Here.

Uh Commissioner Stewart's here.

You just stepped out.

Commissioner Flicks.

President Commissioner Jordan.

Here.

Commissioner Whittree.

Nope, not here.

Commissioner Josh Gupta.

Here.

Commissioner Kepler.

Kepper.

Here.

Thank you.

Commissioner Pochet.

Here.

Great.

Before we get started, we're going to read the 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 whom he or she is representing.

Proponents of the proposal will speak first for a period of 10 minutes.

Each speaker shall 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 a rebuttal.

Each speaker shall be allowed a maximum of two minutes.

Opponents will not be allowed to rebut.

No material, written matter, photographs, maps, etc.

will be accepted by the commission or its staff at any time during this public hearing.

This procedure shall be followed and accept except at such time where the presiding officer shall, with the approval of the commission members present, extend such time.

Thank you, Commissioner Jordan.

Is there a second?

Make a second.

Commissioner Josh Gupta.

Seconded.

If there's no no discussion, we'll vote on machines.

I'm down here.

Sure.

I think Commissioner Siegs having a technical difficulty.

Couldn't you?

Commissioner Steg, your vote for the meeting minutes.

Aye, he says.

And Commissioner Whittree is not present.

She'll she'll be absent.

Okay, motion passes.

To start things off, we'll start with uh property acquisition zero three twenty-five law.

Property acquisition zero three twenty-five is a request for a property swap between the city and the New Orleans Redevelopment Authority, whereby the city would acquire five properties and dispose of one parcel to allow for the development of a public park at the corner of Mira Avenue and Homer Street.

The request came up at the last CPC meeting where it was recommended for deferral to allow time to receive the environmental phase two assessment and review it.

The city has received a partial environmental assessment that indicates additional sampling is needed on the site to determine concentrations of lead in the soil.

Because we are still awaiting the full scope of the environmental assessment, the CPC staff recommends another deferral to the December 9th CPC hearing.

This deferral would be in conflict with the City Planning Commission's rules and regulations, which state that the City Planning Commission shall render a decision within 45 days of its first consideration.

The CPC first considered this item at its October 14th hearing.

45 days from that date is November 29th, making today the deadline for the CPC to render a decision.

If the CPC defers this item to the December 9th CPC meeting for staff's recommendation, the CPC will need to suspend the rules so it can be acted on 45 days after its first consideration.

Thank you.

So you're looking for a motion for the December 9th meeting.

And a waiver CPC rules and regulations.

No.

Okay.

The motion for deferral and the date is December 9th.

December 9th.

And including the one waiver.

Is there a second?

I'll make a second.

Thank you.

Is there any discussion?

Referral.

If not, we'll vote on machines.

Motion to defer passes.

Next is property disposition 0125.

Property disposition 00125 is a companion application to facilitate the property swap between the city and Nora.

The disposition is specifically for one piece of property on Daniel Street.

The City Planning Commission staff recommends deferring this item to the December 9th CPC hearing for the same reasons stated above.

And this would provide additional time to obtain the full scope of the environmental assessment.

Should the city planning commission choose to defer this request to the December 9th CPC hearing, the CPC rules and regulations need to be suspended in order to act on the request 45 days after its first consideration.

And the waiver, including the one weaver.

Thank you.

Is there a second?

A second.

Thank you.

Is there any discussion?

That will vote on machines.

Great.

Motion to defer passes.

Next is zoning docket 6025.

Zoning Docket 6025 is a request by the old land orleans LLC for conditional use to permit an outdoor storage yard in a GPD general planned development district at 1007 60 Old Gentili Road.

The site consists of three lots of records totaling approximately 19,890 square feet.

The applicant proposes to use the site as a storage yard.

And parking along the interior side yard, and the rest will remain open for storage.

The proposed use is consistent with the master's plan's industrial designation and aligns with the intent of the GDP zoning district, emphasizing flexibility, environmental sensitivity, and low density development.

The staff recommends approval subject to four provisos.

Thank you.

Is there anyone here to speak on this docket item?

No.

Are there any questions for staff or a motion?

This is for approval with four provisos.

Oh just need a motion.

I'm having trouble pulling up the report on my computer.

Can you please read the four provisos or are they just general?

Um the four provisos.

One would be for uh the city planning commission to review and approve the site plan so that it can be recorded.

Um the second would require compliance with Article 22, which is for parking.

Um the third is um compliance with Article 20, um, which is that's not development.

What is that one?

Article 20 is for screening and votering, yeah.

So article 20 is just standards, yeah.

I'm sorry, East Standards, and then um to require that the three lots of record be um subdivided into one lot of record as a single development site.

If there's no further questions from or discussion from other members, uh I move forward with approving zoning docket zero six zero-25 with four provisos.

Thank you.

Commissioner Joshua Geep can make a motion follow seconded by Commissioner Steag.

Is there any discussion?

If not, we'll vote on machines.

Motion passes.

Uh next up is zoning docket 6125.

Uh, this is a request for an amendment to zoning docket 3219 for conditional use to permit the operation of a previously constructed drive-through facility in an HUMU district.

Um the property is currently developed with a shared parking lot that is servicing a small three-building street mall, one of which is a vacant Burger King drive-through facility.

The applicant proposes to develop that uh former Burger King drive-through, maintaining the total floor area of approximately 2,800 square feet.

Uh, this require conditional use uh in the HUMU district.

Um since this is bringing back into commerce uh a vacant um a vacant building um staff is considering that it is meeting uh the condition the conditional use uh approval standards, the master plan and the CZO and the recommendation is for approval uh subject to seven provisos.

Thank you.

I have two cards.

First, Mr.

Edgar Chase.

Hello, good afternoon, everyone.

I'm Ed Gachase at 4748 St.

Rock Street.

I am the applicant for this uh particular establishment, but I'm here to answer any questions that you all may have.

So I appreciate your consideration.

Thank you.

Were you able to review the provisos and you're okay with the provisos as stated?

I am.

I think there's seven if I'm not mistaken.

So we're okay with that.

We plan to do those.

Thank you.

Yep.

Next, Ms.

Gretchen Chase.

Good afternoon.

Same, um, just here in case you guys had any questions.

Obviously, we agree with the staff's recommendation for approval.

So thank you.

No.

No.

Um for a motion?

I did no further questions was on it I can six zero six one two five.

I move for uh approval with the seven provisos listed.

And uh I will second.

Thank you.

If there's no discussion, we'll vote on machines.

Great.

Motion passes.

That's the book.

Congratulations.

Uh next is on the docket 5325.

This is an item that was uh recommended for denial by the planning commission at the last meeting.

It's a proposal for a gas station on St.

Claude Avenue.

The applicant's representative was not able to attend due to medical issues.

Uh she has requested reconsideration.

Uh and she can present that request to you.

Thank you.

Is there is there a process where excuse me?

We have to approve the reconsideration.

That's right.

So you so the the first request is reconsideration, and you would vote to grant or deny the reconsideration.

I believe should it be granted, she wishes to uh withdraw it.

But first you would have to act on the reconsideration of the present.

And is there an opportunity for her to speak for the motion on the reconsideration, or is it something we just vote on?

Here yes?

Okay.

Great.

Thank you, commissioners, for hearing my request uh for reconsideration.

Um so uh a couple months ago I was the victim of an assault and robbery in the French quarter um during this application period.

Due to that injuries, um, I missed the last meeting.

I had to have a surgery done for my kidney.

I'm still dealing with internal bleeding and bruising.

Um throughout this process, I have not been able to be as engaged as I would like to be for the community and what my clients in the community deserve.

I would like the opportunity to withdraw and fully engage with both the community and my clients because I think both deserve that opportunity to really hear each other out so that they can be an asset to the community going forward.

Thank you.

I'm so sorry.

So we're we're looking for a motion for reconsideration.

Thank you.

Yeah, we didn't get a name.

I'm sorry, if you could just come back up and state for the record your name and address.

Thank you.

Maddie Charleston, 926 Charter Street, New Orleans, Louisiana.

Thank you, Maddie.

Ms.

Shelson, I have a question for you.

Um we heard from the residents um on last meeting about this particular project.

Uh no you have some unfortunate circumstances that preventing you to engage, like you uh mentioned.

Um so if we do reconsider that, what is the expectation on what are you planning on doing doing?

Um obviously having new NPP meetings, but engaging with the community, hearing them out.

I think the misunderstanding is um, you know, they are more than just a gas station.

They have put in fresh produce, a deli.

They want to be an asset to the community.

So we want the chance to really hear everyone out and put together a plan that would work for everyone for a long-term solution.

So I I want the ability to actually engage with the community and come up with a better plan.

So I have a quick question too.

Are you the applicant or the lawyer?

Are you referring to the case?

Consultant for them.

Say again, the consultant for them, the representative for my clients.

Okay.

Are there any other other questions from Shelson?

Um is there a reason the clients were not able to attend the last meeting?

Um there was a confusion, so I didn't have notice of this.

I didn't have notice of a denial.

I had been receiving the scam evils, excuse me, scam emails for approval leading up to my surgery on that Monday.

So I was not able to communicate with the clients.

It to be honest, it was all a mess that Monday.

I didn't expect to have to have surgery.

So let me so um if we reconsider, then you're gonna withdraw the yes, and take it off the docket, it's not gonna exist, and then you'd have to refile.

Correct.

Um, there's a couple more procedures that I need to have, and I want that time to go through that and come up with a better plan for my clients in the neighborhood.

So once I can get through over these health issues, if they decide they would like to reapply, then go through there.

Okay.

And Mr.

Crow, do you have a leaning forward?

Is that how does that work?

I I just I guess I was going to spin the question of what happens if she does not withdraw.

If she withdraws prior to CPC action, she can refile at any time.

If if it is not reconsidered and she withdraws when it's pending before council, should that happen?

It could not be refiled for two years.

So if we were to approve the reconsider consideration, then we would have a hearing right now, and she would come up and say I withdraw, and then we would vote on that.

Is that right?

Uh you would not vote on it, but um you would vote to reconsider, it would be in front of you.

She would withdraw, and then it would be withdrawn and she would submit at some point in the future.

Okay.

Thank you.

Commissioner Steak, are there any other questions?

Thank you.

I do have one card in opposition, Betty Perez.

Okay, Daddy.

Good afterno good afternoon again, Betty Perez.

4910 Delphine Street in the Holy Cross neighborhood.

I'm representing my family and also the Holy Cross Neighborhood Association.

I'm president.

And um, yes, we're in opposition still, the whole neighborhood again.

And um I met with the owners on Saturday, they were very kind to do a Cindy Wynn event in their parking lot, and I'm not a silent opposed person.

I'm very involved in the community.

And so I went up and I said, You're gonna see me on Tuesday, and if you go to city council, you'll see me there.

And I'm we're going to always oppose a gas station.

And we appreciate the fresh fruit and vegetables, we appreciate all that, but we're never going to accept the community having another gas station.

And I let the owners know that as well.

And I said we've had so many million dollar studies there, and the two things that come up are a gas station and a coffee house.

So I spoke to the owners about a coffee house, and then said at that time they were open to it.

So this is news to me, because I they said they'd see me here on Tuesday.

And um, so I guess they've spoken with with Miss Maddie here, and um, so I'm glad to hear they're back to the community, but I also want this on record that we're not gonna change our opposition to the gas station.

And I understand that that will increase their profit.

We're not against economic development, we're against the gas station.

We have enough enough already in the lower nine.

We're done.

Thank you so much for listening.

Thank you.

If you'd like to um my thing is just message, I respect that response.

I haven't had the opportunity with engage with the whole community, and that's the opportunity that me and my clients would like to.

They're welcome to adding more things, but to have that property continue to say in business, we want to engage every opportunity, every idea that we might have, and we I just need that time to actually do so.

I know that I haven't been able to give it my all, and I don't think that's fair to either side right now.

Thank you so much.

Okay.

Commissioners, are there any questions of staff, applicant, or a motion?

I I have a question.

Um, Mr.

Cruel, can you explain again procedurally what would happen if we would not move to reconsider today?

If you do not reconsider it, it gets transmitted to the city council with the denial recommendation from the last meeting.

Uh and the applicant could either see if this the council will approve or deny, or she could withdraw while it's pending before council.

If uh if she withdraws while it's pending before council, the application could not be refiled for two years.

If you grant reconsideration and she withdraws now, the application could be refiled within the next two years.

So would the property owners could then submit an application for a different project on the same property?

It would have yes, it would have to be a substantially different project.

Thank you.

Thank you, Commissioner Pochet.

Are there any other questions or a motion?

So I think I made the motion to deny back in the other hearing.

Um so I have no objection as long as it's really withdrawn to um uh letting them start over um and hopefully listen to the neighborhood.

So uh I'll but if it but if there isn't a withdrawal immediately after that on the record, then uh there better there should there better be.

So I'm gonna make I'm gonna make a motion to uh reconsider.

Thank you, Commissioner Steeg, is there a second?

Yeah, that's a good question.

Can legally can I uh either staff or or law department can I um add a proviso to the reconsideration that it be accompanied by a withdrawal because that's what's been represented to us?

Oh so let me um I think regard either way um on reconsideration the commission could deny it again if that didn't happen.

Okay, great.

Then I'll just move to reconsider.

Thank you.

Commissioner Stewart, you're still good with a second.

Correct.

Uh if there are no other questions or discussion, uh let's vote.

Okay, we we do not have a majority.

Um we can is there an opportunity to vote again?

A different motion.

You can answer for different motion.

That motion did not pass.

Is there a different motion?

Right.

So I'll just uh go on recognition to my uh fellow commissioners and also to the opposition.

Um I think that this is a a great way for both the property owners and the community to have a success.

Um if this application currently moves forward and it's uh withdrawn, like Mr.

Crohl said, or voted on by city council is gonna prohibit the property owners from moving forward uh with that type of development.

So it basically puts the night ward in a stagnant position where they can't move further with anything.

However, if this is reconsidered, is redrawn, it gives the consultant enough time to go back to the community so that they can have those tonks to come to some kind of conclusion on what's best for the neighborhood.

Uh so uh in support of uh Commissioner Steaks, that's why I'm seconding this motion because I think it's it puts the community, it puts the property owner um in the best opportunity to present something for the community.

Thank you, Commissioner Stewart.

Was that a motion?

Yeah.

I I have a follow-up question to that.

So what what one we need a second before we can have discussion?

Yeah, prior to okay, Commissioner Pochet.

So uh a new proposal can be brought before the commission as long as it's substantively different.

Would it what exactly would that look like for this project?

Might it look like yeah, so I mean it's it's at the discretion of the executive director whether it's substantially different.

I would I would think it would have to at minimum require a different design.

Yeah, in the past, um either a substantially different design, different use, um, different applicant, um a council motion to send it, um those would all be substantially substantial differences from before.

And that requirement is only if the applicant is effectively denied, and there's a two year prohibition on submitting the same application by the same person.

So then during that two year period, another application could be submitted, but it would have to be substantially different.

So uh the commissioner, when you were you were advocating for a yay vote on this position.

Do you believe that the current iteration of the proposal is the integrity of that in iteration is so important to keep at this point at this moment that we wouldn't consider that we would consider nothing?

Yeah, so considering so the situation that happened to the consultant, and then also um there was strong opinions from uh the community.

I think that with reconsidering this, and if it's withdrawn, it gives the opportunity for the consultant to go back with the community leaders, and then they can have a vibrant discussion on what's fits best for the community, and then it can come back to the CPC at that point if they can move forward.

So I think it uh it can come back before CPC, and then we can make another uh uh a decision at that point when that application is presented back to us.

Thank you.

When they have that same opportunity if they if we deny it and they go towards to the council.

There's a delay of two years.

Yeah, so so basically that uh prohibited them from two years from moving forward.

So if we deny today, will they it they have to they have a delay of two years?

Is that what I well?

So it wouldn't be a it wouldn't be a denial, we just wouldn't reconsider it, it'll move forward, and whatever happens on city council, they have to have substantial uh differences and have to wait two years.

So I just want to make sure because that's not what I understood.

Yes, so if you do not reconsider the previous denial vote, that goes to city planning commission or to city council, and uh whether it's withdrawn while pending before council or whether it's denied while pending you know by council, it could not be resubmitted for two years.

And I I think we'd like to give good faith to the applicant and to the neighborhood and to the community in order to redevelop or to develop the space within this timeline versus it sitting currently vacant as I understand that, but we also heard a lot of the community people last time, and their voices were quite loud with the situation at hand.

I just wanted to find out technically how if we did not reconsider, but we upheld the denial from last meeting, what happens?

Um does it go straight to council?

It would continue on to council.

Yes.

And how much time will they get the council?

So it will be received by the council at their meeting next Thursday.

The council would have 60 days to act by motion and then an additional 90 days to adopt an ordinance should they decide to move forward approval.

So that in that situation they wouldn't have to wait for two years.

No, the what would the the two years kicks in if the council either denies it, in which case the reapplication is barred for two years, or the applicant or the applicant withdraws it after today, but while pending before council, and that's also barred for two years.

So I I mean I was advocating for us to uphold the denial from last time and let it move to council just because I feel that I don't know if the applicant is ready to do a complete rehaul of this project, um, other than a package alcohol, I mean a gas store, a gas um station with a grocery component.

Well, it sounds like the applicant might need to the burden is on the applicant ultimately, right?

To prove and so you know, I I stand for the motion for approval of reconsideration, if not for only to give the chance to to meet that same threshold, and if not, then comes back to us for a vote, and there's right lines on it.

So if we reconsider when will we meet them or hear this again?

So if you reconsider and the applicant withdraws, it would be on the applicant's timeline based on when they when they resubmit that's not really for us to define or decide.

So I feel like you know.

So I I guess the easiest way to put it uh Commissioner Gooth, like it wouldn't move forward.

So right now we voted last meeting for denial is moving forward to city council.

If we reconsider and the application is withdrawn, it's still not moving forward, they go back to to square one, however, they don't have to have the two year waiting period.

Uh so we've heard from the uh the president of the Holy Cross uh neighborhood association that even on Saturday she had an opportunity to speak with the owners about a coffee house, right?

So if there's more dialogue or could uh uh conversation about that about that, it can't be in the current application that's already moving forward for uh denial with city council.

So it just gives them an opportunity to have further dialogue um and present something within a two-year period as opposed to being blocked out for two for two years, or actually even more than two years because I would imagine it'd be from the time that city council takes action on whenever they withdraw, which they probably have another 90 days before they have to take action on it.

For example, a coffee house would be a significant change and would warrant a brand new application, would it not?

Exactly.

I think we we heard it that is up to the executive director, but however, maybe it is some type of variations with the a gas station and a coffee house.

I don't we don't know that's up to the applicant.

So to pre kind of prevent that instance from happening, and I'll just say I think it's in our in the the commission's best interest, the community best interest to allow uh reconsideration for withdrawal so that it can come back at that appropriate time once the applicant actually meets with the with the community so that they can come up with a plan that best fits the neighborhood needs and also the property needs for economic development in the area.

That makes good sense.

I tend to align with uh Commissioner Josh Gupta, though, in that at the last meeting there were several community members, and the burden falls back on the community members to show up once again for further commission hearings on the same project, just because the uh applicants and their representatives didn't follow the rules of order here.

Um may I address Mrs.

Charleston or Ms.

Charleston can you come to the podium, please?

No, no.

I I just have a simple question.

Do you all plan to withdraw your application if we move to reconsider today?

Yes.

Okay, thank you.

Can I ask a follow-up question, but not of the applicant?

Um, if we reconsider, does that do we then have a the next order of business right here, right now today is for her to come back up and withdraw and formally withdraw?

Yes.

Okay.

And Commissioner Steve, to add to that too, if it is still reconsidered, right?

It still can't necessarily move forward the city council because now we're reconsidering it doesn't move forward the city council with approval or denial.

So we can still take action.

Can I say one thing at all?

Please.

I think that's the misunderstanding.

It wasn't about following the rules due to my injuries and being out.

Neither side had a fair opportunity to talk about this.

And I do understand the community.

I sit on a lot of community boards as well.

I understand having to come out, taking the time off work.

This injury, unfortunately, really messed up my life for the last couple months.

And I just feel like the community deserves better too.

I live in the French quarter where this incident happened, and I feel the same for the lower nine that they deserve the opportunity to have businesses that they want, and I want to be able to have that opportunity to make sure they get that.

But by preventing that and preventing another two years, we're putting a financial burden on my clients as well, that they're not going to be able to have any opportunity to work with anyone.

And so I really want to prevent that and allow a business to function, whether it's gas, or we'd we'd completely change that.

If we can't come to an agreement, then we figure out a different plan.

But that blocking that can that conversation stops and it goes to city council, and there's no time to to work together if it goes to city council, to be honest.

Thank you.

Commissioners, um, given all the discussion, is there a motion?

Uh uh, madam chair, there's no further discussion.

I'll I'll move for reconsideration uh for zona diet zero five three two five register.

Thank you.

Is there a second?

Commissioner Steg seconds.

Uh is there any discussion?

No, if not, let's put our machines.

I'm gonna vote yes.

All right, motion for reconsideration passes.

Should Ms.

Charleston come up to address thank you.

Could you state your name and address, please?

Matty Charleston, 926 Charter Street, New Orleans, Louisiana.

I want to withdraw the application for 5330 St.

Claude.

Thank you.

Is there any further business on our end regarding this?

No?

She were through.

We go to the next docket.

Great.

Thank you so much.

Next up is the 2025 mandatory inclusionary zoning market feasibility analysis.

Wait, wasn't there specifically a subdivision?

Oh, after then.

Okay.

So yeah.

Okay.

So Robin, I think you're gonna need to take your seat.

Good afternoon, Commissioners.

The City of New Orleans adopted its first mandatory inclusionary zoning program in 2019 after several years of research research and an initial feasibility study by HRNA advisors.

In 2020, the companion mapping component was adopted, codifying the boundaries of the MIZ program, and requiring the consideration of a market feasibility analysis every two years.

In April of 2022, it was determined a market feasibility analysis was needed to inform potential changes to the requirements and its boundaries.

The city hired HRNA advisors as contractors for the study, and the internal team has worked closely with the HRNA team since early 2025 on the project.

Today, Vidy Garg and Philip Cash are here from HRNA to present the final report to the public along with their findings and recommendations for changes to the policy.

I want to thank the commission for the opportunity to be here.

I'm Philip Cash, partner at HRNA, lead our housing practice.

We're going to go through results of our study.

We did a study looking at mandatory inclusionary zoning and then the opposite opportunity for office to residential conversion.

Can everyone see the slides?

Can everyone see the slides?

Okay.

Let me do a quick introduction and we'll move forward.

So HRNA is a public policy real estate advisory firm.

There's about 200 of us working at the firm.

We work across the country.

I lead our housing practice.

For our housing practice, we do plans, policy, and transaction work across the country.

We've worked extensively on inclusionary zoning policies both here in New Orleans and cities across America.

We also worked extensively on office to residential inversion.

We're happy to talk about examples from other markets, but also we're going to focus mostly on New Orleans.

So the study was asked set up to really answer two questions.

One, is a mandatory inclusionary zoning policy feasible in the current market conditions?

And what adjustments, if any, are appropriate.

And as was previously described, why that question is asked now is the market has shifted significantly.

And the idea was always that it should be revisited periodically to update the requirements as the market shifts.

And then the office to residential conversion is really focused on how could vacant office space be more productively used as residential.

What would that take and what's an appropriate approach?

For the mandatory inclusionary zoning, our approach was to make sure we understood, we were part of the initial study, but the city has moved forward making a number of adjustments and calibrations.

So first we wanted to make sure we understood what the existing policy was and where it stood.

Then we wanted to look at the market and make sure we were clear on where things happened, then engage with stakeholders, finally conduct a series of financial analyses on what was viable under which incidents, and then put forward a set of policy recommendations.

So I'm going to speak about mandatory inclusionary first, and then we'll get an office to residential.

So the existing policy is set up geographically to focus on the core market and the strong markets around it, with a mandatory requirement for those and then a voluntary requirement for the rest of the city.

The requirement lays out 10% at 60% of area median income in the core, 5% at 60% of area median income for the strong.

It has a high in Luffy of around $300,000, and is targeted to properties of 10 units and above.

Talked about the submarkets.

It offers a set of incentives around density, parking requirements, tax abatements.

It's administered by the relevant agencies that you are all familiar with.

So looking at where we're at on the policy, the existing mandatory inclusion or zoning policy.

Where the policy has had significant impact is on traditional affordable housing development.

So low-income housing tax credit developments, programs getting properties getting home funding.

It's moved about 300 units through, and it's given them additional flexibility on land use.

So parking requirements, land use requirements, and that has been, you know, we've got good feedback that has been a real support to the developers on those projects.

It also has a significant pipeline, just over 500 units in the pipeline.

So there has been real impact there.

However, when we look at the mixed income, that's market rate where there'd be some affordable in there, it has not achieved significant impact.

There are no units built to date, and there's only two units in the pipeline currently.

So it is not what was originally projected in terms of impact has not been achieved and is not at the scale or level of efficacy expected.

So we start to look at why.

What's driving that?

There's a couple factors.

One are national trends, macroeconomic forces in the real estate market.

You being a planning commission, I'm sure you hear different versions of this all the time.

But I'm going to highlight some of what we see as some of the key challenges, both here in New Orleans and all the markets we work in.

So interest rates are up significantly, so just shy of 300 basis points increase.

So if you imagine borrowing a on a proper, you know, as a property, you're talking about about $30,000 a year in extra insurance payments for every million dollars you're borrowing.

So that's a significant additional cost that has to be carried.

We're looking at construction costs up about 47% in 2018.

The study was initially done at the end of 2019, so largely looking at 2018 data.

So we're talking about almost a 50% increase in construction cost, and then we're all familiar with trends in insurance.

So insurance costs are up.

All of these numbers make all developments, period, more challenging, whether it has a mandatory inclusionary zoning policy or not.

Next slide.

On the local market side, we also see headwinds.

We see it basically a softening real estate market.

So rents on the whole, market rate rents have stagnated with about a 1% increase.

There's some positive news there in terms of rents not going up in affordability, but that's mostly at the top of the market new construction, so not for your households that are deeper in need.

You have overall declining population, so the demand level, and certainly in parks of the city are strong, but overall is not demand, is not driving development the same way.

And then your vacancy has increased over time.

It was always somewhat elevated.

2018, you were higher than we'd normally like to see, but it was trending down.

Turned out that that was basically the low point we were going to see for the foreseeable future.

So we have macroeconomic headwinds, and then we have a softening local market.

Those are the major drivers why the mandatory inclusionary zoning policy adopted has not been effective.

So let me talk a little bit about feasibility.

In a strong market, which is where you were in 2018, 100% market rate development works, and we're really having a conversation about what incentives are necessary to make inclusionary zoning work.

The idea that you're going to take the rents from your market rate units and use those to subsidize your more affordable units.

That makes a lot of sense.

It's widely adopted across the country.

It's a proven approach.

Next slide.

When we get into a weaker market, which is what we're facing right now, 100% market rate development doesn't pencil.

That doesn't mean there are no developments that can ever happen.

But on the whole, unless you have a good basis, you need to purchase the property, you happen to be very efficiently vertically integrated with your own general contractor, it's difficult to make development work.

And you actually need incentives to make just market rate development happen.

Those of us who've been doing this for a couple of years, I won't say how long I've been doing this, but for a while, remember, you know, coming out of 08 that we had a lot of incentives and policies just to get homes and developments built.

Well, we're back to that kind of market.

So if you take that market where you already have a feasibility gap, and then you add affordability requirements, which are desperately needed and are very valuable to society, you end up with the largest visibility gap, and you have to show up with significantly more incentives to make the projects work.

Okay, so we did that analysis, we have that framework, so we started to look at what can we do and what would what adjustments would make.

We know the market the policy isn't working right now.

We can make adjustments to the affordability requirements, we could shift the market targeting.

Maybe there's some sub markets that really are still thriving.

We can focus on those areas, and we can go look at public incentives.

And we do the analysis on public incentives, we do the math, we show you the options.

Obviously, that's always a discussion about what public good we're trying to buy and whether this is the most important use.

But generally, we can put a price tag for this much money, you can get an affordable apartment at this rent.

And then public sector can decide what the right approach is.

Next slide.

So we looked at a range of affordability levels, going from where we started at 10% at 60 all the way to much lighter at 5% at 80% AMI.

We did not look at deeper affordability because it was already not working, but want to call that out.

Next slide.

We also looked at your market and made sure we try to understand what developments are actually happening, both the types of the parts of the city because there's difference in rents and land costs, and the types of development because there's difference in construction and operating costs.

We ended up focusing on a set of properties we thought were in different neighborhoods.

Truthfully, there was less development activity, so we mostly stuck to the patterns we were looking at back in 2018 and 2019.

Then we looked at the incentives.

We looked at similar incentives that we looked at previously, but how they might be calibrated.

So tax abatement, density bonus, parking reduction, sales tax.

You have a very strong planning department, and every and you have very active developers who are all very clear with us about which incentives, frankly, were irrelevant because parking minimums had already been adjusted or there's minimum marking requirements.

So we've looked at what existing planning restrictions there are, and also made sure that just because you drop something to zero, parking is an example, or you allow for different density, doesn't mean that actually helps financially because if the market still demands it, you still have to build it.

So we looked at both of those considerations.

This slide is a bit busy, and I apologize we're gonna go through each of it in a little bit more detail.

On the left side is the current policy, which I talked about briefly, and on the right side is what our recommendations are.

I'm gonna hit the headlines on that, and then I'm gonna go through each section and talk about it.

As always, you're the commission, so please interrupt me, tell me what we ever get into more detail.

So we're suggesting reducing both the portion, so from 10 to 5, and the level of affordability from 60 to 80.

That significantly reduces the financial burden of affordable units.

It also significantly reduces the public benefit.

You still have need at 80% AMI, but not the same level of need.

The bigger change is that we're talking about going from a mandatory to a voluntary approach for this affordability requirement.

On the incentive side, we are we do look at some additional incentives.

Frankly, there are not a lot of significant financial incentives that are available to give.

We increased slightly the flexibility on pilot.

Obviously, that's an independent project by project underwriting, so we're not saying it's mandatory to a number, but we did raise the range on that.

But even with these incentives, they're not significantly moving it.

And then on the nominal fee, and the original calculation was based on the replacement cost, the actual financial loss to a project of around 300,000.

We dropped it to a more nominal number with the goal and the mindset that we're trying to encourage development, period, and that a lower number would open up the door for that.

So going through each of these, we're talking about shifting.

If you imagine a 60 unit apartment building at a 5% requirement, we're talking about three apartments.

It's not huge, but it still matters.

Every unit is important.

The bigger piece of this is it's voluntary in nature and slightly higher in income.

In terms of when we look at the gap, this is an example, and I'll talk about it a little bit more.

But if you think about a mid-rise new construction, one of the projects that has a type, every deal varies, but as a type, seems to pencil pretty well.

With the incentives we're talking about, mostly the pilot and the tax exemptions driving that, which are direct financial losses for the city.

You can narrow the gap to around a million.

That's not great, but there are deals that may work for, especially if there's a fee and loo approach.

And so that's where we came on the incentive side.

And then on I talked about the fee and loopies.

We talked we significantly reduce the amount here.

We give some discretion to actually adjust it between 10 and 25,000 for exactly the reason we talked about revisiting the numbers for the two years is the ability to adjust it up if the market was starting to shift, so that's not fixed at one number rigidly, and there's some discretion to actually make adjustments here.

And then we put an overall building cap.

Really, the overall building cap or project cap is for a situation where you were in the dealing with a very large project and wanted to make sure that we didn't accidentally undermine something you were in, you know, a more catalytic project.

When we actually start, you know, we did that analysis.

If you start to look at this, we can see a number of project types become borderline feasible, but as you'll look at this chart, you don't see any green dots.

We're not gonna recommend a mandatory possible policy if we can't show you some green dots and we don't see green dots.

And you could save 10%, you could even raise it to 20%, but 10 or 20% of zero is still zero, it produces no net units for you.

And that is not the city's objective, and that's not the objective anyone's assessed to achieve.

So going back the same numbers I laid out before, but if you imagine one of these projects, there's a gap at a market rate development.

So this actually gives you a sense of like how we're weighting the subsidy here or the the incentives.

You have a gap of just shy of three million dollars for just a hundred percent market rate development.

So we're actually trying to put more incentives in here that then the affordability requirements impose.

So done a poor job of saying I'm gonna try to say it again.

You're at 2.8 as a gap on a hundred percent market rate.

You put in five percent 80, it moves you down about another million dollars.

If you put all of the incentives into this, we think you get to a gap of around a million.

You know, deal by deal vary.

That means you put in more incentives than actually the affordability drivers.

We're now trying to give enough incentives to actually close the overall just general market development feasibility.

I want to pause here.

These are all the incentives we've laid out, these are the changes.

All the recommendations that these are the changes.

Happy to take questions on this, or we're gonna move over to the office to residential pilot section.

So I have one question, which is describe the applic the application of the new policies to a condominium development as opposed to a multifamily apartment.

So a for sale condominium development?

So the affordable same let's talk about affordability restrictions are five percent at 120% AMI.

So higher level of affordability, same five percent, but a higher level of AMI, and that's basically looking at the difference in cost and the gap there.

So financially a lot of the incentives don't come into play.

So you can't give a pilot the same way on those kind of properties, so the incentives become significantly less effective, and that which is part of the reason why we go with a higher AMI and the fact that there's need at that level, whereas 120% AMI does not have the same kind of need at the rental level.

Does that answer your question?

Yeah, except so with an apartment you have a rental rate, but with a condominium, it's going to be sold.

So how do you how do you regulate the price for the condominium unit that is reserved for the 80% uh of AMI affordable person?

So you have a purchase price calculation, and so that that would be looking at current interest rates, assumptions on what the mortgage was going to be, and you do a calculation of what the household could afford at that income level.

Okay.

Oh, so you back into it.

So you you say what can a person whose income is 80% of AMI or current interest rates, blah, blah, blah.

What monthly payment can they afford, and therefore what monthly payment does that translate to for a purchase price?

That's that's right.

So except for 120%, but yes, a different income level.

But we go out look at a household 120%, we look at what their income would actually support, we look at what that equates to in mortgage terms, and that tells you these are the prices you have to hit on that.

Okay.

I think you can carry on.

Thank you.

Um, commissioners.

Um, I'm a principal at HRNA, and I'll be walking you through the office conversion analysis.

Um it was obviously a counterpart to the MIZ analysis that Philip just presented, and really driven by the fact that obviously office vacancies have increased in the CBD uh since the pandemic, and looking at what are the opportunities to convert the the any of the underused office spaces to residential use to revitalize downtown and certainly start to meet some of the housing need.

Um so as you can see, our study area for the office conversion analysis was the central business district and the warehouse district, and we looked at co-star data, and what what we find is there's around 208 privately owned office buildings in the study area, which we then categorize into five building typologies for analysis.

And the analysis really is dependent on two factors, right?

Looking first at the physical building characteristics, so looking at building heights, looking at floor plate sizes, looking at building widths, and then the financial feasibility, which looks which also includes market conditions.

So we're looking at what is the overall performance, performance of the office market, the residential market, looking at occupancy slash vacancy rates, rents, um, and then of course construction costs, both hard and soft costs, um, as well as regulatory requirements, in this case the MIZ slash affordability requirement.

So when we first apply the physical feasibility filter, so these are the five typologies uh that I said the five the 208 buildings fall into, and then when we apply the physical feasibility filter, what we find is that all typologies are potentially viable for conversion, except that we think single story is owners of single story buildings are unlikely to go through with it.

Um and so a financial feasibility analysis, which I'll just get to shortly, focused on these four typologies.

And as you can see, you know, together these represent about 90% of that overall privately owned office building stock in the CBD.

And they do span the gamut in terms of physical characteristics, float plate width, number of floors, and they yield different types of sort of building types post-conversion, whether it's a flow-through or a double-loaded corridor.

And then going on to the financial feasibility analysis, we are essentially looking at, you know, we first look at the current use of the building, which is the office, what is the cash flow there, what is the cost to convert, so those hard and soft costs, and then looking at post-conversion in a hypothetical scenario, what is that value of the new use cash flow?

And that difference, you know, whether it's less or more, is really the driving factor from a feasibility analysis perspective, right?

Um, to for the owner to decide whether to convert or not.

And we recognize that again, just as for the MIZ uh case that Philip presented, that you know it it depends on a whole lot of different factors, right?

Um, including the owner's decision making.

Um so when we we did the analysis for these, we we first looked at how the feasibility changes based on market conditions based on the building performance.

So at different vacancy rates, and then how does feasibility change when you layer in regulatory requirements?

Um the first one, looking at the office uh, I'm sorry, looking at how it performs by office building performance.

We don't have to go through all of the numbers, obviously, but I think you know, as we saw in the MIC, what we what's what really stands out in this slide is there's no green or no orange.

And really, if you just look at, for instance, the type two wide wall-to-wall uh row and going from left to right, uh, left to right, obviously, feasibility improves as office vacancy increases, but the reason why we are not seeing any uh borderline feasible or feasibles as you go towards the right, is really those market conditions of high conversion costs and low residential rents, which continue to dampen feasibility.

And then when we look at feasibility by regulatory requirements, again, what we find is that adding whether it's 10% units at 60% AMI or 5% affordable units at 80% AMI, they do certainly negatively impact financial feasibility, but only marginally so.

And the green box around typologies two and three are just to call out that of the four typologies, when you layer in regulatory requirements, those have the smallest projected financial loss and are you know, therefore theoretically more or less infeasible, I should say, than uh the other typologies.

And so then looking at all right, so you're faced with this gap.

What do you, you know, is there a way to reduce this gap?

Um, and that's really when we start looking at policy tools, and we looked at policy tools that cities across the country have applied for office conversions, and they really fall into these three buckets of tax tools, financing tools, and process tools.

Um we've really focused on the tax tools on tax abatements and historic tax credits for New Orleans, not because we think that process tools are not important, but they just have less of a quantifiable quantifiable impact on financial feasibility.

Um bringing back that same example of a wide wall-to-wall building, you see, you know, to the leftmost, um, there's a loss or there's a uh feasibility gap of five million dollars, uh, whereas if you layer in historic tax credits or after layering historic tax credits and property tax abatements, you are able to reduce that gap by about three million down to two.

So again, there is still a gap, but it's significantly smaller.

Um so, you know, while this these findings don't scream, yes, you know, you should institute a new program, it it is worth considering a pilot program, right?

We've seen that in cities across the country as well, um, that a lot of them have started with pilot programs, um, and it really starts with identifying what are those viable building candidates, uh, can conversion candidates in New Orleans.

And so it'll probably be a smaller pool than that 188.

Um, but uh, you know, are they historic historic buildings, long-term ownership, what's the low-hanging fruit, and then of course, conversations around what are the financing tools or other policy tools uh that owners can tap into that the city can provide uh to make those projects um feasible and go through.

So this is not the most optimistic or upbeat presentation we've given on market conditions, but we always want to make sure we give accurate information about what's going on in the market so you all are well positioned.

I do want to go back to the statement I said earlier is the the market cycle has shifted.

There was a period of there was a period coming out of the foreclosure crisis where we were all working on revitalizing building back downtowns and neighborhoods, and we all did that for a number of years.

And then there was a cycle where the market was quite strong and it was displacing residents and create you know, exacerbating affordability pressure, and we all work to put in policies in place to address that.

There's been a sea change and the market has shifted again, and we're back to the place where we need to be supporting neighborhoods and downtowns.

And there are lots of tools, and Warwell's actually has been quite historically effective in this about identifying specific projects and putting gap financing and partnershiping to do them by looking at assistance to individual households, and by setting up I'll say expedited processes, but really what we're talking about is dialogue and public-private partnerships where you're trying to figure out how do you make projects work.

And I think what Vidy is talking about with office to residential, almost you know, even in New York and Boston, which are much stronger markets, they are still having to come at this deal by deal and work it out between their planning departments and their city.

The deals don't just magically pencil automatically.

There's a lot of collaboration and partnership that going into all of those.

So these are the real numbers, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't be looking at these tools.

It just means you're gonna have to be targeted and you should be very clear on what your policy priorities are.

When you revitalize these or make an investment, why am I why do I want residential?

I want residential because people are going to be active here, I want this project because it's gonna re you know, reactivate a corridor, or it's gonna catalyze a building, or it's gonna demonstrate a new title type of development that we think other developers are in like, but shifting to that mindset and looking at this in a much more targeted basis, there can still be a great deal of effect, and this can still benefit on affordability, but it is a fundamentally different market that we're working in across the entire nation right now.

Thank you.

I have one one question.

Um go back to the very beginning of what you said at the very beginning that um projects that are devoted to affordable housing alone had decent numbers.

Yep.

What what what in your opinion in the study, what what are the reasons that those have flourished?

I think I understand the reasons why the MIZ hasn't, but why have the hundred percent affordable projects flourished or done reasonably well?

So I will give my opinion with analysis.

I would also know that the planning department is sees a lot more projects in this market than I do.

So your market rate units are are susceptible to all of the market forces I talked about.

So construction costs, interest rates, and flat rent.

Your affordable projects are not as susceptible to interest rates because they are not getting, they don't leverage nearly as much debt, so their debt exposure is much smaller.

Their rents actually have not stagnated because the middle part of the market has not seen any relief.

And the federal regulations for AMI have actually gone up pretty steadily.

We actually changed some rules at that.

I'm from DC, changed some rules in DC because we jacked it up 10% in one year, which wasn't a very good thing to do.

They're still exposed on the construction cost and insurance side, and that is, I'm sure if you talk with Gulf Coast Housing Partnership, Enterprise Community Partners, anybody in that space, they're going to tell you that they're suffering.

I I'm a consultant for a developer who has a portfolio of properties here, and they're looking to unload that portfolio because they're not sure they can continue to operate here, not because anything that's wrong with the city, but because operating costs are up, insurance costs are up.

So there's a benefit there because they have access to subsidy and they're less exposed to interest rate risk, but they still face headlines and they're still in a hard spot.

Okay.

I always know New Orleans and Louisiana are number one, number one for tax credits, right?

We need to be able to talk about these things because we're always number 49 or 50.

So it's important to know that we're number one for utilizing tax credits.

How does this factor in for the population loss?

I know the data center had just come out with um, you know, we've lost 100,000 children, you know, since 2020, and we've also most of New Orleans is single living alone.

Um, and so that's how we've been seeing a lot of it's hard to live in half of a shotgun because you have two or three rooms and you really only need maybe two rooms, right?

And so just sort of thinking about all of this when you're talking about other cities where they've done pilot programs that are successful.

What other cities similar to New Orleans in that regard?

Because we can't be compared to Indianapolis or places where the economy is thriving.

So I guess population loss, how does that factor into it in terms of moving forward?

And then is there another city that we can look at to say, okay, this pilot project did really well that has maybe a similar economy to us?

Do you want to do comp sitting first?

Oh, you go first.

Yeah.

All right, I'll lead off.

So a declining populations, you're right, and we look at this basically, we look at a couple places on the rents, but we also look at on absorption rates.

So larger scale projects, you're gonna want to start small and mid-sized.

Even if the numbers work, your absorption rates are gonna be slower because there's not as much to absorb.

Your point about yes, you have population rise, but your household loss is pretty, you're actually pretty level, but that's because your households are shifting smaller.

So that does have an impact on your stock, and for anything you're gonna reposition, I would assume the developers would know that they want to think about that and they're doing a good job, but that's not always assumption that's borne out.

We are a lot of these plates, like four plates, you'll look at do they actually lend themselves to studio, one bedroom, and I think that's a factor here.

In terms of comparable markets, New York, Boston, maybe not a comparable markets.

DC, where I live, is becoming a comparable market.

We are looking at population loss, we're looking at vacancy spikes, and we're looking at some real downtick in employment.

And we are moving forward, we've gone some pilot programs, and we are moving with the series of office to residential.

We're also the initiative we actually lost a really great senior analyst because he went over to work for the city who's doing a lot of this work.

DC's approach is office to anything.

And it's they wanted to get it back online, and I think this focuses office to residential, but we talk about some of the examples we've seen.

You may get a pitched, and we talked about this a little earlier that yeah, we're gonna convert part of this building to residential, and we want to do a hotel use for part of it, whether it's short-term rental or actually a hotel, I'll stay out of that.

Um we're gonna make a maker space for this section, and that's where I would argue we talked about that partnership and the public, like no developer's gonna figure out how to get through the process and get that approved on their own.

That is gonna happen because you know your downtown business district and Seth says, you know, knows the developer, knows the site, and then he's helping a conversation with your planning department, and they're coming together to actually make those work.

All of the projects you're gonna see, at least initially, are gonna be because you have a pretty robust public-private partnership, and maybe public private, philanthropic or mission-driven actor partnership.

That's where it's if you look at where other people have actually gotten their first goes, that'll be that'll be how it is.

The vantage point that we can't see necessarily, so it's important to hear that.

I mean, yeah, go ahead.

And you know, these are not necessarily calm cities, but like Philip mentioned, um, there are some things that other cities have done.

So New York and Boston, for instance, have you know, suddenly they've kind of almost established a one-stop shop uh within city and within city uh government.

So I'm from Boston, and you know, we're in the like many other cities, we're kind of notorious for how long it takes to go through zoning and plummeting, etc.

Um, and one of the reasons that we've heard from developers in the city who have gone into do office residential conversions is that the city has brought all of the different departments on the table at the table together uh from the get-go, right?

New York has established an office where even before an owner or a developer puts in an application, they go have a conversation, right?

So all of these things really are signaling that openness and that openness to a public-private partnership.

Um, you know, there was a con conversation we're having earlier today about, and this somewhat ties into your question, is you know, the size of those projects, right?

So in Boston, for instance, I think we are uh this program, pilot program was instituted in October of 2023.

We're up to about a thousand units that have been permitted, um, but really just one building recently opened, um, and that was like 16 units, right?

And then mostly all fairly small buildings.

Um, and really the city is trying to go for, hey, what's the you know, we have a we have plenty of empty, like large vacant office buildings.

It would be great to get one of those big wins in, but it's probably more incremental.

Um, and then in fact, along the way, the state has put in some money in tax credits towards officer residential conversion.

So that has helped um bolster what the city is doing.

The other route you can see when you look at some pilot projects in DC that we're looking at right now that are not through, is the product the demand isn't necessarily there, so you have you know your lender on this on the construction of the perm side.

They want to see comps, they want to know this is actually gonna get through, and you're gonna be able to lease it up to the rents you set forward.

We're looking at two different deals there that are we have an institutional partner gonna step in, one's a university, one's a hospital, and they're committing to master lease a large portion of the units ahead of time and put staff there.

They don't really want to actually end up doing that, but them signing and saying, listen, we'll guarantee that you'll get these rents on 80% of the units, and the absorption risk lets the developer get much lower cost financing on the construction and firm side because the underwriter is now no longer looking at this new experimental deal because banks don't like experimental or new, they're not that's not their job.

They're underwriting can this university can this hospital pay, and that's they can underwrite that all day long at a very low interest rate.

So that again, the partnership piece, like you're gonna need the public sector, you're gonna need the private sector, and you may need some of your institutions to play a role here too.

Well said.

So what do we do we have to take action to accept the study?

Is that what what's our action step here?

If any.

Sure.

So the uh if the commission um wants to support the study um and adopt it as their own.

Um the request from the council was for the commission to produce a study, and and so as we do with studies, um, you all would vote on it.

It would be transmitted to the city council, um, and then the city council would act on it as they see fit.

This is not a zoning docket, so there's no um there's no timing here, but I do think that um there is um interest amongst uh certainly the council staff, but amongst council members to um to put led to change the legislation to reflect these findings.

So there's a card.

Yes.

Well, announce the card chair.

It's the couple.

I mean, do we have any other questions before we go ahead and move to our card?

No.

I have a question before we move to our card.

Um, is um does the city planning department have anything that they were gonna add to this study at all?

Or is that already on the packet and I missed it?

No, no, no.

Um we are we did not produce a separate report for this.

Um we worked very closely with the consultants um at every step of the way down to the um last minute changes and rethinking of recommendations, and um and um they certainly were very um accommodating to you know hear our concerns and your thoughts and and adjust accordingly.

So we're guys are good in favor of this report.

Thank you.

If the public if if this portion is um closed, well, we'll go ahead and ask Mr.

Rogers to come ahead.

Miss Rogers.

Hi, Miss Rogers, please come and state your name and address.

Hi, my name is Jordan Rogers.

I am 4640 South Carolton, and I am representing uh Housing NOLA.

Housing NOLA's mission is to create a framework ensuring all New Orleans residents have excess access to safe, resilient, and affordable housing by aligning public, private, and community resources through its 10-year strategy, housing NOLA prioritize mandatory inclusion zoning and develop the smart housing tiger mix to guide equitable and transparent development, despite ongoing challenges from COVID-19, climate change and Louisiana's insurance crisis.

Housing NOLA continues to advocate the data-driven policies that promote resilient housing and responsible use of public resources.

Housing NOLA is disappointed that delays in executing the policy have caused us to miss some opportunities.

However, we are encouraged to see that the process itself works.

The necessary adjustments to meet the moment are being proposed.

And rather than abandoning these principles, we are now fully implementing them.

Without the homeownership components, we have seen developers exploit the lack of consistency and convert what we are intended to be single family homes into commercial short-term rentals.

Housing NOLA's smart housing mix Tiger team will meet in the coming weeks to encourage partners, ensure they understand the proposed changes and continue monitoring this critical program.

Thank you.

Rogers, housing NOLA.

Is there anyone else here to speak?

Yes, um.

No, okay.

Can I say one more thing?

Yes.

Um, one of the things that um has become apparent throughout the course of the study.

Some of you might recall that in the legislation itself, it there's a there's a requirement that the uh city engage in a reassessment of the market every two years.

Um it's been six years since the last time it was, and obviously there's been a tremendous amount of change.

Um, but I think the um what this drives home is that from you know, going forward we really need to be um assessing the market to see when a shift occurs um and at that point um reconsider whether to um whether or not a mandatory uh approach um would be feasible and and put that in place to take advantage of those opportunities.

Is that something that we could add as we transmit this to council?

So it is in the um underlying regulation.

I think it is highlighted in um the report.

Um so I think it's in there.

But I just wanted to point that out to y'all.

So now can I make a motion?

Yes, Commissioner Steek.

Thank you.

Um so I um I appreciate the study and I I I appreciate it.

And um I think it's better that we make a shift rather than um not accept uh the reality where we are.

So I would move that we accept uh is the right word accept or adopt or adopt adopt the study and send it to the city council as a study uh approved or adopted by the city planning commission.

Commissioner Fickle second.

Thank you.

We have a motion on the floor to adopt and a second.

Is there any discussion?

I'd I have a comment, thank you so much for your study, but I also think we have to have a study of um all our historic properties and how they can be repurposed for affordability because we have one of the nation's largest inventories of historic properties, and we have large neighborhoods that are sitting vacant or unused or half used, which really the community lives in these neighborhoods, and it would be easier for them to actually live in these neighborhoods rather than change their whole lifestyle.

Um college students are having difficulty finding housing.

Um people in those neighborhoods are having issues, you know, but just the pressures of um short-term rental and college housing, but our historic properties are really uh a great resource, and I think that's a great place to start off as well.

We live in a living museum, yes.

Um and I've noticed the real estate market as I've been tracking it for the last 25-30 years, it really shifts.

There's slight shifts every seven years, and then there's pretty substantial shifts every three years.

So reevaluating this every three years would be really thoughtful so that we could plan, be proactive instead of reactionary on a lot of things as well.

All right, let's go ahead and vote if there's no more discussion.

The motion carries uh with seven yes, and I guess the record should show that Mr.

Jordan has left and Miss Whitry has taken over as chair.

Thank you.

Thank you all.

I hope you enjoy your time here too.

Kroll.

Okay.

Are we adding an item?

Is there things out of order?

What did I miss?

Yeah, so in front of you you have a uh copy of a report for subdivision docket 9625.

Um, due to a staff error, this was not placed on the agenda originally, and therefore was not properly noticed um for a vote today, but it is on deadline.

And so our recommendation, and Robin can speak to in a second, but our recommendation is for approval.

Um if you are okay with that recommendation, you can vote on it, but would essentially become approved by virtue of the deadline uh lapsing.

Ms.

Jones, did you want to add anything?

You just wanted to hear this ordinary synopsis.

No.

I can I can go through that real quick.

I don't have to do that.

That would be great.

I mean, I think it would be important.

Okay.

Uh subdivision docket 9625 is a request to configure seven existing lots along the Paris Road I 510 corridor into four lots to accommodate the development of three community solar facilities.

The request requires CPC approval because it involves more than two acres.

In the general in the general plan development zoning district where the property is, a solar energy system is a permitted by use right.

Subject property's future land use designation is industrial.

Now while neither solar facilities nor utilities in general are included among the range of compatible uses listed for the industrial designation, both of these uses are permitted by right in light industrial, heavy industrial, and maritime industrial zoning district districts, which in turn are listed in the master plan consistency table as being cons consistent with industrial future land use.

Therefore, the proposal can be considered consistent with the goals and intentions of the master plan.

Therefore, the staff recommends approval of SD 9625 subject to one proviso.

Thank you.

Commission, do you have any questions?

No questions.

I'll make a motion of approval.

So we should approve this separately.

Can I just I um I think what the can the problem is that this was not noticed properly, so it's not properly before you.

I see.

Um we're bringing it to you looks great really for informational purposes.

Um the if there is a concern about you all um wanting to approve it directly, the only option would be to call a special meeting and have a separate meeting that we could notice it properly.

But um I asked Stephen to bring it and do the presentation just so you all see it, know that we are recommending approval for it, and um so I guess you know we'll clean up whatever um problem we had in getting it on the agenda correctly, but um uh I don't think there's any harm in this case.

So there's no action so there's no action.

Okay.

Thank you.

Looks great.

And then the last item is uh the ratification uh packet that uh is on your screen.

There are um about eight items for your ratification.

Thank you.

Commissioner Flick.

So moved.

Is there a second to approve these eight subdivisions?

I'll second.

Thank you, Commissioner C.

Any discussion.

Let's vote.

Seven yes.

The motion carries thank you.

And we are not meeting again in the month of November, so we will see everybody that second week in December.

Have a great