C3 NOLA Concern, Community, and Compassion

Lower 9th Plan: Start 'From Scratch'
Residents of the New Orleans neighborhood will hear results of a
consultant's study today. But it's not the only proposal in town.
By Ann M. Simmons, Times Staff Writer
September 23, 2006

NEW ORLEANS — A consulting firm hired by the New Orleans City Council to
devise a plan for the city's most storm-damaged neighborhoods will recommend
rebuilding the Lower 9th Ward — considered by many "ground zero" of the
destruction wrought by Hurricane Katrina — "from scratch."

Miami-based urban planner and housing consultant Paul Lambert, along with
other urban planning groups, met with Lower 9th Ward residents and
incorporated their ideas into a proposal to change the area's street pattern
to create a new "town center." That idea is part of a report he is to
present to residents today.

In some 300 community meetings and workshops over the last five months,

Lesson for FOLC: If they don't put it on paper, its not going to happen. St. Thomas is the perfect example of developers making promises to both the residents and the surrounding community. But once St. Thomas came down, the truth became apparent. Former residents were ignored and the neighboring properties to St. Thomas were torn apart by the "redevelopment". For developers, the dollar is the bottom line.

From the FOLC list:
The City Council is scheduled to hear Tom Bauer's request for rezoning a
group of properties in the area bounded by Basin St., N.Claiborne, Lafitte St,.
and St. Louis beginning at 11:30 am tomorrow. The parcels under consideration include land currently owned by the City that represents the footprint of the historic Carondelet Canal and that is
very important in determining how the linear park will meet up with and terminate at Basin St.

Mr. Bauer has agreed to the recommendations of the City Planning staff that the land be rezoned from Light Industrial to a mix of C1/C1A, with the riverside portion between Marais and Basin designated C1A, and the lakeside portion between Marais and N Claiborne designated C1. After hearing the concerns of members of several neighborhood groups who have met with Mr. Bauer, and considering the potential impacts of the proposed rezoning on the future of the linear park, I recommend that FOLC ask the Council tomorrow to defer approval of the change to C1 on the lakeside portion, because under the C1 designation, there is no limit to the height of residential buildings (i.e.: condo towers) that could be developed on this portion of the site, other than a Floor Area ratio of 4. While Mr. Bauer has committed on paper to working to facilitate creation of a bike path on a portion of this site, none of the design sketches he has made avaiblable indicate where this might be or

Freshmen to learn New Orleans' lessons
New architecture and planning course explores 'cities at risk'
September 8, 2006

New Orleans will be used as a case study this year to teach MIT freshmen the
complex dynamics of "cities at risk" -- cities that have faced destruction
on a scale so huge that it calls into question their very survival.

With the city as its laboratory, the spring course offered by the School of
Architecture and Planning will encourage students to use physical design,
social policy, engineering, technology and other innovation strategies and
tools to assess and solve the city's problems.

An alarming number of cities are currently at risk -- Detroit, St. Louis,
Mexico City, Johannesburg, South Africa, and San Diego, for example --
whether their problems result from such natural disasters as hurricanes or
from man-made disasters, such as urban renewal failures. In the years to
come, the new course, called CityScope, will focus on many of them.