Supermarket wanted more flexibility in arranging truck deliveries
The New Orleans City Planning Commission turned thumbs down Tuesday on several changes that operators of the Whole Foods store at Magazine and Arabella streets were seeking in restrictions they said have hindered the store's operation for the past decade.
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View full sizeConversion of a former Regional Transit Authority bus barn into the Whole Foods at Magazine and Arabella was photographed in October 2002. The commission approved a couple of fairly minor changes, but it refused to increase the number of 18-wheelers that can deliver food to the store each day, to expand the hours during which all trucks can make deliveries or to authorize live entertainment at the store up to 20 days a year.
Final decisions on all the issues are up to the City Council. The site is in Councilwoman Susan Guidry's district.
The store opened in 2002 in a converted former Regional Transit Authority bus barn, but only after a lengthy neighborhood controversy was resolved by an agreement between developers and neighbors containing a long list of conditions and restrictions that then were written into the ordinance authorizing the store's operation.
Roger Javier, an attorney for the store, said its operators wanted to change five of the provisos.
Unloading of deliveries and trash pickup now are restricted to between 7 and 11 a.m. The store wanted to extend the period to 3 p.m. to space out truck traffic.
It also wanted the right to have at least two 18-wheelers deliver directly to the store. At present, one of the giant trucks must unload its contents onto three smaller trucks at another site each day.
The store now is required to close its doors at 8 p.m. on Sundays, an hour earlier than on other days. The operators hope to stay open until 9 on Sundays and to open an hour earlier on the day before Thanksgiving.
They also want the right to display flowers, plants and pumpkins outside the store.
Finally, they were seeking advance permission to have live entertainment both inside and outside the store 20 times a year, rather than having to seek city permits for each individual event. Performances outside the store could not be amplified, would have to end by 6 p.m. and could take place only on the Magazine Street side.
More than a dozen neighbors spoke in opposition to the requests, citing noise from deliveries and other store activities, alleged damage to streets and buildings from the large trucks, a shortage of neighborhood parking and other problems.
Some said the basic problem is that the store has always been too big for its location next to a residential neighborhood.
Robin O'Bannon said extending the delivery hours would make a "barely tolerable" situation "intolerable" for neighbors.
"We don't want to be driven out," Lacey Sullivan said.
Javier presented the results of a survey that he said showed neighbors support each of the store's requests, but several of the critics said they were never contacted.
The commission voted 5-2 to allow the extra hours on Sundays and on Thanksgiving eve and to allow the outside display of plants and flowers, but to reject the other proposals.
Even the two members voting no agreed with most of the commission's conclusions. One wanted to reject the extra hour on Sundays. The other wanted to allow music but only inside the store.
Bruce Eggler can be reached at beggler@timespicayune.com or 504.826.3320.