ASCENSION PARISH - A couple dozen people showed up for Thursday night's Ascension Parish meeting, and it started with an unexpected motion. 

“Chair's requesting an item be added to the agenda tonight which requires a unanimous vote. The agenda item is to introduce an ordinance to amend the original moratorium ordinance, extending it to May 31, 2022,” Councilman John Cagnolotti said. 

The parish is currently under a moratorium blocking any new developments from happening in the parish, so officials can focus on fixing drainage and flooding issues as well as traffic problems. The moratorium is scheduled to expire on April 18, but a motion was made to have it extended six weeks.

“Okay, the motion has failed. We did not get a unanimous vote,” Cagnolotti said. 

But developers still have to wait longer than expected to learn if the new development changes will go into effect.

“What the chairman is looking to do is postpone this to April 17,” Cagnolotti said. 

Meaning council members will not vote on all the proposed changes to the unified land development code until April 17 — the day before the moratorium is expected to end. 

“We're comfortable about a lot of the language. We think that there's a lot of great changes within that, but there's also still some different parts of the code that we need to work on,” Councilman Joel Robert said. 

Developers are waiting for the moratorium to end, but now they are also waiting to see if the council will approve the proposed changes, so they can move forward with their plans.

 “We've had some very, very productive meetings this week in which we've had the opportunity to have our concerns addressed to become better familiar with what we are about to cast a significant vote on,” Councilwoman Teri Casso said.