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Builder Model Home |
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2012 Cypress Bend Lane |
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Builder Model Home |
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2012 Cypress Bend Lane |
A great advantage to living in southern Louisiana is the mild climate. The outdoors can be enjoyed basically year round. Residents have many recreation trails and waterways to explore. St. Tammany Parish is capitalizing on this great advantage introducing a new trail system called Tammany Trails.
Parish government spokesman Ronnie Simpson says, “We’ve had the Tammany Trace for 20 years. It’s a known entity. The Tammany Trace now has a sister, Tammany Trails.”
The focus of the plan is to educate residents about all the outdoor amenities that are right in their backyard. A website has been launched, tammanytrails.org, that connects people to all of the ways they can enjoy nature’s beauty.
Photographs and maps of the green and blue trails will be on the site showcasing areas such as the Folsom hills, trails in the Honey Island Swamp, Tammany Trace , Big Branch Wildlife Refuge, Camp Salmen Nature Park, Abita Creek Flatwoods Preserve, Lake Ramsey Wildlife Management Area, Fairview Riverside State Park, and Foutainebleau State Park. Waterways include Bayou Lacombe, Cane Bayou, Abita River, Bogue Falaya River, Tchefuncte River, Lake Pontchartrain and Pearl River.
St. Tammany Parish government is not the only entity that recognizes the value of parks and walking, hiking, and biking trails. Bedico Creek Preserve in Madisonville, Louisiana has a complete Parks & Trails system within our Master Planned Conservation Community. By buying a new or custom home in our subdivision, you will enjoy planned concrete paths through out a wildlife refuge and natural habitat. You can even go “off road” on “make your own nature trails” in over 500 acres of natural wooded areas, greenspaces, and waterways.
St. Tammany already has proven to be one of the best places to live in the Greater New Orleans area, and the parish 
and state want to make sure current residents and those who want to purchase a new home in the area also understand the value of its natural resources. They have come together to brand Tammany Trails initiating a partnership between the federal, state and parish levels creating an emphasis on recreation, conservation, tourism and economic development of the area.
“Our natural resources are one of our most valuable assets, not just in St. Tammany, but throughout the entire state of Louisiana, so to work together to raise awareness about how they enhance our unparalleled quality of life, and to give our children and their children this gift to utilize, care for and conserve — this will impact our community on several levels for generations,” Parish President Pat Brister said.
The coming together of all of the agencies to promote Tammany Trails will also boost opportunities for grants who will involve volunteers. So far the lieutenant governor’s office, Office of Louisiana State Parks, Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, U.S. National Park Service, Northlake Nature Center, Land Trust for Louisiana, The Nature Conservancy, City of Slidell, The Tammany Trace Foundation, Camp Salmen Nature Park, Town of Abita Springs, City of Covington, City of Mandeville, St. Tammany Recreation District No. 1 / Pelican Park, Northshore Community Foundation, St. Tammany Parish Tourist and Convention Commission, and the St. Tammany Economic Development Foundation have partnered with the parish to make Tammany Trails a success.
St. Tammany Parish is seeing the benefits and struggles of growth as it relates to the strong housing market. It is projected that the parish population will increase from the current 250,000 to approximately 460,000 by the year 2030. Many fear the growth will lead to a look of “Anywhere U.S.A.” with separate commercial and residential developments.
Not only do experts fear it will lead to a non-aesthetically pleasing look, but it will also lead to horrible traffic problems. St. Tammany is more susceptible to this problem because everyone living in the parish has to drive everywhere they want to go. The national average of trips made by people alone in a vehicle is 70% but in St. Tammany, it is 82%. With the growth and sprawling suburban expansion comes more roads being built, which will only increase the number and length of St. Tammany residents’ trips.
St. Tammany parish government and a company called Greater New Orleans Inc. are working towards a solution to struggles with a growing population. They sponsored a panel of experts from the Urban Land Institute (ULI), housed in Washington D.C., to study the parish as it relates to future development, land-use strategies and hardiness to flooding and hurricanes. According to panel Chairman Jim Heid, “the object was to provide objective and unbiased views on land use challenges.”
In a meeting held at the parish government complex north of Mandeville, the concept of a “village in the woods” was most favorable. This concept brings the residential and commercial land use together through a pedestrian friendly development that focuses on using the natural environment. This will give residents the choices of walking, bicycling
or carpooling to destinations.
The panel recommended the development could potentially be located in the area between Interstate 12 and Louisiana 36 north of Lacombe, including Louisiana 1088 and 454. Fortunately the parish already has several areas to look upon as role models for this “village in the woods” concept. TerraBella located off Bootlegger Road in Covington, the planned development Tamanend, off of Louisiana 434 and downtown Covington already project this concept with their mixed-use development including apartments, single family houses, shops and other businesses.
Stakeholders are supportive of this concept and according to Alan Razak, a member of the panel, “strong political will and some risk taking” will be the only way this vision will come to fruition. Parish Planning Director Sidney Fontenot sees potential in other areas such as land north of Lacombe where the Northshore Technical Community College project is beginning and the Goodbee area located west of Covington.
To sum it up, the panel recommends that parish leaders update St. Tammany Parish’s comprehensive plan for the future by adding to the land with mixed-use developments. Fontenot states, “I think the next step is at what level do we go from allowing it, encouraging it to mandating it. That’s a major policy discussion for the elected officials in concert with input from the citizens.”
