Commercial and Residential Properties to Sell in May 23-24 Auction
ATLANTA, GA, May 04, 2012 (MARKETWIRE via COMTEX) --
Approximately 300 properties -- most of them in north Georgia and
metro Atlanta -- will sell in a two-day real estate auction May
23-24, with John Dixon & Associates conducting the auction. Most of
the properties are bank-owned and will sell at absolute auction, with
no minimum or reserve bid.
"These two events will combine the assets of several different
lenders and property owners, providing a substantial selection of
properties, including office buildings, commercial land and lots,
industrial buildings and land, homes, duplexes, lake lots, and golf
course lots. We will sell them in approximately 100 groupings," said
John Dixon, president of the auction company.
The event on Wednesday, May 23, will focus on properties in north
Georgia, including a home site on Lake Lanier in Buford, with a
private boat ramp and dock. Other properties include dozens of
residential lots, six townhome lots, homes and agricultural land.
"With so many properties, we felt we needed to offer them over two
days to do all of the properties justice," said Dixon. Events both
days will begin at 11 a.m. at the Holiday Inn Atlanta Perimeter, 4386
Chamblee-Dunwoody Road, Atlanta.
The event on Thursday, May 24, will include homes, a six-unit office
building, an auto repair shop, and scores of residential lots for
future construction.
"The economy is continuing to gain steam, and it won't be long before
developers, builders and individuals will once again be seeking lots
on which to build homes. Those who obtain them now will no doubt get
them at lower prices, resulting in a better total return on their
investments," said Dixon.
The auction also will include properties in North Carolina and
Alabama, including a lakefront lot in Alabama's Wilcox County.
Individuals seeking additional information on the properties may
visit johndixon.com or call 800-479-1763.
John Dixon & Associates, headquartered in Marietta, Ga., is a leading
auctioneer specializing in the sale of bank-owned properties
throughout the United States. More auction communications.
For more information:
Carl Carter
205-823-3273
SOURCE: John Dixon & Associates
Copyright 2012 Marketwire, Inc., All rights reserved.
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Former D.C. Mayor Adrian Fenty speaks in Hill East. (D.C. Wire blog/The Washington Post) It was called Reservation 13 years ago, but it was Hill East by the time former D.C. Mayor Adrian M. Fenty began searching for a private development partner for 50 acres along the Anacostia River in 2008.
Since then, residents of the neighborhood haven’t seen much progress. Hill East, located at the eastern end of Massachusetts Avenue Southeast, is still home to a homeless shelter, a medical examiner’s office, former hospital and other social services facilities, even though it was once envisioned as a “vibrant, mixed-use urban waterfront community” according to the city. In fact, the web site for the deputy mayor for planning and economic development still says it plans to pick a developer by “mid-2010.” D.C. General Hospital, which closed in 2001. (Marvin Joseph - The Washington Post)
So...what’s going on with Hill East? Despite Hill East’s attractive location between Capitol Hill and the riverfront, the real estate market was approaching panic mode when Fenty began his search for developers in 2008. Fenty narrowed his selection to two teams of developers, each of which proposed massive buildouts approaching 5 million square feet, but chose neither. Vincent Gray, after beating Fenty in the 2010 election, hasn’t selected a developer, either. Now the real estate market has changed so much that a new selection process may be required.
Meanwhile there are other moves afoot that are draped in burgundy and gold. In November, Gray and two members of the D.C. Council traveled to Tampa, Fla. to inspect an NFL training facility similar to one they might consider to build at Hill East for the Redskins. Council member Jack Evans (D-Ward 2) said he doesn’t know what the facility would cost or if the Redksins are interested in it. “First of all we have to get a commitment that they want to get it done,” he said of the team. He will know more, he said, in a few weeks.
Not everyone is thrilled by the Redskins idea, namely residents nearby and Greater Greater Washington bloggers, because the Hill East project has been yanked from the deputy mayor’s office and moved to that of the city administrator while the Redskins idea is considered. Deputy Mayor Victor Hoskins told the D.C. Council Thursday that the Redskins talks, “are really preliminary discussions right now.”
But for Hill East residents hoping for that vibrant, mixed-use community, the talks mean more waiting, as even when a plan is decided on, major development will require moving the existing facilities somewhere else. Current vibrancy mostly stems from D.C. jail. Is there a project, building or property in your neighborhood that you want to learn more about? We’ve previously written about the Paul S. Sarbanes Transit Center, the Shrimp Boat restaurant, the Arlington Funeral home site and others. You can send suggestions to oconnellj@washpost.com
Follow Jonathan O’Connell on Twitter: @oconnellpostbiz
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Buildings are like people. Even when they get too old and decrepit to work, their examples can still teach. Something like 100 buildings from the Lincoln era are thought to still stand in Springfield. Most of them, unfortunately, are houses that, being quite small and much amended by their many owners and in the wrong part of town, are worth little in any real estate market catering to any but the very poor. Neither do they have much historic value in themselves, apart from the Adams House on Clear Lake Avenue and the Judge Taylor House on 12th Street, a capacious two-story residence that later served as a hospital for “fallen women” and their children and then as a private school for African-American children.
Even so, many of these buildings do suggest the period’s building styles and workmanship. Some months back, the Springfield-Sangamon County Regional Planning Commission asked the National Park Service why some of those buldings couldn’t be moved to the Lincoln Home site and put to use, perhaps as one of the new maintenance and storage facilities envisioned in the new plan. I also argued for such a scheme in print. (See “Faithful to the period,” Sept. 2, 2010.) The buildings would have made a fine supporting cast in the story the NPS tries to tell about L’s life in a gentrifying neighborhood. Reusing buildings this way also would be green, it would advance the NPS historic preservation mandate and it probably would save the feds some money.
The NPS nixed the idea. (See “A new old street,” Jan. 19, 2012.) The agency argued that moving Lincoln-era transplants onto the Lincoln Home site would mislead the public. This is nonsense. The NPS plans to build four new replica houses that will be “interpreted” to the public (NPS-speak for “described”) as “exhibits” rather than “authentic reconstructions.” I see no reason why the presence in the site of a transplanted Lincoln-era structure could not be explained the same way.
If the city’s Lincoln-era structures are threatened where they stand, why not move them? Moving historic houses is a sort of architectural and historical witness protection program in which vulnerable structures are removed to places where they can be safe from their enemies. It’s been done many times in Springfield and central Illinois.
The Corneau house that now stands on the southwest corner of the Eighth and Jackson, across from the Lincolns’ house, was threatened with demolition by the 1960s. It was moved immediately north of the home to get it out of harm’s way, then moved again in the 1990s when the National Park Service returned it to its original site. Springfield Preservation, Ltd. moved two houses near the Statehouse that were slated for demolition to West Cook as part of the German Settlers Row project. Most recently, the Maisenbacher House was snatched from the voracious jaws of the Springfield Clinic neighborhood and reinstalled at Seventh and Jackson. Then there is the Iles House, which has changed addresses more often than a deadbeat dad trying to outrun process servers – the southeast corner of Sixth and Cook streets to start, then 1825 S. Fifth and since 1998 its present site on South Seventh at Cook.
In several Illinois towns there is a history village, large park-like grounds to which several buildings of local significance have been moved to form an outdoor museum of local building types, usually managed by the local historical society, often on public land. Stone Coal Log Cabin Village, on the Pana Tri-County Fairgrounds, displays original log buildings from the early Illinois era. The Christian County Historical Society Museum features an 1820 log house, the 1839 Christian County courthouse (where Lincoln argued cases), the one-room Buckeye Schoolhouse from 1856 and the Old Owaneco Depot.
Up north, just this side of the edge of the known world in suburban Chicago, is the Deerfield Historic Village, which consists of five buildings – an 1837 log house that is thought to be the oldest standing building in Lake County, an 1847 log house, an 1854 frame farmhouse and an 1890-era one-room schoolhouse. Out in DuPage County is Naper Settlement, an outdoor history museum on 12 acres of city-owned grounds whose refugees include one of Naperville’s oldest frame houses, a country post office from the 1830s and DuPage County’s oldest church – 30 buildings in all.
Why doesn’t Springfield have a history village? Well, it does, sort of, in the Lincoln Home site.
And while it isn’t hard to image a similar village on the near east side near the new Capitol Avenue, perhaps on land acquired by the city through tax sales, it is hard to imagine the city council voting the money to actually do it. Besides, it’s already mostly too late. Springfield’s first schoolhouse? First church? First general store? All long gone.
That means that most of the Lincoln-era structures not already protected, save perhaps the Taylor house, eventually will end up like Lincoln, dead and buried. There is nothing sadder than a house without a home.
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Girard Park residents risk way too much if they give in to attorney Jimmy Davidson’s attempts to bring more commercial development to their historic neighborhood.
An Independent analysis
Girard Park residents are exhausted. Who wouldn’t be?
A legal maneuver by a neighbor who has long been a thorn in their side is once again threatening the character and integrity of their historic neighborhood. Attorney Jimmy Davidson is taking his neighbors to court to nullify a 1940 covenant that restricts Girard Park Drive frontage to residential use. It’s the latest in his effort to have the property reclassified as commercial, which typically sells at a higher rate than residential. It all started more than a decade ago, when a diligent group of Girard Park residents launched an organized resistance to Davidson’s efforts to have his 4.1 acres at the corner of Girard Park and Hospital drives rezoned from residential to commercial so he could sell it at the highest possible price. It was 1998, and Davidson was attempting to have the property reclassified from single-family residential to general business, a broad classification that would allow for everything from a car dealership to a service station to a pet store or even a McDonald’s. His neighbors were resolute, rallying much of the community and peppering the area with signs that read: “Save Our Neighborhood. Save Our Park.”
Davidson withdrew the request.
Many of those in opposition had already acquiesced to Lafayette General Medical Center in the mid-1980s when they agreed to amend the neighborhood covenant and support rezoning to allow the hospital construct a professional office building on Girard Park Drive — across Hospital Drive from Davidson’s property. Since that time, they have been steadfast in opposition to additional commercial encroachment. And they should be. With the park its prized amenity, the historic neighborhood — which boasts four A. Hays Town homes — is among the most attractive residential communities in Lafayette. There simply is nothing else like it. And Lafayette will never again have this kind of asset in the heart of the city.
Davidson, however, was back at it in 2005. Because his neighbors’ passion to protect their quaint and historic piece of Lafayette from commercial intrusion had squashed his rezoning attempt, the longtime Lafayette attorney got creative. Somehow, someway, Davidson’s acreage was appraised at $3.25 million by a retired appraiser/close friend/business associate. Davidson then worked out a deal with another good friend, then-UL President Ray Authement, to swap it for the first 36 acres of pristine prairie land, the front portion of UL’s Johnston Street horse farm property. Davidson, who drew up the legal documents, wasn’t actually getting the horse farm land; his plan was to sell his property to the group that would do the exchange with UL. Davidson, this newspaper discovered, would get to remain living on his property rent-free for two years. Davidson’s 4 acres and the university’s 36 were each appraised at $3.25 million. Uh-huh.
The deal stunk to high heaven, and that’s when The Independent got its first introduction to Jimmy Davidson, who promptly said in a phone call that he would not discuss his property with this newspaper.
We broke the story on the dubious values in the highly suspect swap, as Davidson’s property was valued at $18.20 per square foot, which ranked it among the most costly commercial land on the Lafayette real estate market. Oddly, the property was appraised for its potential commercial use, yet also got the benefit of the value of Davidson’s two homes at 537 and 539 Girard Park Drive. If you’re a reader of The Independent, you know the rest of the story: The shady deal fell apart. But not before we went looking for buried treasure on Davidson’s property only to discover that the Lafayette attorney had been surreptitiously running a plastic injection molding operation, hiding the industrial operation and its metal buildings and forklifts behind thick shrubbery and using the swimming pool as a cooling facility — all of this in a single-family residential zone. The business, ASH Industries, which of course had not been paying its fair share of commercial property taxes, later relocated to a legitimate business site, though unsightly remnants of its existence remain on Davidson’s property.
And not before Davidson threatened real estate appraiser Lane Godshall, who was hired by the state to re-value the property in 2006 and determined it to be worth only $1.5 million — threats we only learned about because we successfully sued for access to the second appraisal. “God, he was really mad,” Godshall said in his deposition. “[Davidson] said, ‘If this value gets out, I will sue your ass.’”
Jimmy Davidson is trying to nullify a 1940 covenant restricting Girard Park
Drive property to residential use so that he can have all of his 4.1 acres at Girard
Park and Hospital drives rezoned for commercial use. Davidson himself violated
zoning laws years ago by surreptitiously operating a plastics manufacturing
business on his property; while the business has moved out, remnants of the
industrial operation remain.
In his words and actions, Davidson has made it clear he will stop at nothing to get his property’s value up.
Davidson took another major step toward that end in late 2007 when he negotiated a sweet deal with outgoing councilmen to have his property rezoned, again despite overwhelming opposition from Lafayette Consolidated Government’s zoning staff, the Lafayette Zoning Commission and, of course, his Girard Park neighbors. He successfully rezoned 2.67 acres in the back of the property for commercial use, purportedly to construct office and retail space. It was rezoned B-1-L, a limited business classification that would allow a variety of developments ranging from apartments to neighborhood service-oriented businesses and office space. The council also agreed to rezone a little more than an acre of the single-family residential property along Girard Park Drive from R-1-A, or single-family residential, to R-4, which allows condominiums, townhouses and patio homes.
Both Lafayette Consolidated Government’s zoning staff and the Lafayette Zoning Commission opposed his rezoning request in large part because Davidson would not present a firm plan for redeveloping the property; by law, he does not have to do so, and the council did not hold him to that standard.
The domino effect of commercial intrusion was a major issue for opposing neighbors, but the group also expressed concerns about safety and the impact of additional traffic in the residential area surrounding the park.
The rezoning meant Davidson could construct a beautiful townhouse or condo project on Girard Park Drive and now had a range of options for what he could put on the back of the property, save for a plastics manufacturing business.
While disappointed in defeat, neighbors thought they’d heard the last of Davidson after the 2007 rezoning but got a surprise in November when they were served with a lawsuit. Davidson’s not satisfied with the R-4 classification on his front acreage, so he’s taking 19 of his neighbors to court.
Lafayette Consolidated Government, which owns the old Planetarium and
Heymann Memorial Park, says it is protecting its own interests by
intervening in Davidson’s lawsuit. LCG’s attorney calls it “a fairly cut and
dried legal matter in which Davidson appears to have obtained the
consents of a necessary number of property owners to have the restriction lifted.”
He is asking the court to declare null and void a 1940 covenant, Act 153556, that restricts the first 300 feet of property on the east side of Girard Park to residential use — and may also restrict to residential all of the west side of Girard Park Drive south of the park, from the Verlander property at Girard Park Drive and Girard Park Circle (catercorner to Davidson’s land) up to the coulee — allowing for both single-family dwellings and apartments. When the covenant was signed in 1940, Girard Park Drive was a shell road known as Taft Street Extension, so as best we can determine, all Girard Park Drive property north of Davidson’s house (beginning with Tony Gordon’s home site) is not technically encumbered by the covenant. However, Gary McGoffin, the attorney for the majority of residents sued by Davidson, maintains that based on deeds for property sold in the area, those properties appear to be part of the overall plan to restrict the area to residential use. Property owners in Girard Woods subdivision, while they are part of Act 153556 and have a voice in the matter, would be protected from commercial development by their own subdivision covenants, McGoffin says. Davidson’s argument is that Act 153556 (the one that also restricts ownership and occupancy in Girard Park to the white race, a provision that stopped appearing in later deeds but was never officially amended out) has been canceled numerous times over the years by non-comforming uses; he ought to know, as he got his plastics manufacturing business grandfathered into commercial zoning because it had operated under the radar for so long. In particular, he cites the old LCG-owned Planetarium and Heymann Memorial Park, and Lafayette General’s professional office building, all located along Girard Park Drive. As property owners covered by Act 153556, Lafayette General and LCG — the latter last week got a district court judgment that nullifying the act is in its best interest — also want the covenant off the books. LCG’s decision to intervene in the suit at this time is disappointing; with the potential to upset the residential integrity of this historic neighborhood, nullifying the covenant flies in the face of the comprehensive plan for growth local government is about to embark upon. “After reviewing the matter, I concluded that Mr. Davidson was entitled to the relief he sought, and if Mr. Davidson was entitled to this relief, it was in LCG’s interest to intervene in the lawsuit to seek the same relief,” LCG attorney Mike Hebert writes in an email response. “If LCG does not participate in the lawsuit, it is legally questionable whether rulings in the suit would bind LCG or apply to LCG’s property.”
We believe LCG should have let the court decide this matter.
Davidson has gathered support from residents since the mid-1990s and claims to now have releases from owners of 50 percent-plus of the total acreage affected by Act 153556 — which opposing residents and their attorney have taken to calling simply “56.” It appears that there is roughly 50 acres affected by 56. The potential immediate impact of that suit? It could have the effect of tying up the defendants’ properties.
Most Girard Park property owners contacted for this story referred calls to McGoffin (disclosure: McGoffin is also the attorney for The Independent). “The present residential restriction has been in effect for more than 70 years,” McGoffin says. “It is the single best protection of the unique residential, park and green space in the center of Lafayette.” McGoffin stresses that nullifying the covenant could eventually result in the encroachment of just about any commercial interest on Davidson’s acreage. “It could loom over that corner of the park and neighborhood,” the attorney says. “That’s the problem. The unknown.”
Residents did not get a “solid hedge, or other suitable barrier in order to minimize
the effect of parked cars on the view from Girard Park Drive” from Lafayette General’s
professional office building, despite assurances in a 1984 legal document.
McGoffin is confident the residents he represents could prevail in court. “Davidson has the burden of proof,” he says. “There is still a question of whether 56 is a building restriction or a servitude. Servitude variance requires unanimous consent. Building restrictions require majority of total acreage.” Additionally, McGoffin says Davidson has yet to present a plat to account for all the property encumbered by 56.
But McGoffin is a pragmatist. “It always makes sense to sit down with your neighbors to see if there is common ground that can be agreed upon,” he says. “It yields a known result instead of rolling the dice, all or nothing, in court.”
With UL likely out of the picture, hoping to — logically, we might add — expand its campus in a northwest direction to eventually connect it with the Congress Street research park property, it’s highly likely Davidson is once again angling for the attention of his original suitor, Lafayette General.
Davidson’s attorney, Arthur Mouton, declined comment. Davidson, who is now president of the state bar association, did not return a phone call seeking comment.
That Davidson is not going away is no reason residents should relinquish the integrity of the neighborhood, but it’s also doubtful they want to spend what could amount to several years and tens of thousands of dollars fighting him in court. If he’s successful in court, they would have to fight him again before zoning because he will still need to get the front acreage reclassified. That too would be a gamble; zoning is likely to oppose reclassifying the property, but who knows what the council might do.
That’s precisely why we think fighting him in court is money well spent, the battle well worth fighting. Greed should not be allowed to undo what all of these residents have worked decades to preserve.
We strongly urge the residents to keep the covenant on the books — and ask that they not use as a negotiating tool the option of amending it just for Davidson’s property. Keeping the covenant but amending it to suit Davidson, in much the same way it was amended for Lafayette General, will in all likelihood result in another battle with a yet another landowner dazzled by dollar signs.
The residential stipulation is what Jimmy Davidson’s father, J.J. Davidson Jr., wanted to do to protect the family property in 1940 when he joined other property owners M. Eloi Girard, Dr. P. Merritt Girard and Donald Labbe to craft the covenant.
But since the residents and their attorney appear ready to reach out to Davidson, and if he is willing to negotiate — we’re betting he won’t budge — they should demand, in writing, the least intrusive structure, adequate buffering, controlled lighting and other conditions over development of the property along Girard Park. Force him, or the hospital, or whoever is buying the property, to spell out exactly what’s planned and hold them to it.
One of the homes on the Davidson property at Girard Park and Hospital drives
“Can you imagine a multi-story parking garage on the corner?” asks attorney Robbie Mahtook, who lives two lots down from Davidson. Technically, the act in question does not appear to apply to Mahtook’s property at 427 Girard Park Drive, but he is nonetheless just as fearful of what might be built. “My position is going to be we want a buffer zone. And we want to stipulate, exactly, what the buffer zone is.”
Although neighbors got legal assurances in the 1984 covenant amendment from Lafayette General that the hospital would adequately buffer the parking lot of the professional office building from Girard Park Drive — obtained by The Independent, the agreement called for a “solid hedge, or other suitable barrier” — parked cars remain visible from the street, separated by a chain link fence and minimal trees and shrubbery.
Still, residents interviewed for this story say Lafayette General is probably the most palatable option, because of its commitment to stay in the Oil Center and genuine appreciation for the integrity of the neighborhood. And they’d like to include the hospital in their discussions with Davidson.
The hospital’s president and CEO, however, says sitting down with residents and Davidson and discussing any potential development or stipulations would be “extremely premature.” While the hospital has long maintained a strong interest in the Davidson property, David Callecod says the hospital’s last substantive discussions with Davidson about the property were in late 2008 when the attorney asked it to join the effort to nullify the covenant. “We’ve not had any discussions about actually acquiring the property,” he says.
Girard Park residents and all of Lafayette should stand up to this bully one more time. Preserving the unique character and historic fabric of this community asset is critical to who we are.
Business, In General
In 2007, attorney Jimmy Davidson successfully lobbied the Lafayette City-Parish Council to reclassify the back 2.67 acres of his property from single-family residential to B-1-L, or limited business. Because the Oil Center has grown so much over the years, dramatically altering the landscape of that area, the new classification connects the back of his property with similar commercial zoning. Among the types of businesses allowed in B-1-L are: beauty shop, bookstore, professional office, candy store, coffee and/or pastry shop, commercial child care facility, convenience store (excluding gasoline and diesel sales), cosmetic store, drug store (with drive-thru for pharmaceutical products only), floral shop, gift shop, hamburger and/or sandwich shop, hobby supply store, ice cream parlor, laundry (self-service), tobacco store, antique shop, apparel and accessory shop, art gallery, dance studio, interior decorator, jewelry store, personal service shop and stationery store. In 1998, Davidson was unsuccessful in his attempt to have the property rezoned B-G, or general business, a broad classification that would allow for everything from a car dealership to a service station to a pet store or even a McDonald’s.
ASH Industries moved off Davidson’s Girard Park Drive
property in 2006 but left its sign behind.
Unneighborly Conduct
1998 - Davidson applies to rezone his two homes on Girard Park Drive from single-family residential to general business. Neighbors fight back and he withdraws the request. 2005 - A proposed land swap with UL for a portion of its horse farm property has Davidson’s residentially zoned property valued at $3.25 million; property gets both residential and commercial pricing benefits. In reporting the story, The Independent discovers a well-hidden injection molding company, ASH Industries, operating on the back of the property. 2006 - Dubious value of Davidson’s land prompts state to order new appraisal. Davidson threatens real estate appraiser Lane Godshall, whom the state hired to re-value the property and determined it to be worth only $1.5 million. “If this value gets out, I will sue your ass,” Davidson tells appraiser. 2007 - Davidson strikes sweet deal with outgoing council members to have the back of his property rezoned for commercial use and the front rezoned to allow for condos and townhouses (the only returning council member, Bruce Conque, casts a lone vote against the rezoning). 2011- Davidson files suit to declare null and void the 1940 covenant that restricts Girard Park Drive property to residential use to pave the way for another effort to reclassify all of the property as commercial. Names 19 of his neighbors as defendants.
... written by chano leal , February 01, 2012 - 08:46 pm
Lets not forget the other in-breds involved in the horse farm trade or as I should clearly describe the swap, a hell of a screwin of the residents of Lafayette by Davidson and his cronys, Remember Inbred thiefs will join together due to the same selfish, greedy, self serving appetites of stuffing their greedy guts and also remember that the Lafatyette Administrators are also a major player in one-sided appreciated land swaps by their cronys and the inbred cronys.
... written by chano leal , February 01, 2012 - 08:51 pm
If Davidsons neighbors oppose the rezoning, stand up and be counted or turn your butt and assume the position with Davidsons inbred neighbors.
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David Trainer
Davidson, however, was back at it in 2005. Because his neighbors’ passion to protect their quaint and historic piece of Lafayette from commercial intrusion had squashed his rezoning attempt, the longtime Lafayette attorney got creative. Somehow, someway, Davidson’s acreage was appraised at $3.25 million by a retired appraiser/close friend/business associate. Davidson then worked out a deal with another good friend, then-UL President Ray Authement, to swap it for the first 36 acres of pristine prairie land, the front portion of UL’s Johnston Street horse farm property. Davidson, who drew up the legal documents, wasn’t actually getting the horse farm land; his plan was to sell his property to the group that would do the exchange with UL. Davidson, this newspaper discovered, would get to remain living on his property rent-free for two years. Davidson’s 4 acres and the university’s 36 were each appraised at $3.25 million. Uh-huh.
In 2007, attorney Jimmy Davidson successfully lobbied the Lafayette City-Parish Council to reclassify the back 2.67 acres of his property from single-family residential to B-1-L, or limited business. Because the Oil Center has grown so much over the years, dramatically altering the landscape of that area, the new classification connects the back of his property with similar commercial zoning. Among the types of businesses allowed in B-1-L are: beauty shop, bookstore, professional office, candy store, coffee and/or pastry shop, commercial child care facility, convenience store (excluding gasoline and diesel sales), cosmetic store, drug store (with drive-thru for pharmaceutical products only), floral shop, gift shop, hamburger and/or sandwich shop, hobby supply store, ice cream parlor, laundry (self-service), tobacco store, antique shop, apparel and accessory shop, art gallery, dance studio, interior decorator, jewelry store, personal service shop and stationery store. In 1998, Davidson was unsuccessful in his attempt to have the property rezoned B-G, or general business, a broad classification that would allow for everything from a car dealership to a service station to a pet store or even a McDonald’s.
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