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We know the election for mayor is coming up this year. The main election will be in March of this year and we have quite a few competing for the position. I'll confess that I don't know anything about any of them as far as their political backgrounds, however that may be a good thing. I'm hoping that we get a mayor that will embrace change and progress. LC has been stagnated for way too long. A mayor is only as good as his or her administration so we need a group of leaders that will support growth as well with the money that's current being invested into the city. It's time for an upgrade!
Any other Lake Charles residents in this form care to chime in regarding what they would like to see regarding our new potential leader? How do you feel about the money being invested in the area and the population that is expected? What kind of stuff would you like to see as far as growth?
FACT: I discussed North Lake Charles adjudicated property with Dana Carl Jackson this year and he did not respond to any of my followup calls or emails.
OPINION: The next mayor needs to put North Lake Lake Charles abandoned / adjudicated property up for auction immediately to take advantage of the labor boom in the area. Building contractors are tearing up our native forestlands in Calcasieu Parish at a rapid rate. At the end of this boom (it will end eventually), we will be left with numerous vacant houses and an over developed rural regions that police and ambulance services cannot support. Redeveloping North Lake Charles offers close proximity to many police and fire services along with excellent access to the interstate system in our parish.
FACT: I discussed North Lake Charles adjudicated property with Dana Carl Jackson this year and he did not respond to any of my followup calls or emails.
OPINION: The next mayor needs to put North Lake Lake Charles abandoned / adjudicated property up for auction immediately to take advantage of the labor boom in the area. Building contractors are tearing up our native forestlands in Calcasieu Parish at a rapid rate. At the end of this boom (it will end eventually), we will be left with numerous vacant houses and an over developed rural regions that police and ambulance services cannot support. Redeveloping North Lake Charles offers close proximity to many police and fire services along with excellent access to the interstate system in our parish.
Thanks for the post!
You know? I remember years back when the city had this drawn out sketch of putting a river walk back there with shopping and dining, however it hasn't come. We haven't had Busch forest land for quite some time and the little left, had little to no animal life. I hope after this boom settles down we had New long term residents and more to do. I'd also like to see a complete OVERHAUL of the leadership in this city, and get some fresh ways of thinking. I'd like to see more retail options available and a restablishment of our community schools.
I grew up in L.C. and came back recently after decades to house hunt for retirement (actually I am looking in Tyler TX, and previously looked north of Houston). My family has pushed me to settle here, so I looked. It seems unlikely I'll be settling here. What has happened to L.C. shocked me.
X flood zone streets and houses now flood because natural drainage has been disrupted, it seems. Formerly nice areas (Lake & 210) have parts that look like skid row. Crime is rampant in most of L.C. Too many dead end streets, where subdivisions were started but not completed. South of town has streets full of overpriced cookie cutter houses that aren't built well and already have cracks. One had a big ditch running down one side of the backyard, filled with algae-covered stagnant water. It was supposed to drain into a huge waterway/ditch that ran horizontally across the back of all the houses on the street, but that gully's water didn't flow; it was stagnant and covered with green algae (a zika virus breeding ground). That's not natural, so I assume the builders have stopped up the natural flow of that water. And most of those have septic tanks...not city sewer. Many still have well water. And almost all are all-electric (it costs more to run gas to the houses). AND many of those streets are under water with just an ordinary rain.
Then there are little havens of super-priced housing, like the Gray community. No yards, high HOA fees, and high prices. Those don't escape flooding issues, either, though.
A lot of the houses, esp south of town, seem to be owned by company people who move in, live there a couple of years, then move on. While there, they don't plant a tree or do anything to improve the property or the community. They don't maintain the homes. I saw a house where the owner didn't even bother to clean the stains in the sink.
It's no wonder that many are escaping to Moss Bluff. But Moss Bluff is far from Lake Charles, for a retiree who may need to get the doctor in less than half an hour, or even if it's raining. Moss Bluff's homes are almost all electric only with no gas, too. And the home prices in Lake Charles city limits and Moss Bluff are high for what you get.
Many attractive homes are in what are now high crime, undesirable areas north of 210 and west of Hwy 14. Those homes, which used to be lovely (and many still are) have bars on the windows, and again, flooding issues where streets become unpassable with a normal rain.
It's a shame that with planning, the layout of communities and quality of homes could have been so much better. Is there no one overseeing the builders and planners who are developing these areas? L.C. could become a retiree haven...law abiding older people who add to a community and spend their retirement funds here, feed the medical machine and help the economy. But there are few communities here that are acceptable for that, much less inviting.
If you have 50 homes in a price range for sale, some of them flood or are in a flood zone, others are not built well, others are just ugly and old, others were not maintained and need a lot of work, some are in high crime areas, some are too far from medical and amenities, and the rest are outrageously priced.
This is L.C., not a big city with a lot of amenities. There's not even a YMCA here. LC could attract people if it had neighborhoods of attractive housing with tree lined streets, good drainage, and low crime, with amenities within 15 or 20 minutes. There's no reason LC shouldn't have these things.
I grew up in L.C. and came back recently after decades to house hunt for retirement (actually I am looking in Tyler TX, and previously looked north of Houston). My family has pushed me to settle here, so I looked. It seems unlikely I'll be settling here. What has happened to L.C. shocked me.
X flood zone streets and houses now flood because natural drainage has been disrupted, it seems. Formerly nice areas (Lake & 210) have parts that look like skid row. ...
A lot of the houses, esp south of town, seem to be owned by company people who move in, live there a couple of years, then move on. While there, they don't plant a tree or do anything to improve the property or the community. They don't maintain the homes. I saw a house where the owner didn't even bother to clean the stains in the sink.
...
It's a shame.
Let's be honest... a drive through Lafayette, Baton Rouge and New Orleans can produce the same issues.
In regards to flooding, a lot of this is due to poor ditch maintenance by the property owners. If they are too old or sick to go outside and remove debris from their culverts then the Gravity Drainage district should be called and alerted of the problem. I own numerous city properties and have no drainage issues on my land due to good stewardship. No, you won't see that opinion in the local papers or television because it is "not cool" to blame the public for anything in America today.
Last edited by rgathrights; 01-06-2017 at 06:00 AM..
Reason: Add photo evidence of clearing ditches.
It seems that it's the retirees and the senior citizens that are FIGHTING everything. That said, I do appreciate that these newer neighborhoods being built do have sidewalks. If you go to the North side of Houston, you'll find much of the same generic housing with little to no yard. If you really want to see cookie-cutter houses, go to Florida.
Last edited by pandorafan5687; 01-06-2017 at 03:40 PM..
It seems that it's the retirees and the senior citizens that are FIGHTING everything. That said, I do appreciate that these newer neighborhoods being built do have sidewalks. If you go to the North side of Houston, you'll find much of the same generic housing with little to no yard. If you really want to see cookie-cutter houses, go to Florida.
In my price range, there were no newish houses with sidewalks. South of town, Ham Reid area, Gauthier. No trees, to speak of, either, despite those houses having been there 10 or more years (company people moving in and out don't plant trees). Cookie cutter...two houses I looked at were virtually identical, and one I looked at was the mirror image of the one across the street. Exactly the sort of place I'd live in, if I were going to stay only for a couple of years.
Someone in L.C. made this business plan...seeking out the types of jobs where people are moved in and out. Good for real estate sales, though.
Let's be honest... a drive through Lafayette, Baton Rouge and New Orleans can produce the same issues.
In regards to flooding, a lot of this is due to poor ditch maintenance by the property owners. If they are too old or sick to go outside and remove debris from their culverts then the Gravity Drainage district should be called and alerted of the problem. I own numerous city properties and have no drainage issues on my land due to good stewardship. No, you won't see that opinion in the local papers or television because it is "not cool" to blame the public for anything in America today.
Not the ones I saw south of town.
These weren't owner ditches. One was a deep gully, stagnant, green algae growing...it ran the entire length of the street, behind the street and its houses, not on the properties. It no doubt used to drain somewhere, but has been stopped up by builder activities.
Then one huge ditch on a property itself, ran N-S from side of house down to the gulley. It wasn't a personal ditch, it seemed. It looked professionally created...and was filled w/stagnant water, since it ran to the gully that doesn't drain.
My sister's house is in an X zone. It has never flooded, but when all the new development started in the last years, now the flood waters come up to her front door.
I used to live not far from LaGrange/Lake. An X zone. Never flooded. But now it does. A house there for sale had to report that it had flooded three times. In an X zone. There has been a lot of construction in that area.
Also, south of town, in AE zones that do flood, they are building homes.
These are plans by the city, and the plans weren't done well, it seems. I can't believe people are putting up with this.
So when looking for a house, many areas are off limits....high crime (and I do mean high crime in what used to be safe neighborhoods), flooding...meaning that what few areas are left have super high prices that most people can't afford. It doesn't help that flippers and r.e. investors descended on L.C. a couple of years ago, having heard about the growing r.e. market there. They bought up many of the houses that normally people could buy at reasonable prices and fix up themselves. One wealthy investor bought 16 houses in an area, so he controlled the pricing there, which drove up the prices for the entire area.
Oh, well. Not my problem, I guess. I am wistful about the L.C. I remember, though, and what it could have become. Although I do understand that the casinos have been a boon to the city, and I saw a lot of new medical places have been created south of town, which is great. Some new grocery stores.
You have a lot of newer neighborhoods in the lake area that are in the beginning stages. I believe that once they are more established and have been there for a few years, they'll be rather nice. You are not going to find many newer neighborhoods today with large oak trees truth be told.
I grew up in L.C. and came back recently after decades to house hunt for retirement (actually I am looking in Tyler TX, and previously looked north of Houston). My family has pushed me to settle here, so I looked. It seems unlikely I'll be settling here. What has happened to L.C. shocked me.
X flood zone streets and houses now flood because natural drainage has been disrupted, it seems. Formerly nice areas (Lake & 210) have parts that look like skid row. Crime is rampant in most of L.C. Too many dead end streets, where subdivisions were started but not completed. South of town has streets full of overpriced cookie cutter houses that aren't built well and already have cracks. One had a big ditch running down one side of the backyard, filled with algae-covered stagnant water. It was supposed to drain into a huge waterway/ditch that ran horizontally across the back of all the houses on the street, but that gully's water didn't flow; it was stagnant and covered with green algae (a zika virus breeding ground). That's not natural, so I assume the builders have stopped up the natural flow of that water. And most of those have septic tanks...not city sewer. Many still have well water. And almost all are all-electric (it costs more to run gas to the houses). AND many of those streets are under water with just an ordinary rain.
Then there are little havens of super-priced housing, like the Gray community. No yards, high HOA fees, and high prices. Those don't escape flooding issues, either, though.
A lot of the houses, esp south of town, seem to be owned by company people who move in, live there a couple of years, then move on. While there, they don't plant a tree or do anything to improve the property or the community. They don't maintain the homes. I saw a house where the owner didn't even bother to clean the stains in the sink.
It's no wonder that many are escaping to Moss Bluff. But Moss Bluff is far from Lake Charles, for a retiree who may need to get the doctor in less than half an hour, or even if it's raining. Moss Bluff's homes are almost all electric only with no gas, too. And the home prices in Lake Charles city limits and Moss Bluff are high for what you get.
Many attractive homes are in what are now high crime, undesirable areas north of 210 and west of Hwy 14. Those homes, which used to be lovely (and many still are) have bars on the windows, and again, flooding issues where streets become unpassable with a normal rain.
It's a shame that with planning, the layout of communities and quality of homes could have been so much better. Is there no one overseeing the builders and planners who are developing these areas? L.C. could become a retiree haven...law abiding older people who add to a community and spend their retirement funds here, feed the medical machine and help the economy. But there are few communities here that are acceptable for that, much less inviting.
If you have 50 homes in a price range for sale, some of them flood or are in a flood zone, others are not built well, others are just ugly and old, others were not maintained and need a lot of work, some are in high crime areas, some are too far from medical and amenities, and the rest are outrageously priced.
This is L.C., not a big city with a lot of amenities. There's not even a YMCA here. LC could attract people if it had neighborhoods of attractive housing with tree lined streets, good drainage, and low crime, with amenities within 15 or 20 minutes. There's no reason LC shouldn't have these things.
It's a shame.
There's a YMCA on Pujo Street across from the Post Office.
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