AI-assisted research summary: This section states the municipality’s findings and purpose about clearing and redeveloping slum and blighted areas, and sets a low-income housing requirement for certain projects.
§4720.102. Findings, declaration of necessity, and purpose A. It is hereby found and declared that: (1) There are areas in the city of Opelousas, Louisiana, which have become slum and blighted because of the unsafe, unsanitary, inadequate, or overcrowded conditions of the structures therein, or because of inadequate planning of the area, or because of physically or functionally obsolete structures, or both, or because of excessive dwelling unit density, or because of the lack of proper light and air and open space, or because of faulty street or lot design, or because of inadequate public utilities or community services, or because of the conversion to incompatible types of land usage and facilities which are functionally obsolescent due to the passage of time and the resulting wear and tear. (2) Such conditions or a combination of some or all of them have and will continue to result in making such areas economic and social liabilities imposing onerous municipal burdens which decrease the tax base and reduce tax revenues and cause harm to the social and economic well-being of the municipality, depreciating property values therein, and thereby depreciating further the general community-wide values. (3) The prevention and elimination of slums and blighted areas and their causes is a matter of public policy and concern in order that the municipality shall not continue to be endangered by areas which are focal centers of economic and social retardation and consume an excessive proportion of its revenues because of the extra services required for police, fire, accident, and other forms of public protection, services, and facilities. (4) The salvage and renewal of such areas, in accordance with sound and approved plans for their redevelopment, will promote the public health, safety, morals, and welfare. (5) Certain such areas or portions thereof may be susceptible to conservation or rehabilitation by voluntary action and through existing regulatory processes in such a manner that the conditions and evils enumerated in this Section may be eliminated, remedied, and prevented; and that in certain areas blight and slum conditions are beyond remedy or reasonable control through regulatory processes and cannot be effectively dealt with under existing law without additional aids herein allowed; and that such conditions often exist under circumstances in areas in which their assembly for purposes of clearance, replanning, and redevelopment is impossible without the exercise of the power of expropriation. B. The powers conferred by this Chapter are for public uses, purposes, and utility for which public money may be expended, and expropriation authority utilized as necessary and in the public's interest and in conformity with the approved plans of the municipality. The provisions provided by this Chapter shall apply for residential, recreational, commercial, industrial, or other uses and otherwise encourage the provision of healthful homes, a decent living environment, and adequate places of employment for the people in this municipality. Such purposes are hereby declared as a matter of legislative determination. C. It shall be the public policy that not less than twenty-three percent of the proposed new dwellings included in each of the proposed projects where the relocation of persons or families are required, excluding penal, cultural, industrial, recreational, and medical projects, or parts thereof, shall be dwellings for families of low income. Acts 2007, No. 380, §1, eff. July 10, 2007.