By Ernest A. Burguières
July 11, 2023
Ernest A. Burguières is a Mandeville attorney who formerly served as District III Councilman. Mandeville Daily is honored to publish Mr. Burguières’ column with permission which is a combined reporting of the goings on in Mandeville government with his personal commentary.
This whole discussion about planned development is a red herring. A red herring is a misleading statement, question, or argument meant to redirect a conversation away from its original topic.
Over the past few months the discussion has been sometimes heated and always exhausting.
How big will the hotel be? How many parking spaces? What is included in a marina? How big is the restaurant? All questions that involve a commercial zoned area.
The problem with all of these discussions is that they assume the property is already zoned commercial. It is not. It is zoned residential. It has to be zoned commercial first before you can discuss the details of a conditional use permit for a commercial operation. That is why Ord. 23-16 contains a provision to re-zone this property to commercial.
The terms planned development residential and planned development multi use still boil down to zoned residential and zoned commercial. Planned development is merely a term that provides different rules for executing, but the zoning is either residential or commercial.
So, somebody combined two issues; zoning and conditional use. The Mandeville rules may ALLOW these two items to be combined into one ordinance, but the rules do not REQUIRE them to be combined.
CLURO rule 4.3.3.3. Concurrent Applications:
Application for a Conditional Use Permit and for Rezoning or Planned District zoning for the same property may be made concurrently, subject to the fees applicable to a rezoning or Planned District zoning only. The Planning Commission and Zoning Commission may hold the public hearing on the Rezoning and the Conditional Use Permit at the same meeting and may combine the two hearings. The City Council likewise may hold the two public hearings in combination and may approve both the Conditional Use and rezoning or Planned District zoning by one ordinance.
Clearly, 4.3.3.3. contemplates that a Conditional Use Permit and a Rezoning are two different matters, except it states that they can be made concurrently. In fact, it further states that the City Council likewise may hold the two public hearings in combination and may approve both the Conditional Use and re-zoning or Planned District zoning by one ordinance. No where does it say that you MUST combine these two issues. It is just for the convenience of the person seeking approval, e.g. Sucette.
Combining the two confuses a big issue. Our discussions have focused on the ramifications of the different conditional use issues. What has not been discussed is how re-zoning this property from residential to commercial benefits the health, safety and welfare of this community. Whenever someone applies for a zoning change there is increased scrutiny and a reluctance to change the zoning, especially if it appears to result in spot zoning (a different zoning designation than the surrounding area which is what is occurring in Sucette).
In this instance there has been virtually no discussion of the desirability of changing the zoning from residential to commercial. There has been a great deal of citizen angst and criticism about the various commercial uses, but we have lost sight of the fact that the reason for this angst is it does not fit in a residential area.
Additionally, once you zone this property commercial, it will always be commercial for any project that comes along after this one fails. I do not believe this has ever been discussed. Why not? Plus, it certainly sets a precedent for surrounding properties to request a zoning change to commercial. Are we not allowed to look at the potential consequences of each aspect of a decision? This is certainly foreseeable.
Our brains are geared to a “truth bias:” We automatically tag incoming information as true and must exert extra effort to remain uncertain or to re-label it as false. This bias is not a bug, but a feature. Truth bias turns seeing into believing, so it is a prerequisite for any act of deception. To overcome this tendency we need to curb our enthusiasm and ask ourselves, “what’s missing?’
Our tendency to focus on the information we already have can be amplified further by our preference for consistency. Smoothness and simplicity appeal to us because perfect patterns sometimes do reflect insight.
We are given all sorts of reasons why the specifics of the conditional use are beyond discussion, but that is because it presumes that the property is already zoned commercial. It is not. Implicit in our discussions is that the property is zoned commercial and we do not question this. Why is that? This is the first question that we decide whether we realize it or not. By hiding the decision process with the focus on conditional use with its controversial aspects we do not make the case for why it does, or does not, benefit the community to re-zone to commercial.
Was it sneaky to quietly incorporate the zoning issue into Ordinance 23-16? Possibly. We can certainly see the problem once we start to dissect the decision making process.
Mandeville Daily 