The City Council on Thursday (July 21) handed Carrollton area neighbors a victory by overturning the Historic District Landmarks Commission’s approval of plans to partially demolish a house near Tulane University. The approval would have allowed developers Preston Tedesco and Sidney “Sam” Torres V to add a second story to a 1,359-square-foot single-family home they purchased on Zimpel Street. The plans they filed with the city show two units with a “doubles-to-dorms” layout. On June 1, the HDLC voted 8-2 to allow the entire roof and 65% of the facade to be demolished so the second floor could be added. The HDLC staff found that the modest mid-century building, rated as “non-contributing,” had nothing to distinguish it.
Developers, Mayor LaToya Cantrell, District A Councilman Joe Giarrusso, members of the Hollygrove Neighborhood Association and other officials broke ground Tuesday (July 20) on the Grove Place affordable housing development. City officials and the developer touted the planned Grove Place community as providing affordable rents for 32 households in an area with easy access to public transportation to multiple job centers. Grove Place is expected to be move-in ready by summer 2023. The land has approximately 360 foot of frontage on Earhart Boulevard and takes up the entire square block between Monroe and Leonidas streets, a total of 1.8 acres. The development includes 23 historic rehabilitated units and nine newly constructed units.
Breakfast and brunch luminary Molly’s Rise and Shine is getting a second chance at a zoning change that will give it the opportunity to add alcohol to its menu. The City Council on Thursday voted unanimously to direct the City Planning Commission to conduct a public hearing on changing the building’s zoning from residential to business and to permit a conditional use to allow a standard restaurant with alcoholic beverage services. Three years ago, the same request was shut down in the same chamber after gaining approval, with restrictions, from the Planning Commission. Now a new City Council will have a chance to consider it. At both 2019 hearings, the proposal faced opposition from the restaurant’s neighbors in the Irish Channel and Garden District.
Officials gathered in Central City on Thursday (July 7) to officially break ground on the restoration of the famed Dew Drop Inn, the city’s leading Black music venue for three mid-century decades. The groundbreaking was complemented by performances from the Beautiful Creole Apache Tribe and Cyril Neville. Speaking at the ceremony, Mayor LaToya Cantrell said the city is working to redevelop the section of Central City where the Dew Drop Inn Hotel & Lounge at 2836 LaSalle St. can serve as an anchor. “The city of New Orleans is making sure we’re leveraging our dollars in this immediate area,” she said.
The Honorable Chelsey Richard Napoleon is excited to announce Senior Summer Tours this year! The Clerk’s Office consists of two divisions – Land Records and Civil. Our Civil Division is where civil cases — such as personal injury, accidents, successions and foreclosures — are filed. Domestic matters, such as divorce and child support, are also handled in the Civil Division. The Land Records Division is where documents regarding property are recorded.
The AIDS Healthcare Foundation, or AHF, has plans to open an HIV testing center, health care center, pharmacy and Out of the Closet thrift store on Magazine Street.
The Los Angeles-based foundation has purchased the building on Magazine and Sixth streets, the former location of the Belladonna Day Spa. The health care center is tentatively set to open in August, an AHF spokesperson said. AHF is the world’s largest provider of HIV/AIDS medical care, according to the foundation’s website, operating in 45 countries. In the U.S., its medical centers are in 17 states, including Louisiana, with a clinic in Baton Rouge.
The foundation plans to the entire space of the 19th century building at 2900 Magazine St. The first floor will be used as a thrift store and likely a donation center; the second floor will be used for testing and a medical clinic.
The City Planning Commission approved Creole Cuisine Restaurant Concepts’ latest venture on Magazine Street. An Italian-themed restaurant and bar with balcony service could inhabit the former space of their short-lived Bayou Burger & Sports Co. concept on the corner of Magazine and Pleasant streets. A zoning request by the building’s owner, T.H.P of New Orleans, and the restaurant’s owner, Creole Cuisine Restaurant Concepts, was unanimously approved by the Planning Commission, minus one absent vote. The commissioners recommended permitting a standard restaurant in the HU-B1 neighborhood business district and the Magazine Street Use Restriction Overlay District.
The battle between Uptown residents and developers over doubles-to-dorms conversions continues to play out in municipal hearings over zoning decisions. “Doubles-to-dorms” refers to the conversion of homes intended for families into private dormitory-style housing for college students.
The Board of Zoning Adjustments on June 6 denied two appeals from University area residents who stated the Department of Safety & Permits wrongly issued a zoning determination and a building permit for 636-40 Audubon St., a multi-family building at the corner of Hampson Street.
The first appeal was filed by architect Collette Creppell, a longtime neighbor of the property and a former executive director of the City Planning Commission. Creppell questioned the validity of the developer’s statements on the building’s previous unit and bedroom count and stated that “going from eleven (claimed) bedrooms to a proposed sixteen bedrooms under an interpretation of Existing Multi-Family is a distortion of the zoning code.”
The BZA staff maintained that unit count, not bedroom count, determines the density of a building and that Safety & Permits’ determination was in line with the Comprehensive Zoning Ordinance. The Board of Zoning Adjustments agreed, voting unanimously to deny the appeal.
In the second appeal, neighbor Keith Hardie objected to the building permit for the rental property that an LLC controlled by developers John P. Hamide and Preston Tedesco purchased from Riverlake Properties in January 2020. The permit was granted by the director of the Department of Safety & Permits to allow the developers to turn 636-40 Audubon from a five-unit, 11-bedroom house into a four-unit, 16-bedroom house.
Macon Fry sat on his deck on a spring afternoon, above the swirling waters of the Mississippi River. Fry is weathered, composed and about to share an amusing find stumbled upon while researching his book — but he’s interrupted by a goat. Actually, two. Both goats have the run of the front porch and plank bridge that leads from the levee, over the water, to his front door. The goats begged for a snack, which Fry attended to.
The City Council backed a plan to approve a controversial new building on Magazine Street in the Irish Channel while requiring further design changes to the three-story mixed-use building. The Historic District Landmarks Commission had gave the project its conceptual approval in April. The Garden District Association then filed an appeal asking the City Council to overturn the HDLC’s decision. In the appeal, Garden District Association President Frank Tessier quotes liberally from the HDLC’s guidelines for new construction, pointing out requirements — such as aligning balconies, roof ridges and other elements with adjacent buildings — that he states were not followed by the commission when it approved the design for 2230 Magazine. The appeal states the building is too large for the site, despite guidelines that require compatibility in size and massing.
