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One house is replaced by three in Hundred Oaks, some residents not happy

7 years 3 weeks 5 hours ago Tuesday, March 07 2017 Mar 7, 2017 March 07, 2017 6:27 PM March 07, 2017 in News
Source: WBRZ

BATON ROUGE – Some homeowners in the Hundred Oaks area are not happy with a new style of house that has popped up. 

Three shotgun-style homes were built in the neighborhood over the last year and some say they stick out like sore thumbs.

"Look at the house that is built directly across the street from those lots. That is a typical Hundred Oaks home sight and this is what has come in the last 12 months, actually fewer than that," Hundred Oaks resident, Charles Lamar.

The shotgun homes are closer to the street and have less of a front lawn than the others that surround them.

"What you're looking at used to be one house," Lamar said. "Now it's three tiny little houses that are about 22 feet wide," he said.

In the Hundred Oaks neighborhood, the lots are long and skinny so many owners bought two or three lots and built one big house on them. Last year, a builder bought the dilapidated home that once stood and split up the three lots that it was built on.

"We realized that in order to make money and for it to work out for us, that we needed to build three houses. We couldn't build two and we couldn't build one," Carl Crawford, of Crawford Home Builders, said.

Crawford said that he built the shotgun-style homes so he could make a profit, while still making them comparable in cost to their neighbors.

However, homeowners like Lamar do not think the houses fit in the neighborhood.

"If someone wants to do something like this, and develop little lots, they should come before the planning commission or others," Lamar said.

Officials say that no rules were broken by Crawford, but Lamar says he is pushing for stricter rules in the neighborhood.

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