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City Council zoning spat fizzles out

Section: Politics

Bruce Eggler

A zoning dispute that caused a nasty rift in the New Orleans City Council several weeks ago ended quietly Thursday, with the applicant withdrawing the request for a ruling that had pitted Councilwoman Shelley Midura against several of her colleagues.

Edwin "Win" Stoutz, an attorney for Criminal District Court Judge Frank Marullo Jr. and Frank Marullo III, said attempts to negotiate an agreement with neighbors opposed to a proposed coffee shop at 1900 S. Carrollton Ave. had met with "absolutely no success."

The elder Marullo owns the building. His son would have run the coffee shop.

Recognizing the council's "unwritten rule" that it almost invariably goes along with the district member's recommendation on such issues, Stoutz said his clients had told him to withdraw their request for the nonconforming use approval needed to open the coffee shop.

When the issue first came before the council in October, however, its members, for the first time since four of the current members took office in mid-2006, decided to ignore the "unwritten rule" and overrule the recommendation of the district member, in this case Midura.

By a 4-2 vote that also overruled the recommendation of the City Planning Commission's staff, the council rejected Midura's motion to deny the zoning change.

Rather than going ahead and approving the change, however, the council then voted to defer a decision to allow more discussion between the Marullos and their neighbors. Even so, the defeat left Midura seething, and she suggested after the meeting that her colleagues had been swayed by pressure from the elder Marullo.

That in turn infuriated some of her colleagues, who took turns blasting Midura during a council retreat several days later.

Council President Arnie Fielkow accused her of impugning the integrity of colleagues who had merely expressed a difference of opinion. "What you did was ill-informed and misinformed" and "totally disrespectful of your colleagues," Fielkow told her.

Councilwoman Cynthia Willard-Lewis said Midura's allegation that political influence had swayed the council's vote "not only is wrong, it is painful."

When Councilwoman Cynthia Hedge-Morrell defended her vote as based on her assessment of the arguments pro and con, Midura shouted: "I don't buy it, Cynthia! It's to cover your political backside, and I don't believe you!"

Hedge-Morrell shouted back, "You think you're Miss Goody Two Shoes, and you sit there on your damn high horse!"

With that, Midura walked out of the hotel room where the retreat was being held. She never returned.

Thursday's discussion, by contrast, was brief and low-key, with neither neighborhood opponents of the coffee shop nor any of the other council members saying a word after Stoutz said he was withdrawing the request for the coffee shop.

The site, a one-story wooden building, is in a residential neighborhood but has been used commercially for many decades and has acquired legal nonconforming status. However, the City Planning Commission said that because the proposed use would be more intensive -- with longer hours, more customers and employees, and therefore greater parking and traffic demands -- than the building's previous use as the office for a pesticide company, it was illegal.

Since the council's original consideration of the issue, interim Councilman Michael Darnell, the member who spoke most favorably of the Marullos' proposal, has been replaced by elected member Jackie Clarkson, who was expected to support Midura's position.

Stoutz said the Marullos will look for some other retail use for the site that can gain the approval of what he called the "small, vocal minority" of neighbors who opposed the coffee shop.

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