St. Tammany Parish Planning Director Sidney Fontenot recommended to the St. Tammany Zoning Commission Thursday night that the Northeast area of the parish should have a new zoning category of rural overlay or RO.

The area which is bounded by Louisiana Highway 36 to the south, Louisiana Highway 59 to the west, Washington Parish to the north and the Mississippi state line to the east is primarily an agricultural, rural area with a population that does not want a lot of change or development.

As a result, Fontenot recommended the RO designation that would permit agriculture, preserve the countryside and forests and allow residents to “retain their traditional way of life.” “Our primary concern in the area is to keep it rural,” Fontenot said. “Frankly there were residents that said leave us alone,”

The Northeast part of the parish is one of five study areas that is part of a two-year process to apply a Unified Development Code to the entire parish. So far, the South Central Area rezoning has been adopted by the Parish Council, and the Southeast and Southwest study areas recommendations are under review by the council.

Because of the light density of residential and commercial properties in the area, Fontenot said the RO designation would permit farms, commercial enterprises that support farming, produce stands and dirt hauling companies.

There are already four types of residential zoning classifications in the area, but they are scattered and small. There is also very little commercial development in the area and an RO designation would maintain that.

If the commission and council agree, the Northeast study area would be the first in the parish to have an RO designation.

The RO would cover most of the area except for Money Hill and Hillcrest. It would mean that there would be a recommended density of one unit per two acres.

Fontenot said most of the residences in the area are on two to five acres of land. With an RO designation, the area would be 75 percent residential, 2.5 percent commercial, institutional and mixed use, and 23 percent owned by the state and federal government in wildlife management areas and forests.

As for commercial development, Fontenot said residents seem happy with the small number of commercial areas centered in Talisheek, Waldheim, Abita Springs, Hickory, Bush and unincorporated Pearl River. Most of those commercial areas are along the area’s highway and are zoned Highway Commercial.

There was no public discussion of the recommendations at Thursday’s meetings. Fontenot said residents would have a chance to comment at two public meetings July 21 and Aug. 18 in the council chambers on Koop Drive in Mandeville. After that, the recommendations will be approved by the Zoning Commission and then presented to the parish council in September.

Fontenot said the maps with the recommended zoning would be available for public viewing starting tomorrow in the St. Tammany Planning Office. They can also be viewed on the parish’s Web site at www.stpgov.org/departments_planning_rezoning.php. Residents can comment on the recommendations by sending an e-mail to rezoning@stpgov.org.