By T. Scott Boatright
Property concerned the chief orders of business Thursday night as the Grambling City Council held its monthly meeting at the Community Room of City Hall.
Grambling’s City Council approved rolling over the previous year’s property tax millage rate while also hearing construction of a new 107-home subdivision to be developed just east of the new Lincoln Preparatory School property during that meeting.
“Every year the millages have to be adopted for the property tax rolls to be prepared. The millages are the same. They haven’t gone up. But they have to be adopted every year,” said City Clerk Pamela Stringfellow.
A millage is the tax rate that applies in the calculation of a specific property tax levy expressed in tenths of a penny as opposed to percentages.
Grambling’s City Council also learned that it won’t be long until new property owners will be included on those property rolls.
Project engineer Donnie Barker of Mohr & Associates in Shreveport told Grambling’s City Council that Rhodes Properties and Development is ready to begin construction on The Traditions, a 46-acre subdivision that will consist of 1,800- to 2,000-square foot single family homes on quarter-acre lots.
Barker said the project is ready to begin after around a year’s worth of consideration and thinking that has ended up with construction now planned to be done in two phases.
“This plan was before the Planning and Zoning Board last year,” Barker said. “It’s the same plan. But at that time we had planned to build the whole thing at one time, but now we’re phasing the project. So the subdivision plats have changed just a little bit, just because of phasing it in with two plats.”
Barker said he’d be at the Planning & Zoning Board’s May 15 meeting to present an update saying the project, which was approved by the P&Z Board last year, is set to begin construction.
“Once we get the approvals and permits back we’ll be ready to get started on Phase I,” Barker said.
Barker said the project will begin with infrastructure work with roads, water and sewer systems and underground utility lines would be done first.
“The plan is to do all of the dirt work in this first phase,” Barker said. “So they’re committed to the whole development – the whole subdivision. It’s just easier selling lots to phase to phase the lots so we’re doing it in two phases.
Barker said that because the project has been planned for so long, the group has worked with Lincoln Preparatory School and others in planning a new force sewer main and lift station to ensure the new subdivision will not overload the sewer system and that fire hydrants will be installed every 500 feet throughout The Traditions.
Plans include two ponds for the covenanted subdivision that Barker said would not be too close to any homes and that would be maintained by a homeowners association.
In other business, Grambling’s City Council heard an update from Juneteenth Committee secretary Deidra Dunbar and also recognized the Grambling State University Cheer Squad for becoming the first historically Black college and university team to win the Co-Ed National Championship on April 8 in Orlando, Florida, presenting longtime coach Terry Lilly with a plaque for his years of service to the Grambling community.
