Covington council upholds hospital parking garage permit with traffic conditions

The Covington City Council voted 5-2 on March 11 to uphold a zoning commission's conditional-use approval for a five-story parking garage and rooftop heli-stop proposed by Saint Tammany Health System, adding conditions that the hospital fund a westbound right-turn lane on West Eleventh Avenue, pay for signal modifications at the Tyler/Eleventh intersection as needed, and install directional signage near Polk Street and Eleventh Avenue.

The measure, challenged in an appeal from neighborhood residents, keeps the zoning commission's action in place while attaching the council's specified infrastructure conditions. The vote came after more than two hours of public testimony from hospital officials, medical staff, nearby residents and planning professionals.

Hospital attorney Jeff Shane described the project as a five-story, roughly 200,000-square-foot garage with more than 400 spaces, an approximately 8,300-square-foot medical office suite facing Tyler Street, a heli-stop on…