If the Slidell City Council agrees to a change to the city's zoning ordinance approved by the Slidell Zoning Commission Monday night, the city will no longer approve building permits for metal buildings.

The amendment was brought up at the commission's meeting last month, and it only required the building to have stucco, brick, stone, glass, wood or cement on only three exterior walls of the building.

However, after getting a lot of input from the community and the city administration, the commission changed the amendment to include all four exterior walls, plus only allow 25 percent of the total surface of the exterior walls to have vinyl siding. "Since the last meeting, we have gotten a lot of public and government input," Department of Planning Director Tim Jackson told the Commission.

He said in recent public meetings on the proposed Slidell Master Plan, residents have complained of the look of metal buildings.

"It goes along with the public wanting architecturally-pleasing buildings in the city," he said.

Jackson said the city is trying to get away from the buildings that are built with the corrugated metal walls. He said that metal buildings already in place would not be affected by the amendment.

"Personally this is the way to go. It will make the city better looking," Jackson said.

The amendment would apply to all elevations of the building, meaning that a two-story building could not have one floor of cement and the other of metal. If someone wants to build with metal, they will have to go before the Planning Department for approval, Jackson said.

Jackson said limiting the amount of vinyl siding on the exterior walls is also an attempt to improve the look of Slidell.

"Too much vinyl siding is not pretty," Jackson said.

But he said if the City Council passes the amendment, the city still have a ways to go to beautify itself.

"This is only the first step. We have to look at other buildings closely. Even stucco buildings can be ugly," Jackson said.

The commission sent the amendment to the council with a 6-0 vote. Commissioner William Champagne was absent.

In other business, the commission decided to table the conditional-use permit request by local businessman R. B. Williams to build a mini-storage facility behind his auto dealership on Pontchartrain Drive. The council recently passed an ordinance that puts a moratorium on new mini-storage facilities within city limits. However, Williams' application for building permit was submitted before the moratorium was implemented.

Jackson said the permit has some "deficiencies," and Williams had to resubmit the conditional-use application. Williams needs a conditional use permit because the area is zoned C-4, and mini-storage sites are not allowed in a C-4 zone.

Williams told the commission he has resubmitted the application addressing the issue of more lighting, more parking spaces and adding landscaping to the facility.

Jackson said the application had been turned in Monday afternoon, and his department needed more time to go over it. He suggested the commission table the issue until he and his staff could read the application.

The motion to table passed 6-0.

If the commission agrees to the conditional use permit it will then go to the council for approval, and then Williams can get a building permit.