New homes in EBR Zion City Introduced to the Community

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Nineteen new brick, two-story homes unveiled Wednesday in north Baton Rouge's Zion City neighborhood have given community leaders hope that similar developments will sprout in other neighborhoods where blight has crept in and where mixed-income housing is needed.

Local political leaders were all smiles as they toured the homes Wednesday, and applauded developer Brian LaFleur's long road toward building them.

Several years ago, instead of manicured lawns and shiny windows, the lots in the Fortune Addition subdivision near Glen Oaks Middle School were adjudicated as owners stopped paying property taxes while the houses fell into disrepair.

"It's projects like this that have the real potential to change the trajectory of a neighborhood," said Mayor-President Sharon Weston Broome at Wednesday's ribbon-cutting ceremony.


In 2014, LaFleur partnered with the East Baton Rouge Redevelopment Authority to acquire the properties, along with some others in Melrose East. He received a $2 million grant from City Hall's Office of Community Development to develop affordable housing in Fortune Addition, and initially expected to build duplexes for rent.

But LaFleur ran into problems with the lot sizes, which had to be subdivided to make them large enough to build on, and the zoning was also problematic for building duplexes. He and the city-parish's Office of Community Development instead agreed that he would build 19 single family homes for purchase.

LaFleur Industries spent $1.1 million of its own capital to build the three bedroom, three bathroom houses that are listed for between $100,000 and $140,000 depending on the square footage. Five of the houses are market-rate, while the other 14 are affordable housing for families earning 80 percent or less of the median salary in East Baton Rouge.

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