Property developer Philip Spiegelman, who is fighting a legal battle against the city's efforts to block his $50 million west bank residential-and-retail project, has slammed the city's tactics as anti-business.

The latest installment in the long-running saga of the Miami-based developer's River Street Ventures project played out Thursday when the three-judge 4th Circuit Court of Appeals heard final arguments from both sides about whether Spiegelman should be allowed to proceed with his project.

Spiegelman said he was particularly incensed by arguments made by the city's attorney, Michael Laughlin, in which he argued that "only a foolish businessman" would have decided to make an investment based on hopes of navigating the city's approval process.

Spiegelman, who bought several acres of land just downriver from the Crescent City Connection in 2006, had originally proposed a $100 million, 345-apartment development that would have included a large plaza and park for pedestrians, as well as ground-floor retail space. It also would have included 35 units set aside as "affordable housing" for lower-income residents.

That was scaled back at the end of 2017 to a 187-apartment project that would include 19 designated as "affordable housing," which was approved unanimously by the City Council in April 2018.

However, after the new council came in the following month, the ordinance to adopt Spiegelman's project was never voted on.

Spiegelman sued and won his case at the end of last year on the grounds that the council's zoning rules and past practice made it clear that they were required to vote to adopt the ordinance within 90 days.

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On Thursday, Laughlin argued in the city's appeal that the council had the option to just let the deadline run out. "It was killed by deadline, a term of art in the council," he said.

Spiegelman, in an interview after the hearing, argued that he had followed city rules, made compromises over a long negotiating process and won permission fair and square. He said that the tactics to try and reverse it were arbitrary and capricious.

"The only message that I'm getting back here is 'We don't want you. We don't want your investment. We don't want anything that you're bringing to the city,'" Spiegelman said.

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The appeals court in a related case earlier this year found in favor of the city, denying a small businessman permission to proceed with plans for an uptown ice cream parlor. But that case had been explicitly voted down at the second vote on the ordinance.

Spiegelman's attorney also argued that the city quietly changed its zoning rules in spring of this year, a tacit admission that the previous wording explicitly required it to vote on the ordinance for Spiegelman's project.

"I have never in 50 years doing business been in a position where I committed resources, time, effort and money, and found that the rules changed after the fact," Spiegelman said.