Court orders Shreveport man to halt construction on bizzare building

This story has been making the rounds locally today. Its got nearly 400 comments on one of the news channels facebook page.

Long story short, a rapper turned aspiring businessman is building...a thing just off I20. The Parish planning commission says he applied for permits as a 3 story residential construction but he recently added a 4th story which defaults it to a commercial construction. He claims that the property was zoned as commercial when he bought it and the MPC rezoned it as residential after he started construction. No one really seems to know what the building will be used for...including the owner. He's said it would be a used car dealership or as a headquarters for his "multimillion dollar business". As it sits now, it's 4 stories of plywood sheets wrapped in bronze with a 4 story picture of the owner facing I20.

Unsurprisingly, accusations of racism have been thrown around.

quote:

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SHREVEPORT, La. – A Shreveport property owner has been told to stop construction on a four-story structure that’s become the talk of the town because of its unusual appearance.

But it’s not the shiny bronze, windowless exterior that prompted the injunction filed by the city of Shreveport last week. It’s that owner Olanza Sanders is accused of failing to stop work on the structure at 1019 Pickett Street after being told to do so.

The city’s Public Works Department first issued a stop work order to Sanders on July 21 for exceeding the scope of work for which he was permitted. The city approved construction of a three-story, 4,500-square foot residential structure. Instead, Sanders added a fourth floor, in violation of building codes, which then made it a commercial building.

According to the city's petition, Sanders was given permission in January to install a roof and exterior moisture barrier to protect the structure from further deterioration. But he was told not to install siding until his revised commercial building plans were approved by the state fire marshal and all city departments.

Despite that, the petition states, Sanders started installing the siding.

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