Cornerstone withdraws Jefferson Parish rezoning request | Jefferson Parish

Cornerstone’s plan to expand industrial operations in Waggaman to within 10 feet of nearby homes will not go ahead after the company withdrew part of its application to the Jefferson Parish Planning Advisory Board on Thursday night.

However, the company is still seeking changes to its permits that will allow it to open a new plant to produce lithium-ion battery components.

Cornerstone is no longer seeking to rezone a portion of its property from residential and rural to heavy industrial with hazardous materials or to expand its special-use designation to those areas, which allowed the company to bypass new regulations passed by the Jefferson Parish Council earlier this year that it helped develop.

At a planning commission hearing last month, Cornerstone faced a wave of opposition from neighbors in Jefferson and St. Charles parishes, who postponed the application to gather community input and make changes.

“With that feedback in mind and after careful consideration, we have decided to withdraw the rezoning application and focus on the SPU amendment,” Shawn Ward, Cornerstone’s director of corporate health, safety, security, environment and sustainability, said Thursday evening.

Cornerstone will still apply for a change to its special permit to build a manufacturing facility for UBE C1 Chemicals America Inc., a Japanese chemical company that plans to produce solvents used in lithium-ion batteries for electric vehicles, at its Waggaman campus, but it will no longer seek to expand the permit from 640 acres to 821.

The planning commission will vote Oct. 3 on whether to recommend approval or denial of the updated application, but the Jefferson Parish Council will make the final decision.

The parish planning department recommended approval of the UBE facility special use permit amendment and denial of all remaining items, which have now been withdrawn.

Nancy Pearson, president of the River Ridge Community Association, brought 66 signed letters from East Bank residents to the meeting. They expressed concern about the proposed zoning change and asked that the remaining special permitted use amendment be rejected.

“Most of these people live closer to the plant than the people in the Waggaman estates,” Pearson said. “These people are just across the river. They are really close and they have real concerns.”

Cornerstone said in a statement after the meeting that focusing on the special permitted use amendment would better ensure successful approval.

They added that the UBE plant would create the first U.S. supply of key materials needed for batteries in electric vehicles, phones and other technologies, thereby increasing “industrial competitiveness in Jefferson Parish with minimal environmental impact.”

Cornerstone wanted to expand the heavy industrial zoning and special use permits into buffer zones that had been in place for more than 30 years. The goal was to place industry 10 feet from homes to the west of the plant and 55 feet from homes to the east.

The Jefferson Parish Council passed new industrial regulations last May that would require the company to maintain a 2,000-foot buffer zone between industry and residents — but those regulations only apply to new applications, and Cornerstone filed its first applications in June 2023.

Cornerstone knew about the impending industrial regulations long before they were passed, according to Councilman Deano Bonano, who spearheaded the new legislation. Bonano said Cornerstone had been involved in crafting the new regulations as far back as two years ago, including giving him redline amendments to draft legislation.

The rezoning and special use permit applications were originally intended to allow American Food Plant to build a $227 million fertilizer plant on the Cornerstone campus, but the deal was delayed late last year due to financial reasons.

Cornerstone spokeswoman JoLena Broussard said in a statement Wednesday that the deal is “still on hold.”

Broussard said the company met Wednesday with neighbors on both sides of the plant, civic association leaders and Cornerstone’s community advisory panel. The company also gave an update to St. Charles Parish President Matthew Jewell, she said.