The New Orleans City Planning Commission met on Tuesday, January 9, 2024, starting at 1:30 PM in Council Chambers, to consider a lengthy agenda including zoning dockets, subdivision requests, and master plan Future Land Use Map (FLUM) amendments. The meeting lasted approximately 4.5 hours, with public testimony on several items and votes on nearly 30 agenda items. Notable decisions included approval of a conditional use for a nonprofit office on South Telemachus Street, approval of parklet regulation amendments, and a series of FLUM changes for Tulane University properties, among others. Several items were deferred due to staff limitations.
If you are here to speak today, please remember that you need to fill out a card. Commissioners, we're gonna get started and we're gonna start to do roll call. Commissioner Stewart. Commissioner Steve? Here. Commissioner Brown? Here. Commissioner Flick. Present. Commissioner Lunn. Commissioner Whitry is present. I would like to go ahead and have someone approve the meeting minutes from our last meeting. Commissioner Flick will make a motion for approval of meeting minutes from December twelfth. Second by Commissioner Stewart. Thank you. Any discussion? All in favor to approve the meeting minutes from December 12th. Zoning docket zero eight two-23, which was deferred from the December 14th meeting. Are we ready? We need your mic to be on Mr. Kroll. There we go. There we go. So this application seeks to change the uh zoning regulations that are applied to backup generators. It was initiated by council motion uh based off of concern that uh gas powered generators in particular emit a lot of exhaust, and so uh having minimal setback requirements as is currently the case creates uh a potential for exhaust poisoning, um carbon monoxide poisoning, potentially not only by occupants of the house served by the generator, but occupants of neighboring houses. And so the council asked us to take a look at amending the setback requirements. Um we looked into the best practices uh suggested by the EPA as well as the regulations in neighboring parishes. Um also looked at uh battery powered generators, which do not have the same exhaust considerations, and so as a result of all that we're suggesting that there would be a five-foot minimum setback requirement for gas powered generators that would be similar to what is uh used in neighboring parishes. Um that there would be no change to the regulation of battery powered generators, which again don't have the exhaust issues, so those would remain having a two-foot setback requirement. Uh and so it's a modified approval recommendation before you're gonna backtrack for a second because I'm so efficient. I forgot to read the rules. So we need to go ahead and read the rules quickly. We have formal public hearing rules. The city planning commission has established certain rules governing the procedures to be followed at public hearings. Before speaking, each person shall give their name, address, and state on who she or she is representing. Proponents of the proposal will speak for a period of ten minutes, and each speaker will be allowed a maximum of two minutes. Opponents or other interested parties will speak second for a period of 15 minutes. Each speaker shall be allowed a maximum of two minutes. Proponents will be allowed a period of six minutes for rebuttal. Each speaker shall be allowed a maximum of two minutes. Opponents will not be allowed to rebut. No material written, photographs, maps, etc. will be accepted by the commission or its staff at any time during the public hearing. This procedure shall be followed except at such time when the preceding officers shall with the approval of the commission members present and accent such time. Thank you all. So to move back to the zoning docket 0823-23. The stack recommendation is approval. It's a city council motion, so no one is here to speak on the matter. Commissioners, is there any questions for Mr. Kroll or any discussion or vote?