DONALDSONVILLE — Residents gathered for a town hall on Thursday to discuss pushing for a Community Benefits Agreement with Hyundai over an incoming steel mill.

The event was hosted by Good Neighbors Louisiana, a coalition formed by 13 to 15 organizations. The group wants written commitments from Hyundai that include local hiring, community investment, protections for homes and land, and permits that prioritize cleaner technology.

Glenn Price, a resident and member of the Sunrise Community Group, said the goal is to hold Hyundai accountable to any promises made.

"A CBA means that you're going to sign off on what you're going to do for our community," Price said. "If you're willing, saying you're willing to provide so many jobs for our community, great. If you're saying that you're going to put so much money into our community, that's great, but we want you to put that in writing. Too many times we've been promised, and promises have been broken."

Kelvin Wells, an industrial organizer with Sierra Club's Delta Chapter, said the coalition has been working on this effort for more than a year and has already hand-delivered a letter to Hyundai outlining their demands.

Wells said the steel mill project totals $5.8 billion, with $2.6 billion coming from taxpayer money. He said that public investment is part of why the community deserves a binding agreement.

"What we don't want is the sort of parasitic relationship that we've seen before between corporations and the community, especially corporations like these that get billions of dollars in tax breaks, over years and years, and the community suffers and pines away. So that's what we don't want."Wells said,

The project has also sparked new business interest in the city, including plans for a Korean BBQ restaurant and a Lemon Tree Coffee Shop. Organizers said they support that growth but want the community to have a say in what it looks like.

"If they're going to come to build a facility that runs on green and renewable energy, to build a facility that's safe, to employ people that are from here, and also, again, to reinvest and build up the community around it, as opposed to being a leech, a parasite on the community. And we want that in writing. And that's the only way we believe that this is going to work out," Wells said.