St. Tammany Parish, LA Environmental Rules: Boat Dock Permits (2026)

St. Tammany Parish's Unified Development Code regulates boat houses and boat slips built as accessory structures in residential districts at Sec. 600-6.2(1). A boat house cannot be used for habitation, and its height is capped at 20 feet measured from the required lot elevation. Size is capped at 1,600 square feet, but that shrinks to 800 square feet if the boat house sits on a state-designated scenic river. Boat houses and boat slips, combined with any other accessory buildings on the lot, cannot occupy more than 50 percent of the required rear yard.

Bulkheads, pilings, breakwaters, piers and docks have to conform to the standards of whatever regulatory agency has jurisdiction over the shoreline, and none of these structures can extend beyond the established shoreline. Before the parish issues a building permit for any of this construction, subsection (f) requires the applicant to file a copy of every permit the state, a state agency, or the federal government requires for developing property affecting a natural and scenic river, meaning parish approval comes after, not instead of, the state and federal permitting process for waterfront work such as a Louisiana scenic rivers permit or a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers permit.

The parish's separate Coastal Use and Management Ordinance, referenced in Sec. 2-549(l) of the Code's administrative-adjudication chapter, layers on additional permitting for work in the coastal zone along Lake Pontchartrain and its tributaries, on top of the accessory-structure standards in Sec. 600-6.2(1).