Unified New Orleans Plan
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[edit] Introduction
The release of billions of dollars in federal recovery funds for New Orleans, as well as some private grants, depends on the formation of a single master plan covering everything from city-wide infrastructure issues to neighborhood-specific projects. In a July 5, 2006 press release, Mayor C. Ray Nagin, the New Orleans City Council and the Louisiana Recovery Authority (LRA) announced their agreement to adopt a common plan, to be overseen by the Greater New Orleans Foundation's (GNOF) New Orleans Community Support Foundation (NOCSF).
[edit] Costs and Funding
The total cost was approximately $7.5 million. Key funders were:
- Rockefeller Foundation $3.5: million
- State of LA, Office of Community: Development $2 million
- Greater New Orleans Foundation: $1 million
- Bush-Clinton Katrina Fund: $1 million
AmericaSpeaks' Community Congresses were separately funded.
[edit] Previous Efforts
Previous to endorsing the NOCSF's plan, both the Mayor's Office and City Council had embarked on comprehensive planning efforts of their own. While the achievements of those efforts to date will not be discarded, to what extent they continue to be funded under the LRA and NOCSF remains to be seen.
In October of 2005, Mayor Nagin established the Bring Back New Orleans Commission (BNOB). BNOB engaged the Philadelphia-based firm Wallace, Roberts & Todd, LLC to develop its action plan. The BNOB plan failed to get the FEMA funding it expected, however. The LRA initially assured its support of BNOB, but subsequently endorsed the NOCSF's plan. Wallace, Roberts & Todd is not on the NOCSF's list of their officially endorsed Neighborhood and City-Wide Infrastructure planning teams. According to Architectural Record News, sources close to the LRA say that it's likely that some elements of the Wallace plan will be retained in whatever the Unified New Orleans Plan proposes.
When FEMA support of BNOB fell through, City Council launched its own enterprise, the New Orleans Neighborhood Rebuilding Plan (NOLANRP). The Council appointed Paul Lambert (Lambert Advisory, of Miami) and Sheila Danzey (SHEDO, of New Orleans) to manage the recovery strategies of 49 neighborhoods that sustained two or more feet of flooding.
[edit] The Greater New Orleans Foundation
The GNOF was established in 1983 as "a community foundation [...] that derives its funds from gifts provided by its citizens" (About the Foundation). On September 8, 2005, the Rockefeller Foundation announced a grant grant for New Orleans. In April 2006, they announced a separate $3.5 million grant to support a unified planning process in New Orleans. The GNOF also contributed $1 million of its own and formed the NOCSF to serve in a fiduciary capacity, overseeing the $4.5 million and the Community Support Organization (CSO) which will help advise. The CSO board will be composed of nine members, whose identities have not been announced at the time of this writing. Of the nine members, one each will be selected by the Mayor's Office, City Council, the GNOF and the City Planning Commission, and the remaining five are to be selected from each of the City Council districts (the open call for nominees for the district seats has been closed, and candidates are being reviewed).
The GNOF retained the New Orleans-based firm Concordia LLC to coordinate the process and to oversee the selection of planning teams that will assist the individual neighborhoods, the wider districts and the city-wide infrastructure efforts. Among other things, the New Orleans Community Support Foundation calls for each of New Orleans' 73 neighborhoods to select from a recommended (selected by an expert national review panel) list of professional architects, urban planners and other professionals to assist in their efforts and/or endorse projects already in progress, spearheaded by the BNOB, the Lambert-Danzey group, and by the neighborhood groups themselves over the many months that no other resources were available.
[edit] Planning Teams
On June 5, 2006, the NOCSF issued a Request for Qualifications for parties interested in participating in their recovery process. A panel composed of one representative of the City Planning Commission and four "nationally recognized planning experts sifted through the 65 applicants to establish the official list endorsed for the Unified New Orleans Plan. Concordia coordinated the selection process, but was not involved as a voting member. The final list was recommended to the board on July 21, 2006:
[edit] Neighborhood and District Planning
- H3 Studio, of St. Louis, MO
- Goody Clancy, of Boston, MA
- ACORN Housing's New Orleans, LA branch
- Frederick Schwartz Architects of New York, NY
- EDSA of Columbia, MD
[edit] Neighborhood Only Planning
- EDAW's Atlanta, GA branch
- E. Eean McNaughton Architects of New Orleans, LA
- Burk-Kleinpeter of New Orleans, LA
- Williams Architects of New Orleans, LA
- HDR of Omaha, NE and HOK of Tampa, FL
- Duany Plater-Zyberk of Miami, FL
- KL&M of New Orleans, LA and CH Planning of Philadelphia, PA
- NOW, a joint venture between Eskew+Dumez+Ripple of New Orleans, LA, Chan Krieger Sieniewicz of Cambridge, MA and William Morrish of Charlottesville, VA
- Davis Brody Bond of New York, NY
- Torre Design Consortium of New Orleans, LA
[edit] City-Wide Infrastructure
- Villavaso and Associates and Henry Consulting of New Orleans, LA
[edit] Public Meetings
On July 24, 2006, a meeting open to the public was announced by the NOCSF on BayouBuzz.com and on the Unified New Orleans Plan website, scheduled for July 30, 2006. An advertisement was placed in the Times-Picayune for two days before the meeting date. The time and location of 12:00 PM to 4:00 PM at The Pavilion of Two Sisters at City Park were posted at a later date. The agenda for the July 30 meeting was to "begin the process for community members to be involved in the selection of the technical assistance teams of professionals to support them in neighborhood, district and city-wide planning."
[edit] July 30, 2006
Attendees were directed to sit in the partitions designated for their official district. All 73 of New Orleans' official neighborhoods (as delineated in the 2004 map issued by the Greater New Orleans Coummunity Data Center (GNODC) were grouped into 13 Planning Districts. Actions undertaken by the attendees in the District sessions included redrawing their neighborhood boundaries, selecting the number of special "project areas" within their district and the number of planning teams required to attend to them, and generating lists of criteria and questions for the planning teams. Controversy surrounded the meeting and its organization during and after the event.
[edit] August 2, 2006
On August 1, 2006, short presentations were made by the NOCSF's teams in preparation for each districts' vote on their top three preferred teams. There was a two-hour period for attendees circulate among the booths set up by each of the 15 Neighborhood and/or District Teams, after which each team was allotted 12 minutes to make a presention. This meeting unfortunately coincided with the National Night Out Against Crime (NNO), which prevented many people who are active in their neighborhood associations from coming, since plans for NNO events were made before the announcement of the UNOP meetings. Votes online or via fax were to be accepted until 5:00 PM on Monday, August 7. After the votes are tabulated, the CSO will begin defining scopes and fees for neighborhood projects and assign planning teams to the 13 districts based on the districts' preferences as well as "capacity and cost," although what relative weight each of these concerns will be given is not stated.
[edit] Conference Calls
Think New Orleans is helping neighborhoods organize conference calls with the planning teams they're considering. To set up a conference call email Sarah@thinknola.com or call 504.259.0504.
[edit] Completed Calls
- Gentilly and Frederic Schwartz
- Carrollton and H3
- Gentilly and Goody Clancy
- Carrollton and Goody Clancy
- Gentilly and H3
[edit] Contact Info for Planning Teams
| Name | Phone | |
|---|---|---|
| H3 Studio | 314-531-8000 | h3Studio@h3Studio.com |
| Goody Clancy | 617.262.2760 | arch@goodyclancy.com |
| ACORN | 504-943-7663 | swayman@acornhousing.org |
| Schwartz | 212-741-3021 | office@schwartzarch.com |
| EDSA | 954-524-3330 | info@edsaplan.com |
| EDAW | http://edaw.com/contact/contact.aspx | |
| Eean McNaughton | 504-368-5353 | mail@emarchitects.com |
| Burk-Kleinpeter | 504/274-4194 | bgiardina@bkiusa.com |
| Williams Architects | (504) 566-0888 | jcwilliams@williamsarchitects.com |
| HDR and HOK | (800) 366-4411 | http://www.hdrinc.com/1/1/1/default.aspx |
| Duany | (305) 644-1023 | |
| KLM and CH | 215-751-1400 | info@chplanning.com |
| Now | (504) 561-8686 ext. 305 | askew@studioedr.com |
| Davis, Brody and Bond | 212-633-4700 | info@davisbrody.com |
| Torre | a.torre@t-dcl.com |
[edit] Controversy
Controversy has been a constant virtually from the moment Katrina made landfall. Even before in some cases, since issues of land development in economically depressed neighborhoods have invoked impassioned debate for years. What to do about this city's rampant poverty, and whether the proposed solutions help alleviate its ravages or simply remove the poor have become all the more pressing matters in a post-Katrina landscape.
[edit] Former BNOB Member's Criticism
John McIlwain of the Urban Land Institute (ULI) which was formerly included in the BNOB Commission but whose recommendations were largely rejected, savaged the state of the city's planning efforts in the Times-Picayune on July 29, 2006. McIlwain and others from ULI leveled numerous criticisms of the city's progress in general and the mayor in particular for lack of leadership. ULI's recommendations to the BNOB Commission had called for drastically reducing the city's footprint in flooded areas, thus--intentionally or not--eliminating dozens of traditionally low-income neighborhoods. Tom Murphy, also of ULI, expressed frustration that the New Orleans Redevelopment Authority has not used eminent domain aggressively enough to seize privately owned blighted properties to resell. In response to the ULI accusations, City Council President Oliver Thomas observed that ULI made "incorrect assumptions about New Orleans from the outset," including proposing the elimination of neighborhoods that were not even below sea level. As far back as November 2005, Council member Cynthia Willard complained that the ULI report did not take into account the people who live in New Orleans East.
[edit] City Council's Lambert Plan
The City Council has come under some criticism for appointing the Lambert-Danzey without a competitive selection process, as required by the City Charter and the Council's own bylaws. (Lambert won a contract with the Council in 2004 to review public housing redevelopment plans, having previously advised the Council on Tax Increment Financing options for the HOPE VI Wal-Mart/St. Thomas redevelopment. The Council and the Lambert Group consider Lambert's role in the post-Katrina effort an extension of the 2004 contract.) The Bureau of Government Research (BGR), which has been the most public critic of the Council's move, has been singled out itself for lack of impartiality: having been founded originally in opposition to Huey Long, the extent to which it exists to expose corruption as opposed to resisting progressive populism has been questioned.
[edit] Public Meetings
The July 30 planning meeting, the first instance of public participation, was widely received as chaotic and confusing. Short notice, a subsequent change of time and late announcement of venue raised questions to some observers about how committed to public participation the NOCSF really was, as did the choice of the Pavilion of Two Sisters, which proved too small to accommodate everyone who arrived. Noise, exacerbated by conversations around food and beverage tables that were placed in the center of the room, made it difficult to hear, requiring frequent interruptions from organizers to plead for quiet. A Times-Picayune piece acknowledged some confusion, but was largely optimistic about what was accomplished. WWLTV, on the other hand, issued a more critical report. Numerous local bloggers have also posted their personal experiences.
[edit] Voting Procedure
Another issue that raised concern in some circles was the set of requirements in order to have a vote in the planning team selection. Originally, registration, attendance at one of the two public meetings, and a valid email address were required. Later, no pre-registration was required, there was an option to submit a vote via fax (although internet access was still necessary to download the form, it could be printed and distributed through neighborhoods). No email address was necessary to vote via fax. (See UNOP's Support Documents for forms and requirements.) Still, removal of the restriction on voting by people unable to attend left a valid email address as the only requirement for online voting. The potential for fraud raised concerns about the technology in use and the absence of polling standards. It also provoked discussion on the role and nature of democracy, a word frequently invoked by Concordia principal Steven Bingler, in the process.
