Citizens filled the council chamber and spilled into the hallway at the City Hall in Bridge City Tuesday night. The City Council considered approving a resolution of support for Canal Place a proposed 55-unit, single family, affordable housing complex in Bridge City.
Three citizens spoke against support for the resolution. Trudy Pellerin told the City Council low income housing is not the economic development that Bridge City needs. Pellerin said Bridge City wants economic development and starting at the bottom with low income housing is not the way to begin. She added that those in attendance at the meeting were all land owners in Bridge City making them investors in the city and the council members were in the same boat and should vote accordingly.
The City Council was listening, and David Rutledge gave his reasons for making the motion to not approve the resolution. Rutledge had two reasons for opposing support for Canal Place. First, he did not see the pluses outweighing the minuses for this particular development for the city as a whole. The second reason Rutledge expressed was that to a person everyone he spoke to was opposed to the project. As mayor pro tem he was elected to represent the citizens and their vocal opposition to Canal Place made it easy for him to make the choice to oppose the support resolution. Seconding the motion not to approve the resolution was Terri Gauthier, and she echoed the thoughts of Rutledge. Gauthier added the timing was not right since Bridge City is already going through another housing development currently and the more the council learned about Canal Place they realized it would not be a benefit to their city.
The City Council voted unanimously to not approve a resolution of support for the housing project. The vote not to support does not kill the project, but will hinder the developers receiving federal tax credits.
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