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When developer Windy Gladney started planning a new residential development in Zachary, there was one big roadblock: The sewer line that runs in front of his property lacked the capacity to handle all the waste water his subdivision was expected to generate. While the city-parish has been upgrading the lines in the area, it could be at least a year before work crews get around to his property, which threatened to delay the project indefinitely.

Now, thanks to a policy issued recently by the city-parish Department of Public Works, developers like Gladney are clear to install their own private sewerage treatment plants if capacity is insufficient or nonexistent, provided that all components of the systems comply with the existing standards before tie-in.

“It’s good that they have clarified this policy,” Gladney says. “Instead of waiting one, two or even three years for the city, we’re going to get to move forward.”

Gladney isn’t alone in praising the policy, which is essentially a clarification in writing of a practice the DPW has followed somewhat erratically for several years. Developers and engineers say it’s a much-needed solution for a city that doesn’t have the infrastructure to keep up with the rapid growth in recent years.

“It’s going to be a great deal,” says engineer Ron Ferris, who pushed for the policy. “Either we come up with something like this, or we don’t do any more developments in particular areas of the parish.”

Which is precisely why some planning types have concerns about the policy. They fear it will allow for haphazard growth with little regard for larger planning and zoning issues.

“In doing this, the city-parish loses a lot of leverage in being able to guide development in an intelligent way,” says Hal Cohen, former director of planning at the Baton Rouge Area Foundation’s Center for Planning Excellence.

While officials at DPW strongly disagree, they do concede that allowing developers to install so-called “package” plants is not an optimum solution. But they say it’s the best temporary measure for a city that long ago outstripped its existing sewer capacity.

That’s been a problem for years. To start with, the existing pipes in the southern part of the parish are old and cracked, which means they fill up with rain water and don’t have the capacity to handle the sewage they’re intended to carry. Certain outlying areas, meanwhile—like Gladney’s property in Zachary — either don’t have sewer lines or they’re too small to handle the influx of new development.

“In the case where they’re too small, we can’t let the developers tie in because it overwhelms the pipes,” DPW director Pete Newkirk says.

In the 1970s and 1980s, when the metro area began expanding into previously rural areas, the parish allowed developers to put in private systems, as they are doing again. But local government failed to regulate the practice, and many of the systems were substandard. It got so bad that the EPA issued a consent decree in 1988, requiring all developers to turn over maintenance of their systems to the city-parish.

“You had all these plants that were poorly constructed or poorly maintained,” Gladney says. “It got to the point that even the power wasn’t turned on sometimes.”

Since then, technology has improved. Federal, state and local guidelines regulating such package plants have also gotten a lot stricter, and Baton Rouge is back in EPA compliance in that area, which is why the city-parish is again allowing developers to build their own treatment plants.

DPW officials insist the tighter regulations that currently exist will prevent the kinds of problems the package plants caused in the past. For one thing, developers have to sign contracts with licensed, bonded treatment companies.

“Before, mom-and-pop sewer treatment plant operations could go and do whatever they wanted,” Newkirk says. “Now, it’s strictly regulated at the DEQ level and by the EPA.”

Besides that, the city-parish system is available to about 80% of the parish, which means the number of developments that fall into this category is relatively small.

SPECIAL TREATMENT: City-parish officials and developers believe 50,000 new post-Katrina residents and a housing boom are a good enough excuse for private sewer treatment plants.

“Plus, a developer can’t opt to put in his own treatment system merely because it might be cheaper,” Newkirk says. “It’s only an option if capacity is insufficient or nonexistent.”

Still, with 50,000 new post-Katrina residents and a housing boom that has yet to show signs of slowing, there’s a lot of growth and much of it is taking place in those outlying areas. That, at least, is the argument city-parish officials and developers give to explain why the policy is necessary.

“Right now, it’s hard enough to get any new construction done because all the laborers and engineers are booked up, and this is a stop-gap measure to make it that much easier,” says Tom Cook, a real estate appraiser who’s active in the Growth Coalition.

But some question whether such a policy is really necessary and worry that the city-parish could be giving away the biggest stick it has to control, or at least guide, growth and development. After all, it’s no secret that developers have historically been given a lot of latitude to build where they want and when they want. That’s one of the reasons that infrastructure in the metro area consistently lags behind residential development. Arguably, this policy will only fuel that fire.

“This forces the city into a position of being reactive on all sorts of other issues like roads, schools, public services and who knows what else,” Cohen says. “Previously, access to sewers and sewer capacity was a big point of leverage in encouraging growth and development in an intelligent way.”

Nonsense, says Newkirk, who points out that the city-parish can always deny a permit if it doesn’t think a development is a good idea. What’s more, the department is in the process of upgrading the entire sewer system, which means capacity will be available to the entire metro area in a few years if all goes according to plan.

TIGHTER REGULATIONS: 'Before, mom-and-pop sewer treatment plant operations could go and do whatever they wanted. Now, it's strictly regulated at the DEQ level and by the EPA,' says DPW director Pete Newkirk.

“It’s not like we’re saying, ‘Oh, go do what you want and we’ll worry about it in the next 10 years,’” Newkirk says. “We’re developing a strategy to upgrade the sewer system, so worst-case scenario we will have private treatment in a development for three to five years at the most.”

Cohen’s not holding his breath. For years, the city-parish has talked about upgrading the system, but it hasn’t happened yet. Whether it will this time remains to be seen. In the meantime, developers will have an easier time moving forward with projects that might otherwise be put on hold, which they see as a positive step for a growing community.

“The city-parish realizes there is a problem and a lack of capacity in their system, and they’re not inclined to completely shut down,” Ferris says. “Everybody realizes there’s a problem, and everybody’s worked together to try to get it fixed.”