GONZALES — The Ascension Parish Planning Commission backed the 95-home Forestwood subdivision next to Lamar-Dixon Expo Center last week on promises that new roundabouts proposed for congested La. 30 will alleviate added traffic strains on the F-rated section of highway.
The La. 30 corridor west of Interstate 10 has been the source of complaints from the parish's major industries for several years as traffic has increased amid a boom of construction from expanding plants on the Mississippi River southwest of Gonzales.
The future 32-acre subdivision would empty out onto South St. Landry Avenue and, ultimately, north to La. 30 just west of I-10 and the Tanger Outlets mall.
State highway officials said Thursday they expect that three roundabouts proposed for that section of La. 30 will be put out for bid in January 2020 in the first phase of a series of improvements to the highway in Ascension Parish. One of the roundabouts will be at the South St. Landry Avenue/La. 30 intersection.
Brandie Richardson, spokeswoman for the state Department of Transportation and Development, said the project's first phase, which is estimated to cost $8 million, has funding in place.
The engineers who studied the drainage and traffic impacts of the Forestwood subdivision explained to the parish Planning Commission on Wednesday night why the traffic analysis factored in the not-yet-built roundabouts.
"We wanted to show (the roundabouts) will definitively work with the subdivision and roundabout in place once it's constructed," Laurence Lambert II, a consulting traffic engineer for Forestwood developer America Homeland, told commissioners in Gonzales.
With the roundabouts built, La. 30 is expected to maintain at least a "C" level of service during the highest daily demand, if not better, depending on the time of day, the engineers said.
DOTD is also a few weeks from finishing a second eastbound lane on La. 30 in the area as an interim improvement before the roundabouts are built. But the traffic analyses showed the new traffic lane will make little difference in improving current service levels, Lambert said.
American Homeland told commissioners that the roundabouts would be in place by 2019 when home construction is expected to begin in Forestwood. It was unclear why DOTD and the developer had different schedules for building the roundabouts.
Still, the parish Planning Commission's approval of Forestwood's preliminary plat, which allows construction plans to be submitted and infrastructure construction to begin, comes as the Parish Council considers a major rezoning plan for the same area as the new subdivision — southwest of La. 30 near Lamar-Dixon and just outside the industrial buffer zones for the parish's chemical plants.
The proposed rezoning will add more housing density and some commercial uses to a largely wooded and somewhat swampy area now zoned primarily for Ascension's most restrictive zoning category of one house per acre. The site for Forestwood was something of the vanguard in this proposed change and had already been rezoned last year to three homes per acre, parish officials said.
Before the 5-1 vote, Commissioner Wade Schexnaydre questioned Lambert about the assumptions in the traffic study and why it did not account for traffic from Forestwood using the recently built Edenborne Parkway, just north of the future housing development.
Lambert said the analysis took a conservative approach in assuming all traffic would use South St. Landry Avenue and La. 30 and none would use Edenborne, figuring more Forestwood residents would use La. 30 than the just built Edenborne after it becomes more widely used by the public.
"We wanted to show a worst-case scenario," Lambert said.
At the same time, Lambert acknowledged to Schexnaydre that the traffic analysis did not factor in the effects of major events at Lamar-Dixon. South St. Landry is the major entranceway into the Lamar-Dixon from La. 30. Lambert said the effect of special events was not included because they vary so greatly.
Several parish administrations have pushed to keep the 247-acre multiuse complex chock full of events, drawing hundreds to thousands of visitors per event, ranging from balloon and music festivals to livestock shows and high school graduations. The parish also finished a major soccer complex at the facility last year, which backers hope will draw major tournaments.
Schexnaydre, who ended up opposing the project, had posed whether the subdivision should be delayed so the engineers could instead look at what effect Forestwood would have on existing infrastructure, including Edenborne. But he was unable to formally propose anything before the rest of the commission backed the preliminary plat.
Commissioner Aaron Chaisson was absent Wednesday.
In addition to the roundabout at La. 30 and South St. Landry, the other two roundabouts in the coming DOTD project are planned at the on- and off-ramps for the I-10/La. 30 interchange in Gonzales just east of South St. Landry Avenue, Richardson said.
Richardson said the first phase of roundabouts is in preliminary design and was the outgrowth of a corridor feasibility study in 2016 that looked at various traffic concepts for La. 30 between Ashland Road and La. 44.
The future phases will be scheduled when money is available, Richardson said.
