Board overturns staff decision, approves after-the-fact fill variance at 206 Mattingly Lane

The St. Tammany Parish Board of Adjustments first voted to overturn the decision of a parish official and then approved an after-the-fact variance allowing fill to remain on a site at 206 Mattingly Lane in Madisonville.

The case concerns an existing single-family home under construction for which a permit was originally issued in June 2022. Staff said the permit was issued subject to an approved fill plan and that a conforming as-built drainage plan would be required before final drainage inspection. The variance request seeks to allow additional or remaining fill to remain on the site without mitigation under Section 900-6.5(a)(2)(b) (no-net-fill in critical drainage areas), on the basis that the parcel is coastally influenced and should not be subject to the no-net-fill restriction.

Jeff Shane, attorney for the applicants Rashad and April Henry, said the house is essentially complete—“97.8% completion,” he said—and that the lot backs up to low-lying marsh that drains to Lake Pontchartrain. Shane and the applicants’ consulting engineer, Kelly McHugh, provided documents and an engineer’s report arguing the lot should be treated as coastally influenced and that the fill has minimal impact on the basin. Shane asked the board to treat the situation as an apparent mapping error and grant the variance so the family could finish the home.

Ted Reynolds, assistant director of the St. Tammany Parish Department of Engineering, told the board the parish is actively refining its critical-drainage mapping with the Louisiana Watershed Initiative and other modeling efforts and that some coastal-zone boundaries are known to require further study. Reynolds said the department could not unilaterally redraw mapping layers without the supporting studies: “We’re not in a position to just change willy nilly these layers that are governing our critical drainage areas,” he said, adding that staff would require an as-built drainage plan to verify no adverse impacts regardless of the board’s action.

The board first voted to reverse the parish official’s determination, then voted to approve the after-the-fact variance permitting the existing fill to remain, subject to submission of an as-built drainage plan that demonstrates no adverse impacts to adjacent properties. Both votes were recorded as carried; the transcript records unanimous approval among the four members present. The case is recorded as BOA2025-4210.