By Ernest A. Burguières
July 13, 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.
Another wild night. A packed house. Two TV cameras. These events really deserve popcorn and wine. And maybe a cigar.
There were several big issues.
First, there will be another Sucette meeting on Monday, July 24th, at 6:00 p.m. at the Spitzfaden Center.
The drama: A night for amendments and conditions
The chair told us that we would discuss amendments to the ordinance and conditions on the property. The Sucette representative provided a few new slides that purported to clarify certain features. For example, we saw a new slide that revealed that the absolute height would be 72′, a figure that some still disagree with. But at 72′ this makes it about double the height of surrounding buildings. Zuckerman believes it might be more.
Sucette made a request that Parcel U, the defunct former marina, be re-subdivided and incorporated into Parcel D, the main Sucette focus.
In what would be a harbinger of future actions Councilman Kreller made a motion that the Sucette Ordinance 23-16 be amended to re-subdivided the property and incorporate Parcel U into Parcel D. Despite a citizen’s question regarding how the addition might affect all of the various previous calculations that only focused on Parcel D, which was kind of sloughed off. It was approved 5-0 by the council despite the fact that Planning and Zoning never looked at Parcel U, I believe because they were told not to.
So now, we have Parcel U in the mix and something called a “Planned Marina District” which I assume brings a host of new issues.
Then Councilman Jason Zuckerman made what at first appeared to be a motion, but upon reflection, was an invitation for a motion. Zuckerman noted that the prior ordinance that governs Parcel D was Ordinance 98-40 wherein Al Copeland Sr. obtained approval for a Planned District Residential zoning for 10 single family homes on the 15 acre plot. In that ordinance was language about how and why the residential designation was in the best interest of the city and its residents. Zuckerman asked if any of the other councilmen wanted to offer a “Whereas” statement in Ordinance 23-16 (the current Sucette ordinance) to the effect that a commercial focused multi use was now in the best interest of the city and its residents. There were no takers. I wonder why (he said rhetorically)? Nobody wanted to openly admit that they supported changing this zoning from residential to commercial. No surprise here.
So, implicit in the fact that there were no takers to Zuckerman’s request was the fact that there was no one on the council willing to openly admit that they favored to endorse an emphasis on the commercial desirability of Parcel D.
The attorney for Sucette, Paul Harrison, commented that such a move by Zuckerman was somehow unfair, that it was pre judging the project and that the 1998 ordinance was flawed. Somehow the desire to maintain a residential zoning and atmosphere is now unfair. I will have more to say on this later.
Councilman Zuckerman then offered a slew of conditions that he wanted placed on the project should it be approved:
- no boat or trailer storage in the marina
- sunken vessels would have to be moved within 10 days
- provisions for an effluence pump out for the boats in the marina
- lighting on the dock at dock level in an effort to minimize the effects of the light on nearby residences
- disallow living on a boat
- violations if not resolved could result in the loss of their conditional use permit which would shut down the operation
Local citizen Terri Hamilton made a few additional suggestions:
- all electrical work related to the marina would have to be marine grade
- Dockside electrical connections would have to be between 2′ and 4′ above BFE flood level
- the marina would have 90 days to remove a sunken boat
These were all new ideas, much of which was foreign to those not involved in active boating activities. One citizen asked if anyone passing through Mandeville on a boat stayed a few days, a week or a month was violating the living on board idea. No one knew. Another citizen asked in commercial fishing boats like shrimp boats could use the marina. No one knew. What about in-slip boat repairs? No one knew. What about noise? I reminded people that Al Copeland, Sr. was a devotee of offshore power boat racing in boats that used to be called cigarettes. These boats often had one or more large V-8 engines with open exhaust. Very, very loud. Another resident, who was a sailor, shared his experience with the silting problems this marina has always suffered from which may have contributed to its lack of success in what ought to have been a prime area.
Tops’l resident, Tom Whalen, questioned the proximity of a dozen feet or less to a residential area and asked, “why re-zone this property”?
At this point Councilman Kreller made a kind of incredible statement to the effect that if Sucette was going to invest $100 million into this marina project we should trust them to do the right thing. An astute comment I guess,…not.
In somewhat of a surprise to me the council voted 5-0 in favor of these marina conditions.
Then Zuckerman moved onto his next set of motions. Density.
Zuckerman opined that half the property was residential (that is if rent paying apartments is residential as opposed to commercial) and half the property was commercial (hotel, restaurant, marina, event center, restaurant). He then proposed that the 200 unit apartments (which were voluntarily reduced to 180 last time be Sucette) be further reduced to 90 units. This resulted in another round of spirited discussions. The director of planning said the CLURO designation R-3 covered this, but that the council could put any condition they wanted. Sucette objected to the analysis and muttered under his breath that they were told they complied with all the requirements. WHAT? Who told you that? Which prompted Zuckerman to remind everyone that this high density was not in the spirit of the CLURO or what Mandeville has consistently promoted with respect to its residential atmosphere. Local landscaper and former professor, Buck Abby (who was a consultant for Sucette) appeared to try and support Sucette by asking that the whole project be looked at and not just components. This was not a popular opinion.
During this discussion on the 90 apartment unit reduction one citizen asked what the mix would be (1 bedroom, 2 bedroom, 3 bedroom). Another resident, Ralph Whalen, stated that he lived in the Tops’l apartment complex which had 37 units which would still be half the size of the proposed 90 units. A little variance in the scale?
This prompted Paul Harrison, local attorney for Sucette who by this point was visibly angry, to make what appeared to be a veiled threat of litigation by accusing the city of being “arbitrary”.
The vote on the reduction to 90 apartment unit limit was approved by a vote of 3-2 with Chairman Danielson and Councilman Keller being the lone votes to maintain the high density.
Councilwoman Jill McGuire then stepped up to the plate with a motion to limit the gross square footage of the hotel (excluding the square footage of the rooms) to 8,900 square feet. This sought to limit the size of the event center / ballroom. McGuire also made a motion that the impervious portion (that water could not flow through like concrete) would be limited to 61%.
These were both approved by a 5-0 vote.
Councilman Zuckerman then got into the location of the event center which was presently sited on the edge of the entrance jetty to the marina which was about 100’+ from the Mariners Island condos. Thoughts of loud music and wedding revelers filled people’s minds. This prompted the Sucette representative to again object to the notion that this was a “blank slate” project that the council could impose any conditions they wanted because they (Sucette) were told that the plan complied with everything. What? Who told them that?
Another citizen stated that she moved to Mandeville in 1966 when the population was less than 2,000. She asked, why do we have to appease Sucette? Indeed, why?
The architect hired by Sucette then got into a discussion with Zuckerman about why the event center was on the west side of the property so close to Mariners Island and why it should not be moved closer to the lake. Interestingly, she looked visibly shaken and upset.
The vote on this motion to move the event center failed 1-4 with Zuckerman casting the only vote to move it.
Then Councilwoman McGuire made a motion to revise Table 1 in the ordinance which listed all of the limits to apartments, rooms, square footage, boat slips and parking spaces which would bring it in to conformity with changes Sucette had previously made but which did not reflect the changes made by the council that evening.
This vote passed 5-0.
This again prompted the Sucette representative to disapprovingly mutter, rules don’t mean much.
At this point you should be getting a sense that not only did things not go well for Sucette, they were also getting visibly angry. There was a sense that they felt betrayed in their comments.
The final issue was traffic and who would bear the cost of any road projects that might be required as a result of the operation of Sucette. Councilman Zuckerman moved to require that Sucette pay for any required road work. Sucette responded by saying that The Traffic Study (with words written in gold) did not contemplate road work for 20+ years. This prompted me to remind everyone that on day one of operation there were going to be Sysco Foods tractor trailer trucks that would have to make the right turn from Monroe onto Antibes West to service the restaurant, hotel. The turn is too small to accommodate a 60′ long vehicle. This prompted the mayor to state that (I believe) the city could not force Sucette to pay for road reconstruction like was done in the Port Marigny case. In Port Marigny the owner offered to pay for the road work, they could not be required to may for it. This issue was put off for the next meeting.
The conclusion: What happened and why?
Wisdom is a thing that involves time and experience. We see the issue of wisdom crop in the Titanic submarine tragedy. There were reports that the Ocean Gate CEO, Stockton Rush (who died in the accident) once explained how he didn’t hire “50-year-old white guys” with military experience to captain his vessels because they weren’t “inspirational.”
Unbelievable. Does anybody think that is an astute statement?
Talk about ignoring the value of experience and wisdom.
In the case of Mandeville, it has been involved in three prior controversial real estate projects that resulted in litigation; Abraham v. City of Mandeville (1986), et al; Our Lady of the Lake v. City of Mandeville (2011); Port Marigny, et al v. City of Mandeville, et al (2017). All three involved an applicant who tried to push the envelope with a development that caused the community to rise up in an uproar. Port Marigny is an anomaly for reasons that have to do with the details of that case. The common thread with these cases is the consistent resistance by the community to out of scale developments. Al Copeland, Sr. should be added to this as well because Copeland’s original application, Ordinance 95-36 in 1995 was denied. Look at why. It took Copeland three years to gain approval of Ordinance 98-40 in which the city, and the public, fought every inch of the way. Copeland is an example of how the process should work.
This brings up the question; what institutional knowledge do our city attorney and director of planning have with respect to projects like this? Do they know about these historical matters? What did the city learn from these past experiences? Was that experience passed on to our city attorney and director of planning? I don’t know.
Looking over the past 35 years should we as citizens hope that our government officials have a sense for what is possible in this community? Has the City learned anything from these experiences? Should our government officials encourage applicants with projects that might be popular with planners, but not with the citizens and are therefore risky? If Sucette was encouraged to believe that his application was all in order and would be approved, but ignored the known will of the people and the desire of our elected officials to represent what the citizens want, is that a good thing?
Sucette keeps stating that they were misled and that the opposition is only a handful of people. I can’t disagree with this statement because I don’t know what they were told and by whom. What I do know is that the city attorney and the director planning repeatedly told Planning and Zoning and the Council that they had discretion to approve, disapprove or approve with conditions, that they had choices and yet in the next breath they said you must approve this because that is the law. This is a non sequitur. If you have a choice, then, you have a choice. As Councilman Zuckerman said in response to Paul Harrison’s similar admonition, if we don’t have a choice, then why are we here? And the emperor has no clothes.
-30-
Mandeville Daily 