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Louisiana
Planners Outline Redevelopment Goals for New Orleans; Smart Growth Principles, Regional Approach to Services Endorsed in Plan
Endorsing the smart-growth principles proposed for New Orleans at the recent Louisiana Recovery and Rebuilding Conference, a national team of some 50 post-disaster planning experts gathered by the Washington-based Urban Land Institute (ULI) produced a color-coded map of the city's three potential ''investment zones,'' recommended the highest ground as the first redevelopment target, and called for creation of a nonprofit Crescent City Rebuilding Corporation, which would control the influx and distribution of all reconstruction funds.
The ULI team members, all of whom worked in New Orleans for several weeks pro bono and many of whom helped plan rebuilding efforts in Los Angeles after the 1994 earthquake and in New York City after the September 11 terrorist attack, reports Times-Picayune writer Martha Carr, agreed it would be impractical for the city to start redeveloping every acre at once, since it lost 300,000 residents and 160,000 jobs, while it also would be ''socially inequitable'' to let people back into at-risk neighborhoods -- those that may be contaminated and lack adequate levee protection.
''These areas,'' pointed out San Francisco-based EDAW consulting firm president Joseph Brown, ''are going to take more data gathering and more time.''
At its presentation to Mayor Ray Nagin's Bring New Orleans Back Commission, the ULI team suggested detailed progress benchmarks for three consecutive planning stages -- the recovery stage through August 2006, the rebuilding stage until 2010, and the growth stage to be completed by 2018, on the city's 300th anniversary.
The proposed Crescent City Rebuilding Corporation, to be created by the state legislature, would do land banking, buy homes and property, purchase and restructure mortgages, finance redevelopment, issue bonds, and help neighborhoods to plan and to create their own development corporations. It would resemble the post-September 11th Lower Manhattan Development Corporation, whose board member and Trinity Church Real Estate president Carl Weisbrod said the city and its different interest groups put their differences aside for a time ''to address the immediate challenges,'' which brought it instant federal aid.
The ULI team also advised the city to establish a temporary financial oversight board to help it avoid bankruptcy; reform the tax code; create an internal system of levees and canals to improve flood safeguards and enhance green space; take urgent action on housing; and consolidate various agencies to ensure a regional approach to levee protection, transit services, emergency response and economic development.
''There are interests here who want the rules to stay as they are. You have to be ready for some conflict,'' cautioned Pittsburgh (PA) Mayor Tom Murphy, while Los Angeles developer Tony Salazar stressed, ''Your housing is now a public resource. You can't think of it as private property any more.''
The writer adds that the ULI team will present its final report next month, after town-hall meetings in Atlanta, Baton Rouge, Houston, Dallas and Memphis. -- Times-Picayune, Urban Land Institute
11/19/2005
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