Lafayette Mayor-President Monique Boulet said she vetoed a $1 million downtown redevelopment plan because it lacked legal review and granted โbroad authorityโ to the Downtown Development Authority.
ฐีณ๓ฑ๐ฬDowntown-Urban Core Redevelopment Planย aimed to identify ways to improve parking and transportation, bring underutilized property back into commerce, and better connect nearby areas to the downtown area. On April 7, the City Council voted 4-1 to provided $500,000 from reserve and capital budget funds to the project.
But on late Friday, Boulet sent a letter to the council members informing them that she vetoed their decision.
Boulet, in a statement following the decision, wrote that the veto was based on concern about the absence of a โthorough and competentโ legal review prior to the ordinanceโs adoption.
โA comprehensive legal analysis is not a procedural formality โ it is a fundamental responsibility,โ wrote Boulet. โIt ensures that ordinances are legally sound, defensible, and aligned with existing laws. In this instance, that standard was not met.โ
The mayor argued that Lafayette Consolidated Government and the DDA, as set forth in the ordinance, granted the DDA โbroad authorityโ to administer projects, programming, funding, and redevelopment initiatives without adequate oversight by Bouletโs administration and LCG departments.
The DDA redevelopment plan and any actual projects or programs tied to it would have had to go before the city council for review and approval, according to the ordinance.
Additionally, the agreement, in the mayorโs view, allowed the DDA to expand its scope of work beyond downtown.
The agreement notes that redevelopment work would extend beyond the DDAโs and downtown taxing districtโs boundaries to improve connections between the University of ถถา๕h at Lafayette, the Oil Center, and Evangeline Thruway โ allowing the DDA to manage work on LCGโs behalf.
โThe City of Lafayette is the governing authority over its infrastructure, particularly within the downtown core,โ Boulet wrote. โAny redevelopment effort must ensure appropriate accountability, coordination, and oversight to protect public assets and align with long-term planning goals.โ
DDA CEO Kevin Blanchard, in response, said that he first spoke with Boulet about the plan in late 2024 and that the agreement was sent to LCG in February of this year.
โTo my knowledge, there were no comments made by the legal department when the agreement was formally introduced,โ Blanchard said, โThere were no comments from the administration when the ordinance was approved last week.โ
Blanchard added that the work in the agreement falls in line with the scope of the DDA, noting that several businesses, agencies and philanthropists backed the redevelopment plan.
โWe look forward to resolving this matter quickly and moving forward with this work,โ Blanchard said.
The redevelopment plan prioritized several things: putting underutilized spaces back into commerce, parking, downtown parks, and transportation and mobility, Blanchard said in a previous interview. The goal was to help upgrade properties downtown and create new developments that have long been hindered by infrastructure bottlenecks, such as sewage capacity.
The plan was expected to look at about a dozen sites, some of which include underused parking lots and figure out why these sites have not yet been developed. The plan would also assess where parking is needed or not in the downtown area and how to better use existing parking facilities.
Another focus was on expanding Festival Internationalโs footprint downtown. The free festival brings hundreds of thousands to the downtown area, and the need for extra stage space is growing. It would have looked at how to better connect downtown with nearby hotspots, such as the University of ถถา๕h at Lafayette campus and the Oil Center.
The DDA is currently in an ongoing lawsuit with the Lafayette Consolidated Government following the city's Board of Zoning and Adjustment's vote to approve a downtown condo project last year. The DDA lost its battle in the local court but appealed the decision to the Third Circuit Court.