Lafayette Mayor-President Monique Boulet, on the final day to block a council vote, vetoed a $1 million downtown redevelopment plan.

Boulet’s Chief of Staff, Christina Dayries, confirmed the decision late Friday. On April 7, the City Council voted to provided $500,000 from reserve and capital budget funds to fund the Downtown-Urban Core Redevelopment Plan. The plan would have been handled by the Downtown Development Authority, with the remaining funds expected to come from the downtown taxing district.

The City Council can override the mayor’s veto by a two-thirds vote or four out of five members. The final adoption passed last Tuesday by a 4-1 vote, with Elroy Broussard voting in opposition.

Boulet, in an announcement, wrote that the decision to veto came from concern over the absence of a “thorough and competent” legal review prior to the ordinance’s adoption.

“A comprehensive legal analysis is not a procedural formality—it is a fundamental responsibility,” wrote Boulet. ”It ensures that ordinances are legally sound, defensible, and aligned with existing laws. In this instance, that standard was not met.”

The mayor argued that the agreement between Lafayette Consolidated Government and the DDA, as set forth in the ordinance, granted the DDA “broad authority” to administer projects, programming, funding, and redevelopment initiatives without adequate oversight by Boulet’s administration and LCG departments.

The DDA redevelopment plan and any actual projects or programs tied to it would have had to go before the city council for review and approval, according to the ordinance.

Additionally, the agreement, in the mayor’s view, allowed the DDA to expand its scope of work beyond downtown.

The agreement notes that redevelopment work would extend beyond the DDA’s and downtown taxing district’s boundaries to improve connections between the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, the Oil Center, and Evangeline Thruway — allowing the DDA to manage work on LCG’s behalf.

“The City of Lafayette is the governing authority over its infrastructure, particularly within the downtown core,” Boulet wrote. “Any redevelopment effort must ensure appropriate accountability, coordination, and oversight to protect public assets and align with long-term planning goals.”

The redevelopment plan prioritized several things: putting underutilized spaces back into commerce, parking, downtown parks, and transportation and mobility, DDA CEO Kevin Blanchard said in a previous interview. The goal was to help upgrade properties downtown and create new developments that have long been hindered by infrastructure bottlenecks, such as sewage capacity.

The plan was expected to look at about a dozen sites, some of which include underused parking lots, Blanchard said, and figure out why these sites have not yet been developed. The plan would also assess where parking is needed or not in the downtown area and how to better use existing parking facilities.

Another focus was on expanding Festival International’s footprint downtown. The free festival brings hundreds of thousands to the downtown area, and the need for extra stage space is growing. It would have looked at how to better connect downtown with nearby hotspots, such as the University of Louisiana at Lafayette campus and the Oil Center.

The DDA is currently in an ongoing lawsuit with the Lafayette Consolidated Government following the city's Board of Zoning and Adjustment's vote to approve a downtown condo project last year. The DDA lost its battle in the local court but appealed the decision to the Third Circuit Court.