followed the decision in 2009 by the New Orleans Archdiocese to abandon plans for a 1,400-home traditional neighborhood development, which included a new church and a school, at the same location.

Nearby residents, worried about increased traffic and potential drainage problems, fought the plan. The Zoning Commission ultimately denied the project a permit, plus the archdiocese had difficulty obtaining a wetlands permit on the land from the Army Corps of Engineers.

Gould said then that he thought the project could have moved forward with just the church and school components, though now plans for a school are on hold.

The archdiocese has done everything Gould has asked with regard to changing the project, so now it's time for the residents to be reasonable, he said. Of those who live near the site, most of the people he has spoken to seem content with the plan in its present form, Gould said.


And he's excited about the bypass road, which would be called Most Holy Trinity Drive and run parallel to Westwood Drive, and would provide better access to those residents trying to reach Dove Park Road from Judge Tanner Drive.

While the current church seats about 400, the new church would house roughly 900. In addition, the site immediately adjacent to the church would include a family life center, a pastoral center and a rectory, with all of the structures totaling 47,000 square feet, said Jeff Schoen, the attorney representing the archdiocese.

The funeral home and cemetery would be located on 45 acres to the east of the church. Though the project as a whole does impact wetlands, meaning the archdiocese would need to secure a permit from the Army Corps of Engineers, the vast majority would be preserved under the current plan, Schoen said.

The plan includes a 100-foot, no-cut buffer along the length of Westwood Drive, with the depth of the buffer between the road and the actual church reaching as much as 300 feet at some points, in an effort to protect the neighbors on the other side, he said. Buffers will exist along other edges of the property as well, Schoen said.

The archdiocese has agreed to donate 80 acres south of the church to the parish to remain as a wildlife preserve, he said. It also will create two detention ponds that not only will serve the church's needs but, later, in a regional detention capacity to handle drainage from the north, Schoen said.