In the background of an important decision made by the Shreveport City Council today is whether it needs the extra layer of bureaucracy that put it in this spot in the first place.

At December’s beginning, the Shreveport Metropolitan Planning Commission registered a tie vote (because of one absence) on whether to grant a special land use permit for a data center in the city’s west. This effectively denied the application, to the consternation of some policy-makers, especially Republican Mayor Tom Arceneaux.

Statute defines and empowers the MPC. Its nine members, serving six-year staggered terms, are appointed by the mayor with Council approval and must all be Shreveport residents. The commission formulates a master plan for zoning and development and must approve changes outside those parameters. Its budget is set by the Council, from which it hires a staff to analyze proposals and make recommendations – a staff that had recommended approval of the center. However, dissenting members said visible public opposition at the meeting ultimately swayed them to reject it.

After that decision, the matter was appealed to the Council, where Arceneaux criticized  the outcome. He said he believed the MPC should be folded into city governance – even though there is virtually no way in which it isn’t already.

In the larger scheme of things, Shreveport’s MPC is an outlier. In Louisiana, planning commissions typically combine municipal and parish authority: an MPC governs land within the municipality and up to five miles beyond it into unincorporated parish areas, unless another municipality with an MPC lies within ten miles, in which case the jurisdictions split the distance. Bossier Parish is a good example. It has MPCs for Bossier City and Haughton that follow the five-mile rule, and a Benton MPC that, by statute, extends its jurisdiction beyond five miles in certain directions. Each of these commissions includes one member jointly appointed by the parish and municipality, with the remaining members evenly split between appointments by each entity.

Because of this appointment structure and their jurisdiction across both parish and municipal areas, it makes sense for these commissions to operate as entities separate from the municipalities themselves. But Shreveport’s isn’t like that. In 2020, the law was changed to remove the five-mile jurisdiction after parish residents’ complaints that they didn’t want a Shreveport-housed entity having power over parish lands. In 2022, the Caddo Parish Commission passed an ordinance creating a separate, parish-based entity to have that authority.

In essence, Shreveport already exercises near-total control over the MPC. All of its members are appointed by the mayor and Council; the city controls the budget (though perhaps not as tightly as it could); and the Council can overturn any MPC decision it dislikes. About the only authority the MPC exercises independently is selecting its executive director – coincidentally, a position that will become vacant in a matter of days without a full-time successor yet chosen. That should not be a major concern, since the role exists to support policymaker decision-making, and elected officials ultimately have the final say.

So, it is not readily apparent that placing the MPC under the city’s aegis would change much of anything. At most, the difference might be some cost savings through efficiency. Yet, given that the statute would have to change anyway, greater efficiency would come from eliminating the MPC altogether – along with the Zoning Board of Appeals, which adds yet another intermediary in some cases – and instead creating a city planning office to make recommendations directly to the Council. One branch vetting the other should be sufficient to ensure checks and balances.

If nothing is done along the lines Arceneaux desires, little will change. A more expansive approach would be worthwhile. The Council’s unanimous vote to overturn the decision and approve the special use permit shows, in terms of policy substance, how little any structural change would actually matter.