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Elevation Requirements Limit Options: District May Employ Eminent Domain for School

Posted on: Tuesday, 14 March 2006, 09:00 CST

By Ryan Lafontaine, The Sun Herald, Biloxi, Miss.

Mar. 14--BAY ST. LOUIS -- School officials listened to concerns Monday night from residents opposed to a new state-of-the-art high school being built on Old Spanish Trail.

The Bay-Waveland School District is considering a plan to use its power of eminent domain to take 44 acres near Old Spanish Trail and St. Charles Street to build a new high school.

Residents offered alternatives to the plan, but none seemed to meet FEMA's flood elevation requirements, nor to be large enough sites for a new school.

Some locals said residential development of the 44 acres would better benefit the city's pummeled tax base, but school officials say in order to rebuild the schools using federal grants the district will have to follow federal elevation requirements.

The school board is expected to send a letter to the Bay City Council, asking political leaders to negotiate with the federal government on lowering its elevation standards.

"If FEMA backs off of some of their requirements, then we can look at other areas," said school attorney Ronnie Artigues. "But, until then there's not much more the district can do."

The district wants to move all of its kindergarten through second grade students to one campus in Waveland, and some locals wondered why there is little push to use the historic building at Second Street Elementary.

"That building has served its purpose as a school," board President Sherry Ponder said. "It is no longer a school for today's student."

The building was built in 1926, long before elevators and the Americans with Disabilities Act. The school is not ADA accessible, nor does it have bathrooms throughout the second floor. What's more, school officials say Katrina's floodwaters are still soaking the school's basement.

The land on Second Street is high enough to rebuild a new school, but to have enough acres for a new campus the district would need to bulldoze the historic building.

The district is considering a deal with the local arts society on the Second Street building, which would be used as a museum and theater.

Residents suggested taking other land, including some areas south of the CSX railway, but FEMA's advisory flood maps show most of that area as potential "A" or "V" flood zones.

According to the city's flood zone ordinances, new structures built in a V zone need to allow the "un-obstructive passage of flood waters" by standing on pilings, posts or columns.

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Copyright (c) 2006, The Sun Herald, Biloxi, Miss.

Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News.

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Source: The Sun Herald (Biloxi, Miss.)

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