ZACHARY, LA – City officials announced this week that Zachary has launched a new, streamlined code enforcement system after finally confirming what many had long suspected: residents had been ignoring the old one entirely.
According to city leaders, the previous system relied heavily on handwritten complaints, delayed follow-ups, and a general hope that violations would resolve themselves through time or guilt. The new system replaces that approach with dedicated enforcement staff, administrative hearings, and a more efficient process designed to ensure violations are acknowledged, documented, and remembered.
“We realized the issue wasn’t awareness,” said one official. “People knew the rules. They just didn’t care.”
The updated program allows the city to address issues like junk vehicles, overgrown yards, and mystery debris piles without routing every complaint through the full City Council, a process described as “technically functional but emotionally exhausting.” Instead, violations will now move through a faster administrative track, cutting response times from a probably a couple months to at most a couple months.
Officials emphasized that the goal is compliance, not punishment, while also confirming that fines remain very much on the table if residents continue their long-standing tradition of doing nothing.
City leaders say the system will go live in the coming weeks, at which point residents are encouraged to finally read the ordinances they’ve been successfully ignoring for years.
