NEW ORLEANS -- The New Orleans City Council voted unanimously Thursday to demolish a group of housing developments after weeks of protest and a small riot at City Hall.

The C.J. Peete, B.W. Cooper, Lafitte and St. Bernard developments are all scheduled to be demolished. Before the vote, City Councilors Arnie Fielkow, Stacy Head, Shelley Midura and Cynthia Hedge-Morrell all told New Orleans TV station WDSU they favored demolishing the developments.

Council members acknowledged that about 4,500 housing units will be removed to be replaced by new development projects.

Shortly after the vote, New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin called the vote another pivotal moment in the city's rebuilding.

"Today we made a unified decision to move forward," Nagin said.

Council President Arnie Fielkow shared the podium with Nagin to endorse the decision.

The scene outside New Orleans' City Hall boiled on the brink of a riot throughout much of the day as protesters stormed the gate and were met with police spraying mace and firing Tasers. Protesters broke through the gates outside City Hall shortly after 11 a.m., meeting with blasts of pepper spray and Taser fire.

A woman identified by bystanders as Jamie Bork Laughner was sprayed and dragged away from the gates.

She was taken away on a stretcher by emergency officials at the scene. Before that, she was seen pouring water from a bottle into her eyes and weeping.

Another woman said she was stunned by officers and still had what appeared to be a Taser wire hanging from her shirt.

"I was just standing, trying to get into my City Council meeting," said the woman, Kim Ellis.

Arrests were made as officers tried to establish order.

The first brawl of the day broke out in the New Orleans City Council chamber shortly after the council convened to take a vote on demolishing a group of local housing projects Thursday.

After a few minutes of chanting and clapping by the audience, a melee ensued and police waded into the fray. Shortly after the scene calmed down, the city cut a televised feed from inside the chamber.

The meeting had started 40 minutes later than its scheduled 10 a.m. start time, due to protests, and the brawl began at about 10:45 a.m.

Before the meeting, police shackled the gates closed as protesters rattled against them.

The council was scheduled to take up the measure at 10 a.m. Thursday. By 3 p.m., the scene had largely calmed down as protesters trickled away in the driving rain, and the City Council continued to debate the measure.

Opposition to the demolition has been staunch, and it has included clashes with police and federal marshals.

Many protesters and civil rights activists said they're upset at losing the low-income housing in the wake of Katrina, when rents are high and housing is still somewhat scarce in New Orleans.

HUD wants to demolish the buildings, most of them damaged by Hurricane Katrina, so developers can take advantage of tax credits and build new mixed-income neighborhoods.

On Wednesday, a woman chained herself to an outdoor stairwell at the B.W. Cooper housing development for hours while protesters marched and chanted outside of the development gates.

New Orleans police eventually broke the chains and carried the woman down.

She and two others were charged with trespassing. In recent days, a variety of arrests have been made as protesters attempted to block the demolition.

Many of the protesters don't live in the projects in question, and many others come from out of town. In the days leading up to the vote, two protesters holed up inside B.W. Cooper, one from Brooklyn, N.Y., and another out-of-state resident, were charged with trespassing.

Many of the housing units had been uninhabited as residents relocated, received vouchers for other housing or went homeless. According to a recent article in the Times-Picayune, hundreds of public housing units went unoccupied in New Orleans as the protesters claimed there was a housing shortage.

Still, large encampments of homeless and displaced residents occupy long stretches of concrete under the city's overpasses and camp out in the courtyards between the town's historic buildings.