Mauhaus Cat Cafe was tabled Tuesday at the Maplewood City Council meeting. Due to two council members being absent (one expected and one not) and council member, Barry Greenberg abstaining (he’s the architect for the project) — there wasn’t a quorum.
Before the vote neighbors of the cafe told the council they’re concerned about parking, according to Maplewood resident Adelina Mart, who sent a report of the meeting to 40 South News.
The neighbors, on Elm Avenue, said they’re not anti-business, but want the city to consider the impact another business would have on parking.
They said parking is already an issue, with people infringing on driveways and residents being forced to park as far away as half a block from their homes because of congestion. Three residents spoke; about five to six were present.
City Manager Marty Corcoran said the city can look into it. He said one option would be to restrict parking in the evening by adding a parking permit requirement; they could also paint the edges of the curb next to driveways, but said that has not been effective in the past. He also said the city can paint marked parking spaces, which may be more effective in keeping people from encroaching on driveways.
Mauhaus co-owner Ben Triola said he’d like to talk to the neighbors and have a good relationship with them. He said they’re looking into renting parking space at a nearby lot for employees and potentially customers to use. Councilman Barry Greenberg made a recommendation of another lot nearby.
Mauhaus will offer coffee, tea and baked goods on one side of the shop, and a place to be with cats up for adoption on the other. The address is 3101 Sutton Boulevard.
Also in the meeting, Maplewood Police Lieutenant Mark Griffin received awards from the city of Maplewood, the Missouri Senate and the Maplewood Police Department, on his retirement after 31 years with Maplewood Police.
Correction: this article previously stated Mauhaus passed the council.
First all of you guys should looks up Donald Shoup. He knows how to fix parking problems.
All residents should be given permits for their street.
Aside from that all parking spaces should go at a market rate. (The lowest price to keep a few spots open on every block)
All money from said process would go to benefit the neighborhood association or Maplewood business district (i.e keep it local and reinvest in the community in whatever way makes sense). It’s called a parking benefit district google it please.
Maplewood has quite the charming walkable business district. These sorts of placed are desirable. Parking shouldn’t be considered a human right, but a good like any other.
There is the empty lot up the street that could potentially be converted into parking. That would help a bunch of the businesses in the area. It’s exciting to see Maplewood continue to grow and it would be great to see how it could all be done. I’d also love to see the city paint parking spots as the street parking could be way more efficient.
Well, I believe it is a business district, and it is far better to have businesses in those buildings than to let them sit unoccupied. If a nearby resident is disabled and needs a marked space, the City should definitely do that for them. Otherwise, I don’t see parking as a valid reason to keep a business from moving in here.
When parking spaces on nearby residential streets are used by business customers, it can create problems for residents. I live on the street immediately behind Schlafly, and am familiar with this problem. On particular days, ie Wednesdays and Fridays, parking in front of or near my home is almost non-existent. When there are special events (and there are many) parking is again very difficult for the residents on the street. I haven’t yet suggested it to the council, so I’m not complaining about it here; but, what I would like to see would be at least one street parking space per home marked as reserved for resident only.
I hope the Cat Cafe gets its license. Good luck to those folks. I also hope the health department keeps a keen eye on this business.
As for parking: Driveway crowding is a serious problem all over town. The huge majority of people parking on the street are very respectful. But there’s a small percentage that overhang the driveway on a regular basis. I wish the city would let us expand the driveway entrance by a foot on each side – at our own expense. I think that would be better than painting the curb or painting parking spots in the street.
I don’t care about cats and I don’t drink coffee. But my goodness just let them open up a small business. Irrational parking concerns is probably the most annoying NIMBY issue of them all. I’m not sure I understand why the council tabled the issue. This article implies it was because there were 5 out of 7 council members who would vote. But isn’t a quorum 5 council members? I am assuming the reason it was tabled was a few people showed up against what everyone rightfully thought was an easy ‘yes’ decision and the council hesitated because they didn’t want to give the appearance they were not listening to citizens concerns. If the city said they would look into the parking situation, then it would suggest that parking was the reason for tabling it rather than the number present.
There were only 4 there to vote. Two of the 7 were absent and Councilman Greenberg is the architect for Mauhaus so rightly recused himself from voting. So no quorum
Thanks Doug and Terrence for the clarification on how many council members were present. I promise I know how to subtract and that I actually read the article before commenting.
Actually, there was a quorum of four council members allowing the meeting to take place. There was not the ability to get 4 favorable votes since I had to abstain from voting due to a potential conflict of interest.
Joe, the reason the vote was tabled was because only the Mayor, Fred Wolfe, Karen Wood and Barry were present and because Barry couldn’t vote, it left only three with 4 votes being needed.