By T. Scott Boatright
Monday’s Ruston City Council meeting felt as much like a prelude setting up May’s monthly meeting as anything else with the Board of Alderman introducing 11 different ordinances that will be discussed and likely acted upon during next month’s governmental gathering at City Hall.
Four of those ordinances are hoped to increase economic development along part of West Alabama Avenue while another is aimed at helping a New Orleans company that’s been trying to relocate here for a year to eventually expand to Lincoln Parish.
Those four ordinances were introduced in hopes of developing a part of West Alabama Avenue consisting of four contiguous land tracts that are separately owned and are currently all zoned for heavy industrial use.
But because Mayor Ronny Walker and other city officials are concerned that heavy industrial use zoning currently set for those four tracts is not the best business plan for that land, hence the proposal for zoning changes.
Last month the process started as the Ruston Planning and Zoning Commission unanimously moved to recommend to City Council that changes to zoning within the general business and multi-family residential district that couple lead to that land being used for commercial development along with potential townhouses and other multi-family dwellings.
Walker explained to those in attendance while multiple ordinances were introduced as part of the process toward making that happen.
“For those in attendance tonight who think that’s a lot the same stuff (in the involved ordinances), and it is, this involves four different pieces of property being changed from heavy industrial use to multi-family residences, and to do that you don’t only have to change the ordinance but you also have to change the land-use, so we have to introduce those this month and they’ll be voted on next month,” Walker said.
Another ordinance introduced during Monday evening’s meeting has been more than a year in the making.
In March of 2024 Sea-Land President began talks of moving the company, which was established in New Orleans in 2004 as a wholesale distributor of rigging products primarily for the offshore oil industry.
According to the company’s website, in 2009, a second company named Sea-Fit was created to develop a line of mooring sockets used to secure drilling rigs in deep water.
By 2016, Sea-Fit was sold as Sea-Land Distributors moved its focus to designing, developing, and manufacturing lines of products that are used not only in the offshore industry, but in many other industries and market sectors across the country.
The ordinance introduced during Monday’s Board of Aldermen meeting on that matter involves a proposed cooperative endeavor agreement between the city and Sea-Land Distributors for the company to buy approximately 7 acres east of the former Monster Moto building that SeaLand wants to buy in hopes of eventually expanding,
All of the ordinances introduced on Monday by the Board of Aldermen will be discussed and likely voted on during the Ruston City Council’s May meeting.
While introducing ordinances felt like a main theme of Monday’s meeting, the Ruston City Council did act on a few other measures, too.
One of those will allow the city to enter into a contract with the David Lawler Construction Company out of Shreveport to replace water lines as part of the Eastland Avenue Water Improvements Project at a low-bid cost of $346,650.
“The sewer lines have already been replaced, so after the water lines are in place the final part of the project will be overlaying it all later this summer,” said City Public Works Director John Freeman.
Ruston’s City Council also passed a resolution allowing the city to enter into a contract related to the Ruston Regional Airport’s Runway Washout Project.
The Mabry Company was awarded the low bid for that project at a cost of $133,498.
