Dear New Orleans City Planning Commission-

We are signing this petition to express our strong opposition for a conditional use permit that would allow The Josephine (at 2400 Napoleon, previously Our Lady of Lourdes Catholic Church) to become a Live Music Venue. 

We are expressing our opposition for the following reasons:

Poor community engagement: The time frames for community input have been short, poorly publicized, and during peak "busy" times of the year.  The entire process has not been transparent. 

Parking and flow of traffic: Since opening as a wedding venue, our small neighborhood has already experienced the impacts of lack of parking and poor flow of traffic. There are 3 type of existing parking/traffic problems, which would worsen with a live music venue. They include: 

• Vendor parking: This is a huge safety issue during the day as event rental trucks and at night when large buses pull up to load and unload wedding guests.  All visibility for exiting onto Napoleon is blocked.  It is only a matter of time before a serious accident occurs. 
• Uber/Lyft drivers: Post event, the drivers clog up the intersection at LaSalle and Napoleon, making it difficult to pass through after an event.
• Attendee parking: On nights when there are weddings, the immediate neighborhood fills with event-goers personal cars and their drivers.  Most of our neighbors only have on-street parking. Most homes on our street are multiple residences (housing 2, 3, and 4 units); many of our neighbors are elder. 

Noise: We currently hear noise from the weddings and the sound of crowds outside of the building. The zoning change is not specific to this owner, it carries with the property.  We are strongly opposed to a Zoning change that would allow for a live music event to occur and conclude at 4am for up to 1000 people who could then move through our neighborhood after the event.

No benefits to the local neighborhood: This proposed change only brings burdens to the immediate community.  There are no direct benefits for us. 

Cumulative impact: Our neighborhood had undergone many changes over the past 10 years, with much redevelopment on the Freret corridor. While these changes are small individually, in sum, they have a cumulative effect on the fabric and culture of our neighborhood. It feels more like a community for businesses and less like the businesses serve the local community. With Trader Joes, we will see more traffic from 9am-9am.  An evening music venue would have us experiencing increased traffic and parking problems into the early AM hours. In total, we would experience an increase in light, noise, and air pollution from multiple businesses and traffic, almost 24 hours/day.  

We, the undersigned, call on the the New Orleans City Planning Commission, to deny the application for Amendment to Ordinance No 29,359 MCS to Permit a Planned Development authorizing a Live Music Performance Venue. 

Signed by