Smart Growth News

Louisiana

Smart Growth and Walkability Help Reduce Obesity and Related Health Risks

After decades of the unhealthy eating habits and car-dependent lifestyles dominant nationwide, National Center for Environmental Health (NCEH) Community Planner Dee Merriam is urging cities to help fight obesity and related health problems through smart growth and walkability.

Her presentation at the 2010 Louisiana Smart Growth Summit in Baton Rouge, held by the Center for Planning Excellence (CPEX), illustrated both type of excesses. The average bagel has gone from three to five inches and from 140 to 350 calories; the average bottle of soft drink, from 8 ounces and 97 calories to 20 ounces and 242 calories; and the average burger, from 333 to 580 calories. So-called ''upsize'' pricing are set to persuade consumers it's always financially smarter to buy in larger sizes or quantities, she said. At the same time, Americans have become used to living ''without ever getting out of their car and walking across a parking lot, everything from eating to banking to buying liquor, getting a marriage license and paying child support.''

To further illustrate her point, Merriam mentioned a developer who cut sidewalks out of his project to keep it within budget. Asked why he didn’t instead remove a few parking spaces, he responded that the law required the spaces, but not the sidewalks. Noting that people able to walk 30 minutes daily five times a week can shed 10 pounds a year, reduce their body weight by 7 percent and diabetes risk by 58 percent, she wished public health officials and planners would always find common language and use urban planning as an efficient and proactive environmental approach to health problems before they worsen and require hospital treatment.

However, she also voiced optimism. The nation has responded with wiser policies to public health crises in the past, she said, and can do the same now.   8/22/2010

Resource(s): www.2theadvocate.com/

If Cities Focus on Walkable Communities, Economic Development Will Follow

With a third of metro area populations eager for pedestrian-friendly settings, a key path out of the recession leads through urban infill and walkable mixed-use redevelopment of car-dependent suburban malls and strips – some 10,000 now awaiting new life.

Meeting that pent-up market demand will take a generation, said Brookings Institution Metropolitan Policy Program Visiting Fellow Christopher Leinberger at the fifth annual Louisiana Smart Growth Summit. Leinberger advised cities to combine transportation and affordable housing strategies to ensure the viability of walkable neighborhoods. He identified the roots of the housing bubble and the resultant crash as the imprudent ''overdevelopment of the 'drivable fringe,''' promoted despite tremendous infrastructure extension costs and through a $300-million annual subsidy in federal mortgage tax write-offs, reports Baton Rouge Advocate writer Chad Calder.

Leinberger told city and other leaders, ''Plan for your walkable future. Economic development will follow.''

Correspondingly, Federal National Mortgage Association (Fannie Mae) Vice President and Chief Economist Doug Duncan pointed out that devastated by Hurricane Katrina in August 2005, Louisiana escaped the worst of the housing bubble, holding its subsequent unemployment at about 7 percent, that each point of the approximately 2.3-point drop in home ownership nationwide turned some 1.1 million people into renters, and that his company is now ''thinking hard about supporting the rental side'' of the housing market.

The federal shift away from routine policies and failed concepts after 2008 was also reflected in U.S. Department of Transportation Deputy Assistant Secretary Beth Osborne's remarks during a teleconference with the Smart Growth Summit audience. Confident in public transportation's power to cut travel costs, trigger economic growth, and rein in pollution, the federal government will work to continue funding for passenger rail expansion, including the envisioned high-speed network, she said, adding, ''We know that high-speed rail is the new frontier.''   8/19/2010

Resource(s): www.2theadvocate.com/

Aiming for Smart Growth, Lafayette City-Parish Should Focus on Investments in the Urban Core

Obliged by the Lafayette IN a Century (LINC) Comprehensive Master Plan's Land Use Element to ensure that city-parish growth is affordable to Lafayette Consolidated Government (LCG), the LINC Citizen Committee recommended directing ''priority public infrastructure investment to the urban core and arterial corridors and nodes.''

Well-received upon presentation to the Planning Commission, reports Lafayette Independent writer Walter Pierce, the committee's land-use implementation strategy identified the core as downtown, Le Centre, Freetown/Port Rico, McComb-Veazey and the Oil Center. The committee pointed out that if the city is to encourage smart growth in these areas, it needs to modify current regulations, while taking a wider look and working with the parish on one set of development rules.

The committee also recommended the creation of seven urban-core zoning districts, in which ''neighborhood coteries'' would help determine land use. Concerned about ''many signs of urban disinvestment'' and about neighborhoods overdue for revitalization, the committee observed that the present urban core area ''includes what may be considered the 'close-in' suburbs to the original core,'' but it lacks cross-connectivity. However, as the committee said in its land-use implementation strategy, this area ''possesses most of the ingredients – infrastructure, proximity to downtown, a mix of residential/retail, sidewalks, transit, etc – that are the basis for smart growth.''

As to investments in corridors and nodes, the committee defined Nodal Development Areas as dense, compact, ''mixed-use centers at the intersections of major arterials.'' It noted that major corridors, listed in the LCG's Consolidated Thoroughfare Plan, form the structure of the city-parish transportation network, that arterials should accommodate all modes of transportation for adequate connections among all nodes, special areas, and neighborhoods with commercial opportunities, and that outside the nodes, development should be directed to areas with sufficient infrastructure. And since the parish's unincorporated areas lack zoning regulations, the committee moved to discourage intense development until proper infrastructure exists, and to establish varied-type buffer requirements for districts in transition and for arterial, collector and interstate roads to prevent conflicts in land use and development.

The Planning Commission will be considering the recommendations over the next few weeks, before forwarding them to City-Parish President Joey Durel and the City-Parish Council, with subsequent implementation ordinances due in 90 days.   5/25/2010

Resource(s): www.theind.com/

Jenga Mwendo Named New Orleans' Cox Conserves Hero

Cox Communications and The Trust for Public Land announced that Jenga Mwendo was chosen as New Orleans' 2010 Cox Conserves Hero. The award was presented at Cox's annual Heroes Banquet on April 28, 2010.

Mwendo was nominated for the program by a member of the community, selected as a finalist by local environmental leaders and ultimately named as the Hero after receiving the most votes in an online public poll. She has selected New Orleans Food and Farm Network to receive the $5,000 award in her honor.

A native of New Orleans, Mwendo returned to the city following Katrina and immediately began working to revitalize gardens. She has converted the Laurentine Ernst Garden into a vibrant space and secured the donation of a storm-damaged cottage next door for garden use as a storage shed and library. Through creative thinking and diverse donations of time, materials and talent, she is also transforming the Guerilla Garden from an overgrown lot used as a dumping ground into a beautiful centerpiece for the community.

''We've created a new community hub, a place where children and adults can gather together, commune with nature and take pride in the Lower 9th Ward again,'' said Mwendo. ''When blighted lots become something beautiful that produces food for the community, it is a powerful illustration of transformation and encourages more positive change.''

The Cox Conserves Heroes program was created in 2007 through a partnership between TPL and Cox Enterprises, the parent company of Cox Communications. The partnership stems from Cox Enterprises' national Cox Conserves program designed to significantly reduce the company's carbon footprint and promote eco-friendly behavior among its employees and the communities it serves. To date, Heroes have been named in Atlanta, San Diego, San Francisco, Seattle and New Orleans. By showcasing these unsung heroes, Cox and The Trust for Public Land hope to inspire more people to take an active role in preserving the natural environment.

''The New Orleans finalists have all driven impressive results that have helped to aide the revitalization of the city following one of the worst disasters this decade. Jenga Mwendo and the stories about Cox Conserves nominees, finalists and heroes reflect a new vision for a better place for us all,'' said TPL President Will Rogers.

The other New Orleans Cox Conserves Heroes 2010 finalists were Amelie Oriol, Al Petrie, Sally Shushan and Phillip Soulet.   5/1/2010

Resource(s): www.tpl.org/

Vote for Your Favorite New Orleans Cox Conserves Heroes Finalist

In post-Katrina New Orleans, heroism is all about rebirth, hope, and community. Cox and The Trust for Public Land are proud to recognize the 2010 New Orleans Cox Conserves Heroes finalists. Each of the five finalists embodies the indomitable spirit that has helped this city heal and thrive. Some have replanted public green spaces and parks to revitalize and rebuild neighborhoods; others have restored or created community gardens.

Take a moment to learn more about these environmental activists that are working hard to build a better community, and vote for your favorite hero. The winner will receive $5,000 for his or her conservation cause.   5/1/2010

Resource(s): http://www.coxconservesheroes.com/new-orleans-la/votingform.aspx

Full TIGER Funding for Loyola Streetcar Lets New Orleans Focus on Expansion into Nearby Neighborhoods

New Orleans has welcomed a $45-million federal Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery (TIGER) grant for the full cost of a 1.5-mile Loyola Avenue loop as auspicious for expanding the network with two routes to other neighborhoods. ''Winning this grant,'' commented New Orleans Director of Intergovernmental Affairs Julie Schwam Harris, ''is a testament to what’s happening here in this city as a whole, building back greener, building back better.''

In an announcement of the grant, reports New Orleans Times-Picayune writer Frank Donze, the U.S. Department of Transportation cited significant commercial activity in the Loyola Avenue corridor – including the government, energy, health care and financial sectors – and streetcar potential for attracting business and for redevelopment of underused properties. The New Orleans Regional Transit Authority (NORTA) wants to ensure the same opportunities elsewhere. Ready to build and open the Loyola streetcar loop by May 2012, NORTA also counts on federal aid for its future $115-million French Quarter extension – a four-mile North Rampart Street route, with a 1.2-mile Elysian Field Avenue spur that would link with the Riverfront line – and a $51-million, 1.8-mile Convention Center Boulevard route.

University of New Orleans Center for Economic Development Director Ivan J. Miestchovich doubts the Loyola streetcar can bring in a major industry, but he is optimistic about spurring retail and perhaps reconstruction of the vacant Hyatt Regency Hotel. ''Tourists will get on the streetcar and take a ride,'' he remarked, ''And if they see a coffee shop or store that catches their interest, they know they can get off and get back on, and that could be very good for retail businesses.''

Democratic Senator Mary Landrieu called the TIGER streetcar grant an example of the federal stimulus package’s injections into local economies. ''This project is exactly what the stimulus bill is intended to provide: real opportunities for Louisiana,'' she said. ''Sadly, some other elected officials failed to recognize the opportunities these investments can offer, but I will always fight in continued support of the stimulus spending and the benefits it affords my state.''   2/18/2010

Resource(s): www.nola.com/

Federal Grant Allows Group to Advance Planning for 25-Mile Trail Link Between Three Downtowns

As the Lafayette City-Parish strives to ensure smart growth, it finds a keen ally in the Transportation Recreational Alternatives in Louisiana (T.R.A.I.L.) nonprofit, hard at work on its ambitious Atakapas-Ishak Trail initiative. Named after the old regional branch of Native Americans and pursued by T.R.A.I.L. President Scott Schilling since 2008, the 12-foot-wide biking and hiking trail will eventually link the Lafayette, Beaux and St. Martinville downtown areas, running for some 25 miles through forests and mostly open land, often along bayous now accessible only by foot or boat.

Aided by the Lafayette Metropolitan Planning Organization, the Rotary Club of Lafayette North, the three cities and many volunteers, reports Lafayette Independent weekly magazine, T.R.A.I.L. has recently secured a $100,000 per year grant from the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) Recreational Trail Program. Received through the Lafayette-based Community Foundation of Acadiana, the grant will help T.R.A.I.L advance design and engineering work, now focused on the trail’s first segment, from downtown Lafayette southeast to Beaver Park, Vermilionville, and the Jean Lafitte Cultural Center.

Encouraging readers to join the ranks of T.R.A.I.L. volunteers, the writer points to wider trail benefits. ''An opportunity to walk and bike as transportation encourages exercise, the use of mass transit, and reduces greenhouse gasses. Alternative transportation routes will also allow current residents of limited means access to resources and jobs previously unavailable to them,'' he writes. ''By simply developing safe bike paths and walkways, the Acadiana area will be on track to having an urban aesthetic that compliments its economic and cultural riches.''   1/26/2010

Resource(s): www.theind.com/ ; www.2theadvocate.com/

Proposed Ascension Parish Comprehensive Plan Focuses on Smart Growth

Projecting Ascension Parish’s population of some 102,000 last year to nearly double by 2030, county leaders expect its new comprehensive plan to save unincorporated land from sprawl, concentrate most growth in service areas, and ensure both denser and better urban design. Drafted by Boulder, Colorado-based Winston Associates in a broad public input process, with help and a $100,000 grant from the Baton Rouge Center for Planning Excellence (CPEX), reports Baton Rouge Advocate writer David J. Mitchell, the smart-growth plan is now taking its final shape for prospective adoption by the Parish Council later this year.

Mindful of the fate of earlier parish master plans, insufficiently supported and largely disregarded, the writer observes, officials hoped for the latest public workshops to help attendees reconfirm their long-term development choices. “I want to see something that comes out of here that is workable, that we can implement and follow,” said Parish Councilman Benny Johnson, “and I think we’ve got good people working on it.”

Focused on a full range of issues, from growth concepts to basic livability elements such as sidewalks, the four-scenario plan anticipates investment of a few hundred million dollars into a regional sewage treatment system as a tool for directing growth. Designed by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the system delineates service boundaries for the comprehensive plan, which requires many inside dwellings to access the future sewer service and precludes individual package treatment plants elsewhere, effectively blocking major new outside subdivisions unless service areas are added, possibly by sharing the system-linkup costs. Parish officials secured money to start construction of the main treatment plant, with developer bids scheduled for March, but a source of funds for the whole system remains uncertain. Also, Parish Planning Director Ricky Compton said that some of the plan’s provisions differ from what many may expect, that developers would have to bear part of county service costs, and that more people are leery of the impact than initially thought.

Nevertheless, the challenges must be met. “If we want to improve the quality of life in the parish, development is going to have to get more expensive,” he stressed. “I can agree to lose some battles but win this war.” Learn about the plan, its architects, and related work at www.planascension.org/Home.html.   1/10/2010

Resource(s): www.2theadvocate.com/ ; www.ascensionparish.net/

New Orleans Meeting Highlights Importance of Sustainable Development

A recent meeting in New Orleans’s lower 9th Ward provided the Governor’s Advisory Commission on Coastal Protection, Restoration and Conservation with a range of possibilities for creating sustainable communities. Participants expanded beyond the typical discussion of wetland restoration projects, says the Advocate to include discussion of energy-efficient homes currently being built in the area by entities such as Global Green and the Make It Right Project, and ways that the Mississippi River might be used to generate electricity.

While such discussions might not have taken place pre-Hurricane Katrina, that event has “absolutely opened our eyes to what sustainability really means,” said Garret Graves, director of the Governor's Office of Coastal Activities. Graves pointed out that in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, it’s important to focus on wetland restoration and levee protection, as well as finding ways to make communities in south Louisiana stronger.   12/2/2009

Resource(s): www.2theadvocate.com/

Baton Rouge Plans Study For Bus Rapid Transit System

WAFB-TV Baton Rouge reported on its website that ''the idea of mass transit in Baton Rouge is up and running,'' in part because Capital Area Transit ''now has millions of dollars in federal funds to help establish a bus rapid transit system.''

The first phase of the system is a study, and then ''then plan is to have a series of community workshops to find out what the public thinks about bus rapid transit and whether or not it has a future in the Capital City.''

The city has ''nearly $3 million in federal funding'' and ''about six national firms are vying to do the study.''   10/14/2009

Resource(s): http://www.wafb.com/Global/story.asp?S=11316995

Youth Get Involved at Baton Rouge Smart Growth Summit

''The way to really effect change is to get the younger generation involved,'' said Center for Planning Excellence (CPEX) CEO Elizabeth ''Boo'' Thomas at a ''Building Block: If Kids Ruled the City'' interactive urban design simulation, the final event of CPEX's 4th Annual Growth Summit in Baton Rouge, reports Baton Rouge Advocate writer Ashley M. Bailey, with event sponsors, Block Construction partners Jason and Steve Keller, telling her they may turn some of the kids' concepts into real projects.

''We're quite surprised with their ideas,'' said Steve Keller. ''Children have no limitation on their thought.''

Having first received the necessary construction permits and donned yellow plastic hard hats, the writer observes, ''the little urban planners used recyclable materials, including paper towel rolls, cardboard boxes and plastic jugs'' to build homes, hotels, stores, and schools, and lay out parks and even a cemetery.

They adorned buildings with glitter, construction paper, and various colorful arts and crafts material.

Nine-year-old Gavin Debetaz placed a Dairy Queen, a Game Stop, and a cardboard-box Wal-Mart near the city's railroad, saying he ''built it so people can get supplies like food and vegetables.''

Locating his State Legislature right in the city center, next to an herb garden and a restaurant, seven-year-old Ethan Russell announced, ''There's a law that no building can be higher than the State Capitol.''

Elisabeth Surman's apartment building, with rooftop swimming pools, stood in easy walking distance of a seafood restaurant, while brothers Conner and Nathan Harton built a replica of Our Lady of the Lake Medical Center, because that's where their dad works.

Meant to interest youngsters in community building and to demonstrate how everyone plays a role in community growth, the event drew almost 80 children and parents, the writer notes, with CPEX CEO Thomas considering it ''one of the best things we've ever done.'' -- Advocate   8/30/2009

Resource(s): www.2theadvocate.com/

Land Bank Would Help Optimize Effect of Baton Rouge Infill Projects

To expand its downtown revitalization, Baton Rouge needs a land bank of abandoned properties to speed up and ensure their best reuse, and it must make bus transit a priority to change its negative perception and attract riders from all income levels, reports Baton Rouge Advocate writer Chad Calder from the Center for Planning Excellence (CPEX) 4th Annual Smart Growth Summit, the guest panelists including Genesee County Treasurer Daniel Kildee, Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC) Program Vice President Greta Harris, Neighborworks America Southern District Director Donald Phoenix, Fregonese Associates President John Fregonese, and Smart Growth America Policy Director Kate Rube.

Cities often strive to curb sprawl, but neglect their own vacant sites and do little to encourage infill, said Genesee County Land Bank founder and CEO Daniel Kildee, who helped revamp Michigan's tax foreclosure law and stabilize the city of Flint after General Motors closures in the 1980s and the loss of more than a third of the residents.

Their abandoned houses contributed to crime and hurt other housing values in the county, with its land bank spending $3.5 million on property reclamation and conversion, but boosting local home values by $112 million, and generating $10 million in fees over the last seven years.

Inspired, Baton Rouge moved in a similar direction two years ago, creating the East Baton Rouge Redevelopment Authority, which has found some 4,500 adjudicated properties so far.

Authority President Walter Monsour said its $5.5 million in federal funding will go for grants to rehabilitate affordable rental housing, upgrade storefronts, and help communities draft development plans.

Next he will ask the Metro Council for all the adjudicated properties, to clear their titles, amass land for large projects, and offer some parcels to neighbors or to nonprofit and other entities with the right development plans.

All this must include and involve the disfranchised, stated LISC Program Vice President Harris and Neighborworks America Southern District Director Phoenix, the former noting that central city residents, often predominantly black, are underserved in almost every sphere and usually end up paying more for essentials than is fair; the latter stressing that ''social and economic justice should be the centerpiece of any revitalization.''

Another such centerpiece should be transit, concluded transportation panelists a day later, with Fregonese Associates President Fregonese observing that Baton Rouge records about 4 million bus boardings a year, but could have 10 times more if it made its several busy corridors the ''bones'' of a system.

''Transit is not taken seriously here,'' he said, a remark echoed by state Transportation Secretary William D. Ankner.

''We have done a very poor job in this region with transit,'' he conceded. ''We have almost a disdain, which is amazing for me, in the South with buses.''

Still, both the secretary and Smart Growth America Policy Director Rube saw reasons for optimism in great ridership increases nationwide.

Long commutes force families to spend too much on transportation, which together with housing costs, overstrains their budgets, said Director Rube, concerned that transit gets less than 20 percent of federal transportation funds though several polls found respondents ready to give transit twice as much. -- Advocate   8/29/2009

Resource(s): www.2theadvocate.com/

Andres Duany Praises Baton Rouge for Downtown Development

Convened by the Baton Rouge-based Center for Planning Excellence (CPEX) to examine policies and ways to create ''complete communities'' and spur public engagement in the decision-making process, its 4th Annual Smart Growth Summit brought in the movement's leaders and practitioners from around the country, reports Baton Rouge Advocate writer Gary Perilloux, with keynote speaker and New Urbanism co-founder Andres Duany setting the tone for the two-day forum by spotlighting the city's progress, potential, and challenges.

''What's been done here is a model of what other cities can and should do,'' he said about downtown changes since 1998, when his firm helped local groups devise and launch the first Plan Baton Rouge.

''Cities make all the sense in the world. They have the best location. The infrastructure is in place,'' he pointed out, with Downtown Development District Executive Director Davis Rhorer crediting the 1998 plan, now early in a second phase, for much of the $2.6 billion in mostly private investment since then, and Baton Rouge Area Foundation President John Davis commending the firm for ''very extraordinary'' consulting work in the whole coastal region, from Lake Charles east to New Orleans and St. Bernard Parish, after the 2005 hurricane destruction.

That work, Andres Duany recalled, taught him a lesson, too.

''We planners basically acted like waiters and waitresses,'' he observed, noting that whatever anybody wanted was written down, but ''the hamburger was never delivered,'' as the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), other agencies, and outdated codes stunted New Orleans' rebirth and made it too costly and difficult for residents to rebuild their homes.

Seeing it as a new duty of his firm to help communities become sustainable and efficient in doing their part to reduce global warming, he said ''we're retrofitting them to be resilient,'' a key part of which is local agriculture, or the ability to grow their own food. -- Advocate   8/27/2009

Resource(s): www.2theadvocate.com

Editorial: State Leaders Miss Opportunity for Baton Rouge-New Orleans Passenger Rail

When Hurricane Katrina broke New Orleans levees four years ago and forced many evacuees to Baton Rouge some 70 miles northwest, it brought out the long ignored truth that the two metropolitan centers ''are really just one economy,'' and that their connections ''should be strengthened and encouraged,'' writes the Baton Rouge Advocate Opinion page staff, pointing out that world-class planners in the post-hurricane Louisiana Speaks process saw a passenger rail as a ''no-brainer'' necessity for the region's reconstruction and long-term resilience, but the state was ''reluctant to shell out the money'' for upgraded tracks and the infrastructure.

While the federal American Reinvestment and Recovery Act (ARRA) offered ''a way to get the upfront costs paid'' and the state Department of Transportation and Development (DOTD), strongly backed by the Baton Rouge Area Chamber, sought $300 million for that purpose, Republican Governor Bobby Jindall has been ''an outspoken critic'' of the stimulus package.

But once he combined stimulus criticism with a call for more stimulus money and got mocked by TV commentators, DOTD suddenly gave up on federal funds for the potential Baton Rouge-New Orleans passenger rail project.

The governor's spokesman denied a link between the media comments and the policy reversal, and the Advocate opinion writers take him on his word even if they've seen ''all too many times that the state policy is driven too much by Jindal's national politics,'' but they reject DOTD Secretary William Ankner's explanation that his department couldn't find $18 million a year to support train service.

''We're not sure a train will work financially, but the lesson from just about every other urban area in America is that every transportation choice requires subsidy. Every freeway system is heavily taxpayer-subsidized; the state makes its money from the increased economic activity spawned by transportation and transit-oriented development,'' the opinion writers observe. ''We think it's absurd to call an $18 million subsidy a barrier to this development.''

Noting that Governor Jindal was a Rhodes scholar and Secretary Ankner is a Ph.D., they conclude: ''But when the state misses a no-brainer, over and over again, one wonders whether the problem is with the train or the state's leadership.'' -- Advocate   8/26/2009

Resource(s): www.2theadvocate.com/

Center for Planning Excellence Sponsors 4th Louisiana Smart Growth Summit

Expected by the Center for Planning Excellence (CPEX) to bring together several hundred officials, activists, scholars and industry practitioners, its 4th Annual Smart Growth Summit in Baton Rouge, August 26-28, observes Baton Rouge Advocate Opinion page staff, once again signals ever greater appreciation of sustainable development ideas across the state and elsewhere, with this year's guest speakers including New Urbanism co-founder Andres Duany, Fregonese Associates President John Fregonese, Genesee County (Michigan) Treasurer Daniel T. Kildee, Louisiana Democratic Senator Mary Landrieu, and Smart Growth America Federal Policy Director Kate Rube.

Encouraging the public to attend the summit, the editors point out that by exploring smart growth ideas, residents ''can help this area reach its full promise.''

Together with CPEX, they also invite residents to ''Building Blocks: If Kids Ruled the City,'' a special interactive planning event for children between the ages of 7-10, hosted by the Louisiana Art & Science Museum (LASM) on August 29, from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.

The children will ''build their ideal city using recycled boxes, colored papers and other collected material,'' say the organizers, noting that their objective ''is to educate kids about planning, making it fun and emphasizing the role each person plays in determining how a city can grow.''

In addition, the diversified summit program addresses new educational and long-term sustainability needs with a workshop on ''Smart Schools: The Building Blocks of Thriving Communities.''

See the full summit agenda and registration details at www.planningexcellence.org. -- Advocate   8/7/2009

Resource(s): www.2theadvocate.com/

Ascension Parish Smart Growth Master Plan Aims to Avoid Haphazard Development

Its population 33 percent up since 2000 and expected to almost double to 196,000 by 2030, Ascension Parish (county) would only have worsened its ''at-times incongruous mix of uses'' amid farms and woods if officials and community leaders had not moved to preempt ''haphazard'' development with a new master plan aimed at smart growth, reports Baton Rouge Advocate writer David J. Mitchell, quoting Parish Planning Director Ricky Compton, who said the key is, ''Where do we fit another 100,000 people?''

Ascension Chamber of Commerce President Sherrie Despino agrees.

''If we don't decide where our growth is going to go, it is going to be haphazard and it is going to be everywhere,'' she commented on the nascent master-planning process and initial three public-input meetings in Gonzales, Geismar and Donaldsonville, August 3, 4 and 5. ''At least, if we can have some kind of plan in place, we can control where it goes.''

Expecting the plan to be completed over the next year, the writer observes, the Parish Council has already begun ''putting in the foundation that will ensure that the vision is implemented.''

On June 30, the council approved several changes to the zoning map; on July 16, it augmented the drainage ordinance with ''placeholder'' language that calls for a policy, now in the works, to let small commercial developers pay drainage impact fees rather than build stormwater detention ponds.

The fees, explained Director Compton, would help fund regional detention ponds, which could become parks, possibly linked by trails.

As to the major zoning map changes, the writer adds, one establishes a less intensive commercial use zone, more compatible with ''the mix of residential and lingering rural uses along La. 42, La. 44, and La. 73; while another sets off land south of I-10, along La. 44 and part of the Mississippi bank, for ''traditional neighborhood or planned unit development (PUD).''

Developers could build more densely in that area, but they would have to present overall site plans for infrastructure, parks and services, Director Compton said, acknowledging some developers' financial concerns over their inability to fund the entire infrastructure at once.

''The thing that I want to stress is I am not trying to make it more difficult for people,'' he told the writer. ''I am trying to make it better for everyone.'' -- Advocate   7/27/2009

Resource(s): www.2theadvocate.com/

Editorial: Baton Rouge Apartment Project Out of Scale With Historic Neighborhood

One of Baton Rouge's best assets, the region's regional Carnival center and a rare example of historic neighborhood preservation, the two-century-old Spanish Town must be saved from ''unchecked development,'' comments a Baton Rouge Advocate editorial on the controversy over proposed apartments on its edge, seeing the building design as the key issue and expecting the city's nonprofit Center for Planning Excellence (C-PEX) to reassert its smart growth principles in badly needed advice on the project.

Agreeing with neighbors that 60 or more apartments would mean a multistory building out of local scale, and also noting that the neighborhood and downtown ''benefit from more residential development, and higher population density, as long as projects are designed to be part of the urban fabric and not disruptive of it,'' the editorial points out that any Spanish Town development ''should meet compatibility standards'' set by the new historic district ordinance.

''By building in a historic district, developers and landowners are signaling that they are willing to abide by the design standard of the area -- not just zoning, not just land-use plans, not just traffic and parking regulations,'' the editorial stresses. ''The historic designation, and more so the Bohemian standard of living in Spanish Town, make properties valuable. To kill that goose for one golden egg is senseless.''

In the same manner, the editorial cautions against the state's plan for another building and parking garage to replace the demolished Insurance Department offices in the neighborhood.

''Plan Baton Rouge's original conception,'' it reminds its readers, ''suggested that that property is far too valuable to the community as a whole to use for a narrow purpose.'' -- Advocate   7/21/2009

Resource(s): www.2theadvocate.com/

Ascension Parish Launches Process for New Long-Term Master Plan

Its 2003 plan still timely in some respects, but guidelines and infrastructure too scant for Ascension Parish (county) to maintain its key assets -- rural character, good schools, petrochemical industry, and Mississippi River access -- as it grows from 90,500 residents in 2005 to 196,000 by 2030, reports Baton Rouge Advocate contributor Aaron E. Looney, parish leaders launched a new master plan process to meet long-term land-use, transportation, service, environmental and other needs, with Parish President Tommy Martinez stressing, ''Smart growth is big on the agenda for me.''

The process, led by Boulder, Colorado-based Winston Associates consultants, and helped by Baton Rouge's Center for Planning Excellence (CPEX) and the parish's 23-member Master Plan Support Committee, co-chaired by Chamber of Commerce President Sherrie Despino and planning and zoning official Alan Krause, will include a series of 12 public input sessions, beginning in early August.

''We plan to have a large public involvement process,'' said Winston Associates principal Jeff Winston. We're going to try our best to reach out to everyone in the parish.''

CPEX Director of Planning Camille Manning-Broome called the parish well positioned for success, thanks to its ''great leadership,'' broad-based support committee, and planning director, a position absent in many communities her center helps.

Earlier this year, Advocate writer John McMillan reported that Parish President Martinez and Planning Director Ricky Compton aim for new zoning codes, a comprehensive sewer system, better roads and traffic flow, expanded green space, and more development within infrastructure and service areas, seeking both a smart-growth plan and the right ordinance for its implementation.

Parish Chief Administrative Officer Cedric Grant expects the plan to be completed next year. -- Advocate   6/16/2009

Resource(s): www.2theadvocate.com/

Land Use Workshops Reach Out to Louisiana Communities

Having put its new Louisiana Land Use Toolkit online, the Baton Rouge-based Center for Planning Excellence (CPEX) took it on a ten-workshop road show across the state in the past two months, during which CPEX Planning Director Camille Manning-Broome, Roadshow Manager Bennett Hilley and other experts familiarized more than 700 parish (county) and municipal officials, real estate professionals and activists with the requirements and basic implementation of smart growth and sustainability in different local contexts and according to local priorities.

''A valuable resource to Louisiana communities that are feeling the pinch of sprawling, uncontrolled development that isn't compatible with historic growth patterns,'' pointed out Director Manning-Broome, the toolkit can help community leaders ''make fair and predictable development decisions, save on infrastructure costs, protect property values, preserve rural landscapes and encourage attractive, walkable neighborhoods.''

Funded by the Louisiana Department of Economic Development (LED), with the ten introductory workshops made possible by the National Association of Realtors (NAR), the 214-page toolkit defines and meticulously explains given land character and related zoning categories with graduated development density and complexity -- from entirely natural, with only rudimentary agricultural use possible, through rural, estate, suburban and urban to downtown-type center, leaving as a special category uses otherwise difficult to fit into other contexts, such as heavy industrial, institutional, civic or conservation.

The CPEX posted the toolkit online alongside a User Guide, which facilitates direct access to toolkit sections that may be especially important for some visitors.

For example, the CPEX says, those interested in bicycling ''would find links to bicycle-friendly streets, bicycle parking requirements,'' and other related details throughout the text.

The toolkits' importance can't be overstated.

Reporting from the first toolkit road show workshop, in Gonzales on April 15, Baton Rouge Advocate writer John McMillan quoted Austin, Texas-based Code Studio Principal Lee Einsweiler, a consultant on an Ascension Parish master plan being drafted by Boulder, Colorado-based Winston Associates, who said, ''Louisiana is behind the rest of the country in development standards.''

Mentioning insufficient housing and neighborhood variety, he added, ''There is a need for attractive and walkable communities.''

A draft version of the Louisiana Land Use Toolkit is available online at www.landusetoolkit.com/.

See also www.code-studio.com and www.winstonassociates.com. -- Advocate   6/3/2009

Resource(s): www.planningexcellence.org ; www.2theadvocate.com/

Ruston Enacts Building Moratorium Pending Completion of Smart Growth Plan

Mindful of too many ''for rent'' signs and of increasingly frequent local wishes for smaller lots but more green space since a public input session last November, Ruston aldermen unanimously voted for an 18-month moratorium on apartments, duplexes and high-density subdivisions not yet started or approved, to ensure that the smart-growth Ruston 21 plan, now in the works, sets the optimal use for the city's remaining undeveloped land; the vote criticized by the Ruston-Lincoln (County) Chamber of Commerce as economically ill-advised.

''With the economic times we have right now any kind of moratorium is not good,'' argued Chamber President and CEO Scott Terry, supportive of the Ruston 21 plan, but convinced its completion shouldn't take 18 months. ''It hurts contractors, builders, folks that sell supplies. It could cause a slowdown and have a far-reaching effect.''

If the plan is completed, reviewed and approved sooner, reports Monroe News Star writer Stephen Largen, officials could lift the moratorium earlier, but they don't think a construction rush is necessary given the availability of housing and the sensitivity of some planning issues.

Calling the number of ''for rent'' signs very unusual, Mayor Dan Hollingsworth attributed it to the economic slump and perhaps excessive residential construction.

''If we have overbuilt, why would you want to do any more right now?'' he asked.

City Planner Pat Doane and Economic Development Administrator Stuart Clason cited other reasons for extra caution.

The planner noted that now developers must ''provide 80 feet of public street frontage for duplexes and for single-family homes,'' which makes some properties difficult to develop because of street costs or insufficient street space, and that some residents think adjacent low-cost apartments, without intermediate areas, can lower their property values.

''The current zoning regulations,'' he observed, ''do little to encourage blending between large lot subdivisions and small lot subdivisions or apartment complexes.''

The economic development administrator pointed out that the city wants to prevent projects incompatible with its long-term vision, while examining six development models to make neighborhoods better for pedestrians and help developers save on infrastructure.

''We don't want things developed that in 10 years we'll have to clean up,'' he stressed. ''We're looking at communities that used a plan where you can get, for example, an apartment complex with a park next to it instead of lots of concrete. What that does for the developers is it cuts down their costs.'' -- News Star   4/12/2009

Resource(s): www.thenewsstar.com/

Ascension Parish to Review Smart Growth Plan Proposals at March Public Forum

Highly motivated by the 8th annual New Partners for Smart Growth conference in Albuquerque, New Mexico, Ascension Parish President Tommy Martinez restated his commitment to saving the parish from further haphazard development and related service costs with a smart-growth plan, reports Baton Rouge Advocate writer John McMillan, finding him and his recently hired Planning Director Ricky Compton ready to change rules, involve city officials and the public, and put development where infrastructure exists.

''Ordinances are the key,'' said the parish president. ''I don't just want to have a master plan and a smart growth plan. We have to implement it with ordinances.''

One smart growth tenet is not developing areas ''you can't serve,'' pointed out the planning director. ''We're not trying to stop growth, we're just trying to figure out where we want to direct it.''

With the list of firms bidding for work on the $400,000 plan -- $100,000 donated by Baton Rouge's Center for Planning Excellence (CPEX) -- narrowed to four, all expected to present their competitive proposals at a public forum in March, Gonzales Mayor Barney Arceneaux and Gonzales-based Eatel telecom company president John Scanlan expressed support for the parish effort and prospective municipal cooperation.

''It will be good to put our heads together along with Donaldsonville and Sorrento,'' said the former.

''An attractive place to live is a more attractive place to work,'' stressed the latter. ''We need parameters and guidance as to how this community grows. In the past developers told us how to grow. We have to stop this.''

Thus, the writer observes, the parish president and planning director expect the plan to focus on seven broad goals.

They want it to encourage mixed uses and self-contained communities; outline a future sewer system and tie growth to its capacity; enforce parish road set-asides to accommodate future traffic; change zoning along some busy roads to control future growth; require more parks, paths and other green space for residential projects; ensure input from law enforcement agencies, fire departments and school districts for decisions on directing growth; and establish a land bank of properties seized for delinquent taxes, to make them available for parks, drainage ponds or development in line with the area's zoning code.

With a major area subdivision builder, U.S. Development official Cathy Bordelon, supporting any master planning, but already worrying that some planned requirement may make the Parish ''unaffordable'' and suggesting a middle ground between planners and developers, Parish President Martinez pointed out that changes will be gradual and that developers who decide to build in the parish will know ''what our plans are.''

He also noted that the Parish Council's newest members won their races on an orderly-growth platform, adding that he believes the council ''is going to make the right decisions (on smart-growth ordinances) when faced with the facts.'' -- Advocate   2/22/2009

Resource(s): www.2theadvocate.com/

Proposed Ordinance Threatens Breaux Bridge's Mixed-Use Downtown

Breaux Bridge officials have sought since 1999 to update zoning codes for this small city, some 10 miles northeast of Lafayette, but the now-proposed downtown district ordinance, which limits or bans residential and certain business projects unless given special permits, faces opposition as disastrous to the area and its traditional mixed-use character, reports Baton Rouge Advocate writer Jason Brown, quoting ordinance reviewers, architect Steve Oubre and developer Robert Daigle, known for their successful smart-growth River Ranch community in south Lafayette.

Currently involved in 38 smart-growth projects across the country, the architect said the ordinance ''totally ignores'' the local fabric, while all the municipalities he is working with are modeling their development on downtowns like the one in Breaux Bridge.

His River Ranch partner was blunt.

''It is the worst example of conventional suburban zoning efforts,'' he stressed, mentioning the required 25-foot setback for any downtown building as an especially egregious breach of smart-growth principles. ''This flies in the face of all that.''

According to Breaux Bridge Mayor Jack Delhomme, the writer notes, the proposed downtown ordinance is just a blueprint and subject to change if adopted at all. -- Advocate   2/13/2009

Resource(s): www.2theadvocate.com/

Reader Troubled by Baton Rouge Public Works Director's Policy Standpoints

Both incredulous and disappointed that Baton Rouge Department of Public Work (DPW) Director Pete Newkirk still believes his only task is to build roads and keep car travel as fast as possible, though an internal DPW audit found this approach ''out of step'' with smart growth and recommended policy changes to ensure ''complete streets'' and better development patterns, a reader, information system analyst Doug Moore, asks him in a letter to The Advocate whether he ever paused ''to think that if there were more bike- and walk-friendly streets, people would drive less'' -- that more cyclists and pedestrians ''would mean fewer cars on the roads.''

Since a November 2008 Advocate article quoted Director Newkirk as saying that the majority of the public is more concerned about moving vehicles ''from Point A to Point B'' than about ''bike paths and walkways,'' but also that more public input on road projects would ''slow the production schedule,'' the reader asks two other key questions.

''How on earth can Newkirk claim to know what the majority wants when he openly admits to marginalizing the need for public input?'' he inquires. ''Moreover, why did the DPW conduct an audit at all if its director was simply going to disregard its findings?''

Director Newkirk's ''reluctance to consider forward-looking, unconventional approaches to urban planning is extremely troubling, the reader writes, seeing it as characteristic of ''a larger, cynical, closed-minded and backward-looking contingent of Louisiana government officials.''

Still, allowing that he might have been too harsh and unfair in his judgment, he stresses, ''I hope, for the good of the city, that I am proved wrong.'' -- The Advocate   12/27/2008

Resource(s): www.2theadvocate.com/

Baton Rouge Public Works Audit Calls for Smart Growth, Public Input on Road Projects

Focused solely on making car travel as fast as possible, the Baton Rouge City-Parish Department of Public Works (DPW) ''can help Baton Rouge grow smarter by designing and building major streets that allow pedestrians, bicyclists, motorists and bus riders of all ages and abilities to safely move along and across the street,'' wrote DPW transportation coordinator Melissa Guilbeau in the agency's audit report, calling for more public input on road projects and for creation of an internal task force to ensure its policies encourage smart growth.

Her report, notes Baton Rouge Advocate business writer Chad Calder, also recommends formal adoption of a ''complete streets'' policy, which would require ''safe and convenient pedestrian and bicycle facilities'' in all road construction and rehabilitation projects; recruitment of employees with smart growth knowledge and a launch of related training for the current ones; and prioritization of the audit's finding for implementation, while searching for ways to advance other smart growth principles missed by the DPW so far.

They, the writer observes, include requirements for alleys, high-occupancy vehicle (HOV) lanes, bike parking facilities, shared parking, car-pooling, historic building preservation, public trails, and infrastructure improvements for targeted neighborhoods.

''Engineering standards are a vital component of roadway design,'' the DPW auditor wrote, ''but there are other factors, including the roadway's context and the community's goals and objectives, that should also be carefully considered.''

Public Works Director Peter Newkirk acknowledged his agency's primary focus on moving vehicle traffic, but wouldn't outline any timetable for the suggested changes, citing public preferences and potential increases in project costs.

''The majority of the public, when it comes to a road project, are generally more concerned with getting their vehicles from Point A to Point B,'' he said, ''not whether there are bike paths and walkways.'' -- Advocate   11/22/2008

Resource(s): www.2theadvocate.com/

St. Landry Parish Council Votes Approves First-Ever Subdivision Ordinance

''We are still a rural parish, but we do need some smart growth,'' stressed St. Landry Parish Public Works Director Tim Marks after the Parish Council voted 10-2 for its first-ever subdivision ordinance, which covers lots up to three acres, requires hard-surface roads and establishes a pre-application process, including a drainage review, to eliminate potential problems that could cause future home buyers a lot of grief.

''We didn't even have a working definition of what exactly a subdivision is,'' Director Marks said, with Opelousas Daily World writer William Johnson noting that developers of several of the 50-plus subdivisions built in the parish just in the past four years haven't even tried to use sound practices or meet basic standards.

In some cases, owners simply subdivided former soybean fields, spread a few truckloads of gravel and began selling lots.

With no sewage system, untreated waste flows into ditches, while roads without proper foundations quickly deteriorate, and remaining private, can't be used by trash pick-up trucks or postal or even some emergency vehicles.

In addition, lacking sufficient drainage, such subdivisions may cause flooding on adjacent properties, with runoff faster than it was from undeveloped land.

Still, the writer reports, Councilmen Jay Guidry and Ronald Buschel voted against the ordinance because it requires hard-surface roads, both convinced that aggregate roads built to parish specifications would be sufficient, while hard-surfacing would add about $20,000 to lot prices, putting them out of reach for poorer residents.

With Director Marks pointing out that aggregate roads are ''a never-ending maintenance expense'' of about $10,000 for resurfacing material every six months, Parish President Don Menard, who also fought hard for the subdivision ordinance, called it ''a win-win'' for everyone involved, including developers, real estate agents and homeowners. -- Daily World   11/21/2008

Resource(s): www.dailyworld.com/

Baton Rouge Hosts ''Livable Louisiana'' Smart Growth Summit

With much of Louisiana's transportation budget dependent on the 18.4-cent federal and the 20-cent state gas tax, and with the latter's revenue down 7 percent, due to the recent consumption decline caused by high prices at the pump, the state and some groups essentially would want to see gas-guzzling Hummers driven a thousand miles per week to boost state aid for aged roads and bridges, observed Louisiana Transportation Secretary William Anker at the Center for Planning Excellence's (CPEX's) ''Livable Louisiana: A Summit on Smart Growth'' in Baton Rouge, urging participants to lobby for better land use and more budget surplus investment in transit.

''That is how we have funded transportation since the 1950s,'' he said about gas-tax vulnerability. ''We need to break that cycle. We need to figure out how to finance transportation differently if we are to be successful.''

Poor land-use planning has worsened the state's transportation problems -- including the $14-billion project backlog -- with many school districts often lured by the cheapest land for new schools, the secretary pointed out, commenting, ''That cheap land costs us a fortune.''

Another speaker troubled by the enormous infrastructure cost of sprawl and confident that strong and sustained public pressures would turn more officials toward smart growth, Oakland, California-based Pyatok Architects Inc. principal Michael Pyatok, seen by many as ''Oakland's affordable housing hero,'' told the audience that even in his heavily Democratic city grassroots groups must show up at city council and planning commission meetings to ensure better development.

Codes that prevent higher densities or less costly housing ''exist to be broken,'' he said, noting that though Not-In-My-Back-Yard (NIMBY) attitudes may often characterize middle-income neighborhoods, he has recently heard about a $1.3-million median-income neighborhood that killed a project aimed at $700,000-average earners.

Learning to change and let in higher densities and different incomes, he continued, requires planners and developers to include nearby residents in project planning, work together on design under regulatory oversight to avoid misconceptions, and make it fit the local scale and character, with a margin for change and personalization.

Cities must realize they need all-income-level development to bolster their economies, and businesses must understand that public investment in affordable housing helps their operations through a readily available work force.

Cities like Phoenix, notorious for bad development choices, he added, suffer from sprawl because of their policies, with Phoenix' four million people widely dispersed, but with the same number of Brooklyn and Queens residents in New York City accommodated by the two boroughs on just 5 percent of what's been paved over within Phoenix' borders.

Portland, Oregon-based Gerding Edlen Development staffer Kellee Jackson pursued the theme further with her firm's ''20-minute living'' concept, under which a project's residents shouldn't need more time to walk, bike or drive to reach anything they seek in products and services.

Combining mixed-use and sustainable development principles, the firm ensures that its projects conserve resources in construction and operation by observing the U.S. Green Building Council's Leadership in Energy and Environmental (LEED) standards.

''It's not about doing without,'' said Kellee Jackson, explaining that green-construction upfront costs are only 0.3 to 3 percent higher, depending on the LEED level -- Certified, Silver, Gold or Platinum -- while long-term savings range from 20 to 60 percent.

Indeed, ''(s)sustainable design is a matter of effort, not so much of cost,'' agreed Baton Rouge-based Chenevert Architects principal J. Dyke Nelson, saying green development is increasing nationwide and Louisiana better get on board ''or we'll get run over,'' a call echoed by Episcopal High School Head Kay Betts in relation to schools.

Telling the summit her school's board of directors has made sustainable campus operation a priority and the school is now building a ''rain garden'' to help absorb stormwater and clean residual runoff before it reaches the Jones Creek watershed, she stressed, ''Green schools are more likely to recruit and retain excellent faculty and staff.'' -- The Advocate   8/16/2008

Resource(s): www.2theadvocate.com/

Start Planning Now for Livable Communities, Says Louisiana's AARP Director

''In our society, older adults have been kind of marginalized,'' said American Association of Retired Persons (AARP) Louisiana director Nancy McPherson, telling Baton Rouge Business Report writer David Jacobs how her concern about little attention to their mobility, affordability, service and social needs in various post-Katrina redevelopment plans resulted in talks with Baton Rouge-based Center for Planning Excellence (CPEX) CEO Elizabeth ''Boo'' Thomas, sharing contacts and jointly promoting smart growth.

''What we're doing and what they're doing is so tightly knit,'' noted CPEX community planning outreach director Alison Cascio. ''What they want for their 50-plus population is the same thing we want for everybody.''

The goal is livability, the writer reports, one of the key topics at CPEX's ''Livable Louisiana: A Summit on Smart Growth,'' August 14-15, in Baton Rouge, where AARP Louisiana consultant Kathryn Lawler talked about ''aging in place'' and AARP senior vice president of livable community strategies Elinor Ginzler addressed residents' lifelong ''mobility options.''

A livable community, the consultant told the writer before the Smart Growth summit, is ''really a place where all people, and that means people of all incomes, ages, and abilities, can live throughout their lifetimes,'' without having to depend solely on cars or leave the neighborhood -- and lose its vital social contacts -- when no longer able or willing to drive or when ready to move into a smaller home.

Calling the societal treatment of the elderly a ''service model,'' with senior centers, nursing homes, in-home care and Meals on Wheels, she warned the model is no longer viable because of the sheer magnitude of mounting demand.

''We're talking about shifting a paradigm,'' she pointed out. ''We have to hit this with a ton of bricks now, or the aging population will be upon us and we're going to be scrambling to pull things together. We have a pretty limited window in which to make major, major changes in how we develop communities.''

Although some will always ''want to retire to that idyllic cottage on a golf course,'' AARP's research ''shows that most people would rather age in place,'' the writer observes, quoting AARP vice president Ginzler.

''We are operating under the assumption that when you create and redesign communities to meet the needs of the older population, it meets the needs of all populations,'' she said, confident of the association's clout at the local, state and federal level on all crucial quality of life issues, including affordable housing and such mobility solutions as ''complete'' streets.

''We want to recruit and arm our members to be agents for social change.'' -- Business Report   8/11/2008

Resource(s): www.businessreport.com/

Smart Growth Projects Helping to Revive Louisiana Communities

''Suburbia is not ugly; it's just not functional,'' especially in the era of traffic congestion, ever-longer commute times, and record gas prices, said Lafayette-based Architects Southwest partner Steve Oubre at a public seminar in New Iberia, Iberia County, pointing out that smart growth, with its mixed uses, higher densities, and almost everything easily accessible on foot or bike revitalizes communities, saves local resources and identity, and gains broad acceptance.

The designer of award-winning River Ranch on 324 acres about three miles southwest of central Lafayette, told the audience that when the development was conceptualized, planned and launched in 1996-98, it was the 20th traditional neighborhood project nationwide, but now there are more than 2,000 in various stages of planning, processing or construction.

One of those that may soon break ground is 100-acre Teche Ridge, Iberia Parish, which Steve Oubre designed for the nonprofit Southern Mutual Help Association as a mixed-use and pedestrian-friendly development similar to River Ranch but more affordable, thanks to mechanisms that will make it possible for teachers to live next to doctors.

Under the parish's newly adopted smart growth ordinance, reports the Baton Rouge Advocate, Teche Ridge development will be faster and less frustrating than it was for River Ranch, which needed 120 variances from the city.

Southern Mutual Help Association President Lorna Bourg noted that the association is finalizing a contract to begin Teche Ridge infrastructure work.

Following the parish's lead, said New Iberia Mayor Hilda Curry, the city is devising a similar ordinance and working with Steve Oubre to redesign the depressed Hopkins Street area, which will include addition of sidewalks and lighting.

Calling the investment a good start on reviving the area economically, the architect promised to hold a public planning workshop for the project sometime in October.

See the history and details of River Ranch development at http://riverranchdevelopment.com/about/development.asp. -- Advocate   7/22/2008

Resource(s): www.2theadvocate.com/

Sustainable Energy, Smart Growth Could Help Louisiana Become ''Green'' Capital

''It is equally unsustainable to depend largely on oil and gas from unfriendly regions of the world, as it is to believe that we can rely on oil-based supply forever,'' said U.S. Democratic Senator Mary Landrieu at a regional Summit for Sustainability in Alexandria, central Louisiana, telling area political and civic leaders that the state has resources and expertise to become ''the 'green' capital'' in sustainable energy production, and encouraging them to embrace efficiency, conservation, and Smart Growth.

''We know we have some assets in this state, but we have not always known how to capitalize on them,'' she stressed. ''With good planning, we can ensure that our sense of community never dissipates.''

Optimistic that Louisiana's relatively slower development now may be advantageous, reports Alexandria Town Talk writer David Dinsmore, Senator Landrieu added, ''We can kind of step back and figure out how we want to grow.''

The summit's host, Mayor Jacques Roy, shares her views.

''From nurseries in Forest Hills to the beautiful streetscape in Natchitoches, our region has much to offer if we work together toward sustainable growth,'' he observed. ''Our region's story provides clues to what Smart Growth is all about (and not about) -- and what must be addressed. At the turn of the century and before, Alexandria and central Louisiana were models of traditional American planning.''

Today's New Urbanism ''was the order of the day in downtown Jena and Alexandria many years ago,'' an order undermined by the automobile, urban flight, haphazard development and suburban sprawl since the 1950s, Mayor Roy said. ''Following the last 20 years of inching forward and development of objective criteria for sustainable planning, we are once again poised to take the lead.'' -- Town Talk   7/2/2008

Resource(s): http://landrieu.senate.gov/hrt/index.cfm ; www.thetowntalk.com/apps/pbcs.dll/frontpage

New Master Plan for New Orleans Could Take Guesswork Out of Zoning

New Orleans attorney William Borah, now president of Smart Growth for Louisiana, has fought bad projects through his career -- from the ''neighborhood-flattening'' I-10 to big boxes in the wrong zones, reports New Orleans CityBusiness writer Ariella Cohen, but only now may his and City Council President Jacquelyn Brechtel Clarkson's joint work on 2006 Bureau of Governmental Research (BGR) recommendations for city charter changes secure improvements, with the president introducing charter amendments that would end the council's ''unbridled'' land-use discretion, restructure the approval process, and vest the power of law in a comprehensive 20-year master plan, expected to be finished next year.

''There are sites in this city that look like they've been hit by bombs,'' observed William Borah. ''That's what happens when you have dysfunctional zoning and developers are given permission to build things that shouldn't be built (and then the projects don't work).''

The city council president is committed to change.

''There will be no guesswork any more about what can be built and what can't be,'' she stressed. ''This will free up our time to tackle the city's real problems instead of getting in the middle of zoning conflicts, which we never should have been (deciding) in the first place.''

De-politicization of land use decisions and placement of zoning variance requests and other potentially contentious issues in the hands of an expanded, plan-equipped Planning Commission, she added, will ensure accountability and prevent corruption and scandals.

The charter amendments, the writer notes, would also establish a ''system for organized and effective neighborhood participation in land use decisions,'' with the ''opportunity for meaningful neighborhood review of and comment'' on local projects.

With the Boston-based Goody Clancy urban consulting firm driving the master-plan process, its lead planner Dave Dixon pointed to the need for affordable housing and greater density in some areas.

''We have to pay careful attention to creating a range of affordable housing options in parts of the city that are gentrifying,'' he said in a BGR-hosted presentation, mentioning the Bywater neighborhood and the Central Business District.

He also would like to create a ''tax increment financing-like mechanism'' to spur denser projects.

''Downtown's development should be double,'' he told the audience. ''South Rampart Street is a place where public investment would pay itself off and at the end of the day, (help create) a valuable asset for the city.''

Real estate professionals agree land-use reform is needed.

''The politics come to the surface much more here than anywhere else,'' commented architect-developer Marcel Wisznia, with four high-end apartment projects downtown. ''It's a significant negative because when the process isn't clear and transparent, it is only the insiders who will make it through.'' -- New Orleans CityBusiness   6/10/2008

Resource(s): www.neworleanscitybusiness.com/

Strong Inner-City Schools Are Key to Urban Redevelopment, Speaker Tells Smart Growth Conference

In any move to advance urban redevelopment and repopulate core neighborhoods the key is strong inner-city schools, said St. Louis, Missouri-based McCormack Baron Salazar Chairman and CEO Richard Baron, keynote speaker at the fourth annual Smart Growth Lecture and INDesign Awards event sponsored by the Lafayette Independent Weekly, telling the 300 local officials, business leaders, philanthropists and others in the audience that they should focus on schools and not wait for the state or the federal government to initiate a redevelopment process.

''As part of this effort to reclaim neighborhoods, schools are the single most important thing to attract and retain residents,'' he stressed. ''Community renewal really begins with this.'' Citing his 30-plus years of experience in renovation of blighted neighborhoods and housing complexes in St. Louis, Atlanta, Kansas City, Pittsburgh and elsewhere, reports Lafayette Daily Advertiser writer Bob Moser, the speaker criticized national leaders for not investing in cities through preservation of land for schools, parks and community housing.

He also pointed out that many of his redevelopment projects have included a new or renovated neighborhood school, calling it an investment whose ripple effect improves property values and often reduces crime. -- Independent Weekly, Daily Advertiser   5/2/2008

Resource(s): www.theadvertiser.com/apps/pbcs.dll/frontpage

Louisiana Leaders Urged to Employ Smart Growth Principles

''You have a tremendous opportunity to borrow the best from your past. You have a chance to grab the reins,'' said Washington, D.C.-based Smart Growth America Communications Director David Goldberg at the 2008 Economic Outlook Conference held by Louisiana State University (LSU)-Shreveport's Center for Business and Economic Research, telling the audience of civic, business, political and military leaders that population growth will revive the housing industry, but that communities must plan to make the make most of available materials, energy and other resources.

Rooted in a vision of strong communities, a vigorous economy, and a healthy environment, reports Shreveport Times writer John Andrew Prime, Smart Growth aims to reverse the long suburbanization and auto-dependency trend, and to attract residents back to cities and community cores.

Such a change helps people reduce car trips and energy consumption, and address problems that might have been previously ignored ''as out-of-sight, out-of-mind,'' the writer observes, noting that compact development ''where it can happen best'' prevents urban sprawl and destruction of habitat and other special places.

In this context, other conference speakers focused on the state's and the region's economic potential, finding the prospects encouraging, the writer reports, mentioning Louisiana Economic Development Secretary Stephen Moret, Democratic Senator Mary Landrieu's regional representative Jeff Everson, Shreveport Mayor Cedric Glover, Center for Planning Excellence Outreach Director Alison Cascio, LSU-Shreveport Associate Economics Professor Tim Shaughnessy, and Air Force Cyber Command leader Maj. Gen. William Lord.

''We not only want to be your partners,'' the general told the listeners, ''we need to be your partners.'' -- Shreveport Times   3/19/2008

Resource(s): www.shreveporttimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/frontpage

Smart Growth Veteran Landrieu Takes Message to Louisiana's Fastest-Growing Parishes

An avid smart-growth advocate since 2002, when she found that the Baton Rouge Area Foundation was the only local group at work on mixed uses and walkability -- a ''hands-on approach'' crucial for downtown Baton Rouge redevelopment plans -- Democratic Senator Mary Landrieu has taken smart-growth ideas first to the state's fastest-growing parishes and subsequently elsewhere, telling the recent Police Jury Association of Louisiana convention in Alexandria, Rapides Parish, that the key question is ''(h)ow do we promote growth, economic growth and bring jobs, but do it in a way that preserves what's so special about Louisiana.''

The movement to make it happen got stronger after the hurricanes of 2005, with communities striving to rebuild, Senator Landrieu said, glad of having helped secure funding for the Baton Rouge-based Center for Planning Excellence, which is assisting community leaders statewide in formulating and implementing local smart-growth plans.

Noting that one of the movement's primary goals is to prevent debilitating growth, which disperses people away from urban centers and diminishes their natural surroundings, reports Alexandria-Pineville Town Talk writer David Dinsmore, Senator Landrieu said change depends on specific community needs.

''It's not about dictating what people should do; it's about giving communities the opportunity and the tools to make smart choices about what they want to be,'' she stressed. ''Leaders can do things today that make a huge impact difference in the way their cities, or their towns, or their parishes will look 50 years from now.'' -- Town Talk   2/14/2008

Resource(s): www.thetownalk.com/

Lafayette's River Ranch Community Developer Announces New Smart Growth Project

Driven by the success of their and Louisiana's first test of New Urbanism, the 300-acre River Ranch community about three miles southwest of central Lafayette, its development manager Robert Daigle and planner-designer Steve Oubre are now partnering with Baton Rouge/Houston-based Creekstone Companies Co-founder and President Stephen Keller for a much more denser smart-growth project on 125 acres of Boustany family land at a prime road intersection a half mile down the road, this time focusing mainly on young single professionals and empty nesters, and excluding large homes on large lots from the mix.

When River Ranch was planned almost 10 years ago, recalls Lafayette Independent Weekly writer Leslie Turk, the proponents needed ''a gargantuan number of variances'' from the Lafayette city-parish government and faced protracted opposition from some area residents; now their yet-unnamed Boustany property project will have smooth sailing, given the Traditional Neighborhood Development (TND) ordinance passed last year and new awareness of the advantages of compact pedestrian-friendly design and its role in fighting sprawl.

While River Ranch averages about eight residential units per acre, this new TND project will reach 12 to 25 units per acre, both for sale and rental, with a starter one-bedroom loft priced just under $200,000.

''Now that people understand, (and) have been disarmed by River Ranch,'' said Steve Oubre, ''we think we can push it to more mixed use, higher density, internal parking.''

According to its outline and artist drawings just presented to a selected group of some 50 officials and business leaders, reports Lafayette Daily Advertiser writer Bob Moser, the $400 million-$500 million Boustany development will mix retail, offices, cottages, town homes, condos and apartments around a large Town Plaza, with a roundabout, Town Hall and green space.

The layout will allow residents easy walking access not only to new stores, restaurants, offices, and businesses, but also to the adjacent theater and two hospitals.

The central area will offer two-story ''live-work'' buildings, with office space on the first floor and apartments above, and the outer sections will feature housing of varied types and sizes, including five-story apartments.

With developers opening a seven-day charrette January 21, to gather public input and hone their vision, Planning, Zoning and Code Director Eleanor Buoy expects them to present a concept master plan shortly after, perhaps within weeks. -- Independent Weekly, Daily Advertiser   1/29/2008

Resource(s): www.theind.com/ ; www.theadvertiser.com/

Compromise Sought for Baton Rouge TND Project After Neighbors Object to Density

The Baton Rouge-East Baton Rouge Parish Planning Commission voted 6-3 to rezone a 119-acre site in a single-family-home area where developer Tommy Spinosa wants to build 800 housing units and 100,000 square feet of stores and offices, while donating 23 acres for a school, library and park, but neighbors of this first mixed-use, pedestrian-friendly complex under the new city-parish Traditional Neighborhood Ordinance (TND) are pushing to reduce the density almost by half, with some even circulating a petition to recall the district's Councilman Mickey Skyring for backing the project -- the wrangle making the Metro Council delay its rezoning vote till January 23, to allow time for work on a compromise.

At the council's hearing on the project known as Rouzan, reports Baton Rouge Advocate writer Scott Dyer, Southside Civic Association President Chris Kisling repeated suggestions, previously rejected by the developer, to cut the number of housing units to 536 and the store/office space to 50,000 square feet.

Asking Councilman Skyring to hear his constituents, he said, ''Mr. Skyring, here are the signatures of nearly 1,600 people who live in your district and want to rethink Rouzan -- not to reject it, but to reimagine it.''

He and other opponents voiced concerns about its impact on local traffic, drainage and sewage systems, and the Southdowns area character.

Expected to generate some 9,700 vehicle trips a day, they complained, the project would overwhelm two key arteries, while its planned interconnections with 10 adjacent streets to disperse traffic would ruin the neighborhood.

As before, the developer pointed out that under the site's current zoning, he could build 492 single-family houses, and that his proposed density of 6.6 units per acre is well within the TND ordinance parameters of five to eight units an acre.

As to the drive to recall Councilman Skyring, the writer reported earlier that the proponents must collect at least 8,000 signatures in the next four months, with the recall vote unlikely before the fall, which some consider pointless since his term expires next year.

The councilman himself noted that voters knew his position on the Rouzan project when they elected him in 2004.

He had pledged to support the development if it was linked to local streets and included a library.

The other possible site for a library couldn't be reached ''except by car,'' he stressed. ''But people will be able to walk and ride their bikes to the library site in Rouzan.'' -- Advocate   12/13/2007

Resource(s): www.2theadvocate.com/

''Smart Growth'' Means Different Things to Different Interests in Lafayette City-Parish Council Elections

With races heating up for the October 20 election to the Lafayette City-Parish Council and ''smart growth'' once more prominent in debates and questionnaires, Baton Rouge Advocate Acadiana Bureau writer Kevin Blanchard points out that in the absence of ''common vocabulary and shared assumptions'' the term is ''vague'' and usually used as an argument ''for or against a development decision,'' with some preferring the term ''managed growth,'' which ''implies the real issue -- that government needs to step in and take a greater role in managing how the area grows.''

Managed growth, he writes, ''assumes that many of the problems growing cities like Lafayette face -- traffic congestion, urban sprawl, zoning conflicts and drainage problems -- can be mitigated through a series of new rules.''

Still, as cheaper rural land pulls developers increasingly away from the city core, as thousands of commuters agonize on two-lane roads never meant for the load, as opposition torpedoes ideas of impact fees or special tax districts to fund the needed infrastructure, and as neighbors fight higher-density housing, smaller lots and inter-connected street proposals as detrimental to their property values, ''the government can't 'manage' growth without making some politically unpopular decisions.''

Among others, ''it will necessarily have to dictate to people what they may or may not do with their own property.''

In addition, be it through new tax, impact fees or special taxing districts, ''someone will eventually have to pay to build necessary infrastructure, which is not free and is getting more expensive every day,'' the writer stresses, convinced that ''(s)mart policy means facing growth costs.'' -- Advocate   10/9/2007

Resource(s): www.2theadvocate.com/

Sen. Landrieu Says Planned, Sustainable Growth Is ''Critical'' to Louisiana's Future

''Two of the crucial areas where we need to focus our efforts are federal investments in infrastructure and smart growth policies,'' neither of which should involve partisanship or ideology, writes Louisiana Democratic Senator Mary Landrieu in a New Orleans CityBusiness guest opinion after her August tour around the state, pointing out that although its different regions have different needs, these investments not only will help communities prepare for disasters like the hurricanes two years ago, but also will spur the economy by ensuring ''safe and efficient'' transportation.

''Promoting smart growth creates unique challenges for each community,'' she observes. ''My travels underscored the importance of smart planning throughout the growth process in order to control sprawl and congestion, attract tourism and convention business and bring new jobs to our communities.''

To improve infrastructure and effectively manage growth, while implementing an opportunity agenda, the government in Washington must work better than it did after hurricanes Katrina and Rita, when many federal agencies were ''ineffective and tied up in red tape,'' Senator Landrieu writes. ''Clearly, we can't continue to ask taxpayers to pour billions of dollars into agencies and bureaucracies that don't work.''

As the Senate's Disaster Recovery Subcommittee Chairman, Senator Landrieu has taken ''the lead in investigating areas of abuse and developing responsible reform,'' determined to continue work ''with Democrats and Republicans to make sure our government works for us, and not the other way around.''

Also reiterating her commitment to a fight for ''a school system that prepares our children to be competitive in a global economy,'' she emphasizes the importance of putting aside ''old divisions and differences'' to secure the changes Louisiana needs.

''In the end, Louisianans are far more united than divided on the major issues we are facing,'' she stresses. ''Government competency, investment in infrastructure, smart planning and growth management, and basic opportunity through education are neither partisan nor ideological -- they're just common sense.'' -- New Orleans CityBusiness   9/17/2007

Resource(s): www.neworleanscitybusiness.com/

Baton Rouge Enacts Unified Square-Footage-Based Traffic Impact Fees

''The days of growth for growth's sake are over. Smart growth is what today's reality calls for,'' writes retired Baton Rouge businessman Bob Williamson in a letter to The Advocate, applauding Baton Rouge-East Baton Rouge Parish (county) Mayor-President Kip Holden and his chief administrative officer Walter Monsour for imposing increased traffic impact fees two days ahead of a debate in the Metro Council, where developers were to lobby against the increase as bad for prospective homebuyers and businesses.

Effective August 27, reports Advocate writer Scott Dyer, the traffic impact fees went up from $200 per home to an average of $732, depending on square footage.

Despite the increase, said City-Parish Public Works Director Pete Newkirk, large subdivision developers may save on their costs, since the new system frees them from negotiating additional payments for turn lanes and other local road improvements.

''A turn lane costs about $150,000,'' he noted, ''so that equals a lot of impact fees.''

Developers of small commercial projects, under 30,000 square feet, paid no such fees previously, but with their convenience stores and fast-food restaurants bringing in a lot of drivers, the Baton Rouge Growth Coalition and other groups requested and won unified square-footage-based traffic impact fees for all commercial development.

In his letter, retired businessman Williamson agrees with chief administrative office Monsour that a $600-$700 residential development fee will not make a home too costly for a buyer, especially if it helps improve traffic flow, nor will a $1,000-$2,000 fee push commercial developers out of the county.

''It's a time for people in the Greater Baton Rouge Association of Realtors and the Capital Region Builders Association to pull their heads out of the sand,'' he writes, ''stop trying to play backroom politics and get with the program.'' -- Advocate   8/28/2007

Resource(s): www.2theadvocate.com/

Creating Walkable Neighborhoods Should Be Urban Improvement Priority, Say Top Researchers

Car-dependent neighborhoods and streets without sidewalks deprive people of the modest daily physical activity -- such as 30 minutes of walking or some biking -- many of them need to become healthier, slimmer and happier, all of which local governments should include among their top urban improvement priorities, stressed Louisiana State University's Pennington Biomedical Research Center Professor Tim Church at the recent Smart Growth Summit in Baton Rouge, with the Baton Rouge Advocate quoting this former Dallas, Texas resident as saying, ''They have all the money in the world. Ride a bike there, and they treat you like an armadillo.''

Wherever mixed-use, pedestrian-friendly neighborhoods make people less car-dependent, the professor observed, walkers and strollers might not even realize they are exercising.

''This isn't about training a community to run a marathon,'' he told the audience brought together by the Baton Rouge Area Foundation's nonprofit Center for Planning Excellence. ''It's about getting people to walk.''

What could help, he quipped, would be to stop building workout centers for people to visit by car and to make sure neighborhoods offer them the once-usual opportunities for recreation, active lifestyles, and social interaction.

His professional colleague, Tulane University Epidemiology Assistant Professor Jeanette Gustat noted that Louisiana and Orleans Parish (county) have higher obesity rates than the national average, the result of both sedentary lifestyles and diets rich in sugar and fat.

She also called for urban design and code shifts from single uses and car dependency toward traditional diverse neighborhoods, so that residents can walk or bike to work, grocery stores, nearby parks, school or anywhere else. -- Advocate   8/27/2007

Resource(s): www.2theadvocate.com/

Baton Rouge Traditional Neighborhood Development Stalled

In the two years since Hurricane Katrina destroyed much the state's coast and local socioeconomic fabric, the Louisiana Recovery Authority (LRA) has given the seven hardest-hit parishes (counties) $1.7 billion in low-income housing tax credits and $700 million in Community Development Block Grant (CDGB) funds, with LRA board member Sean Reilly confident the program ''will generate 15,000 units of affordable workforce housing,'' but the Baton Rouge Area Foundation's Commercial Properties official Camm Morton aggrieved at the lack of CDGB aid for its stalled Traditional Neighborhood Development (TND) project and ready to campaign against Democratic Governor Kathleen Blanco this fall.

''It may take an administration change in the governor's office, which we're going to get,'' he told a smart-growth conference in Baton Rouge, saying there is strong community support for the project, yet the state hasn't come through.

Called Arden, the 200-acre TND project in the city's Smiley Heights section, reports the Baton Rouge Advocate, is among ''the boldest post-Katrina housing solutions,'' envisioning Baton Rouge's first mix of subsidized low-to-moderate-income units and single-family homes in the $350,000 range.

Expected to cost $250 million to $300 million, the daily adds, the TND project would accommodate 800 families, also offering a community center, a school, and recreation areas. -- Advocate   8/23/2007

Resource(s): www.2theadvocate.com/

Realtor Wants Lafayette Leaders to Ensure Affordable Housing Near City Limits

The familiar Realtors' phrase ''Drive until you qualify'' reflects the long-dominant practice of building large subdivisions for ''a single income bracket,'' with homes less costly as ''their distance from convenient city and town centers'' grows, writes Realtor Association of Accadiana CEO Mary Jane Bauer in her biweekly Lafayette Daily Advertiser column, stressing that since one of ''the central goals'' of smart growth ''is to expand the range of housing, both in style and location,'' Lafayette leaders should ensure affordable unit construction within and near city limits.

Across the region, too, ''each jurisdiction should accommodate owner-occupied, rental and low-income housing in a mix that doesn't disadvantage any community,'' she advises, citing in support the ''Smart Growth Kit'' from the National Association of Realtors.

While ''homogenous'' residential development has limited family choices, she observes, market surveys and real-life experience show ''that many people would gladly buy or rent in closer-in areas, and would be happy with a townhouse, apartment or a house on a smaller lot in a well-designed neighborhood -- if they could afford it.''

She puts main responsibility for the situation on poorly planned growth, outdated zoning and the average home-size increase from 1,500 to more than 2,400 square feet since 1970.

''The regulatory practices often referred to as 'exclusionary zoning' mandate large lot and house sizes or forbid smaller, rental or multi-unit buildings,'' she points out, ''essentially restricting development to one-size-fits-all, high-cost housing.'' -- Daily Advertiser   8/7/2007

Resource(s): www.theadvertiser.com/apps/pbcs.dll/frontpage

Realtor Outlines How Small Schools Fit Into Smart Growth Plans

''As every Realtor knows, the connection between schools and real estate is profound. The perceived quality of schools affects home values, just as the decline of housing stock and local tax base can affect school quality,'' writes Realtor Association of Acadiana CEO Mary Jane Bauer in her bi-weekly Lafayette Daily Advertiser column, continuing her advocacy of smart growth in the context of a recent discussion about schools and community life, a discussion which brought her back to the days of her childhood ''when most of us walked to neighborhood schools.''

Smart growth principles have now converged with ''a movement among educators and neighborhood advocates for smaller schools that are integral to the community,'' she observes, mentioning research that finds small school students usually with higher grades, more involved in school activities, and more likely to reach college, while other research shows multiple school functions in the community beyond school hours.

''And in this era of high obesity rates,'' the Realtor points out, ''walking or biking to school gives kids that extra bit of physical activity that can help make a difference -- provided the school is in a walkable neighborhood with safe routes.''

Citing professional journals' policy advice and smart growth guidelines, she refers readers for more details to www.epa.gov/smartgrowth/schools.htm. -- Daily Advertiser   7/23/2007

Resource(s): www.theadvertiser.com/apps/pbcs.dll/frontpage

Baton Rouge Smart Growth Summit to Feature Model Community Development Code

Equipped with the post-hurricane Louisiana Speaks public recommendations for a 2050 regional growth plan issued in May, and aided by $300,000 from the state and $50,000 from the U.S. EPA, the Baton Rouge Area Foundation's nonprofit Center for Planning Excellence (CPEX) will hold a smart-growth ''New Directions for Louisiana'' summit August 21-22 in Baton Rouge, with guest speakers including Democratic Senator Mary Landrieu, Baton Rouge City-Parish Mayor-President Melvin ''Kip'' Holden, and Smart Growth America Executive Director Don Chen.

One summit subject, reports Baton Rouge Advocate writer Gary Perilloux, will be a model community development code, envisioned by CPEX as a flexible ''implementation tool,'' drafted by a winner of the current consultant selection process and expected to be ready in 2008.

It will include sample ordinances, easy to adopt locally in their entirety or in parts suitable for specific land-use, transportation and service needs and goals.

The code will be free, said CPEX principal project planner Camille Manning-Broome. ''It will be on the LED Web site and the CPEX Web site. And we're going to prepare some type of tool kit to distribute to the parishes and the cities to let them know what we've done and how they can access it and retrieve it.''

Once it's completed, CPEX will test it in a pilot community, perhaps in Tangipahoa Parish or West Feliciana Parish, whose officials are already working with CPEX specialists on future comprehensive planning.

''In those two parishes, there was a lot of political will and a lot of community support,'' stressed the CPEX project planner. ''And to get a plan implemented, you have to have those two things.''

For details on the CPEX smart growth summit see www.planningexcellence.org/spotlight-content/new-directions-in-louisiana-planning.html -- Advocate   7/17/2007

Resource(s): www.2theadvocate.com/

Lafayette Planning Commission Taking Steps to Complete City-Parish Comprehensive Planning Work

Having already advised the Lafayette Planning Commission to make developers pay the full costs of infrastructure for their future projects, the Growth Advisory Panel continued to hone and unfold its 10 ''Smart Growth Priorities'' for a city-parish comprehensive plan, with Commission Chairman Fred Prejean asking panelists to go further and tell city-parish leaders by what means these recommendations should be implemented.

''The job is just beginning,'' he said. ''The next step is how do we make it a reality.''

Taking the point that with only one city-parish employee focused on the plan, the panel lacks paid staff to put the recommendations in the legal form of ordinances and other measures, the chairman noted that his commission just requested $1.4 million for completion of the comprehensive planning work.

If the City-Parish Council approves the budget request in full, reports Baton Rouge Advocate writer Kevin Blanchard, the commission will hire seven people for comprehensive planning and augment its other programs and projects. -- Advocate   7/11/2007

Resource(s): www.2theadvocate.com/

Prospects Looking Better for Implementing ''Lafayette In a Century'' Comprehensive Plan

If the Lafayette Planning Commission passes its budget requests on July 9, it may be just in time for their inclusion in the proposed City-Parish Council budget for the next fiscal year and, reports Baton Rouge Advocate writer Kevin Blanchard, it may finally lead to completion and implementation of the seriously delayed Lafayette In a Century (LINC) comprehensive plan, which was to move the region toward smart growth.

The commission earmarked $1.4 million to finalize the LINC process, with only a few of the plan's 260 early recommendations enacted so far.

Generally, the writer notes, the commission's budget requests focus on better interconnectivity between neighborhoods to reduce traffic, developer incentives to make mixed-use, high-density projects more affordable, and assistance in creating neighborhood plans to enhance local property values.

The commission also would like to form a Comprehensive Plan Implementation Committee, including parish agency heads to coordinate planning and practice, promote an incoming computerized drainage model to locate best retention-pond areas that could not only help improve water quality, but also double as parkland, encourage creation of special taxing districts for urban improvements, reduce homeowners' flood insurance premiums, and establish a community outreach program to hold regular workshops on the comprehensive plan.

The cost of plan implementation, pointed out Planning Manager Mike Hollier, would be more than offset by taxpayer savings and government efficiency, with initial benefit estimates exceeding $9 million a year.

As an example, he cited the city's mixed-use, high-density River Ranch. Had the land been developed with large residential lots, it would have paid about $3 million in city taxes; instead, the well-known neo-traditional development generates some $10 million for the city and requires less public infrastructure. -- Advocate   6/26/2007

Resource(s): http://www.2theadvocate.com/

Lafayette's Growth Success Depends on Commitment to Making Difficult Choices, Drafting Long-Term Land Use Plan, Says Former Honolulu Mayor

Seeing the rapid global growth of cities by 60 million residents a year as the world's greatest challenge, former Honolulu Mayor Jeremy Harris told the audience at the 3rd annual Smart Growth Lecture at the City Club in Lafayette's neo-traditional River Ranch community that the most successful smart-growth cities have adopted specific land use plans to promote mixed uses and have refocused their infrastructure from cars to people.

In his 12 years in Honolulu, reports Lafayette Daily Advertiser writer Bob Moser, Mayor Harris resurrected its downtown from decay that threatened the great waterfront, helped revitalize the whole island of Oahu, and won several national and international awards for sustainable urban design.

He knows from his own experience that the mixed-use, people-oriented approach, the writer paraphrases, ''can help smart neighborhoods start from scratch, or breathe new life into a one-dimensional industrial park with apartments and small offices.''

Once on the brink of a developmental disaster and at risk of losing its tourism industry, the writer continues, Honolulu turned things around in the 1990s, ''with a concerted focus on smart growth, public input and getting the most from local culture.''

Lafayette, Mayor Harris told the audience, can do the same -- it only needs the commitment to make the difficult choices and draw up a long-term land use plan.

And that's a key goal of the Lafayette In a Century steering committee, the writer observes, noting that the group reconvenes on June 4 ''to push through'' a city-parish master plan. -- Daily Advertiser   5/24/2007

Resource(s): www.theadvertiser.com/

Editorial Says S.G. Principles, Regional Coordination Will Be Controversial Points in Louisiana Speaks Plan

It melds ideas from post-hurricane charrettes, local and state agencies, and massive public input, but much of the long-term Louisiana Speaks plan, worked out by national experts for coastal Louisiana, still will be controversial, predicts a Baton Rouge Advocate editorial, both because it embraces ''the smart growth principles that would refashion over time many of the traditional development patterns that have resulted in sprawling subdivisions in vulnerable floodplains,'' and because it asks government and civic leaders for better coordination of their planning and spending.

Commissioned by the Louisiana Recovery Authority (LRA), this new comprehensive ''land-use, transportation and economic development plan for the hurricane-affected regions,'' the editorial points out, ''emphasizes a simple point: We're all in this together,'' regardless of local economic, cultural and physical characteristics.

Although the plan admits that coastal living may be risky, the editorial agrees with LRA board member Donna Fraiche, who said, ''We don't need to be fatalistic about these risks. We have to be smart.''

Consequently, she called for immediate action to create a seamless regional transportation system and land use patterns that turn development into smart growth.

Noting that one of the plan's key goals is transit, including a light-rail line between Baton Rouge and New Orleans, which would offer an alternative to 80-mile I-10 gridlock, the editorial quotes lead planner Peter Calthorpe.

The plan, he said, presents ''a balanced strategy that puts roads and transit together,'' and its call for close cooperation among the coastal communities means that ''the future should be by design, not by default.'' -- Advocate   5/9/2007

Resource(s): www.2theadvocate.com/

New Orleans Neighborhood Association Criticizes Plan for 20-Acre Retail Complex

Watching closely Victory Real Estate Investments' moves to acquire a local medical center, numerous warehouses and several other lots since last November, New Orleans' Mid-City Neighborhood Association feels relieved that the developer doesn't plan a Wal-Mart Supercenter, but most of the 200 residents at a Grace Episcopal Church meeting still criticized a proposed 20-acre retail complex, with a 190,000-square-foot Target, as out of scale and detrimental to their area.

They pointed out, reports Times-Picayune writer Greg Thomas, that approval of the complex by the City Council would thwart their hopes for Friends of Lafitte Corridor's success in proposing ''a linear 'rail-to-trail' green space with bicycle paths and walking trails.''

Friends Chairman Bart Everson said his group already has $400,000 in grants for its project.

Mid-City Neighborhood Association Commercial Development Coordinator Jennifer Weishaupt restated local priorities, again receiving overwhelming support from the audience.

Any project, the writer notes, should live up to the area's comprehensive planning as outlined during the Unified New Orleans Plan process, which requires green spaces, pedestrian-friendly retail, easy access to transportation and support for local businesses.

It should also preserve the area's historic character, provide well-paying jobs, disallow big boxes, and preclude ''tax subsidies, from tax increment financing to payments in lieu of taxes, or infrastructure changes that would destroy the existing street grid.''

City Councilwoman Shelly Midura promised to fight attempts to disregard local wishes.

''You elected me; Victory didn't,'' she told the crowd. ''They will come to the table and have to deal with me. Don't worry that this is just going to slip through.'' -- Times-Picayune   4/4/2007

Resource(s): www.nola.com/

Neighborhood Groups Excited by New Orleans Recovery Plan

Critical of some aspects of previous New Orleans recovery blueprints, city council members, community activists and business leaders voiced their approval for Mayor Ray Nagin's new plan to use more than $300 million in public dollars to encourage private investments in 17 target zones under the first phase of the city's 15-year rebuilding initiative, although raising the entire $1.1 billion for his plan is still problematic.

With the biggest investment share, $145 million, earmarked for the Lower 9th Ward and eastern New Orleans, area Councilwoman Cynthia Willard-Lewis said the mayor's blueprint shows ''what sound planning principles and science and community input can deliver at the end of the day,'' to eliminate previous local fears that the city may shun the two neighborhoods as ''wastelands'' of toxic soil, useful only as future green space.

The ACORN activist group's Lower 9th Ward Chapter Chairwoman Vanessa Gueringer was excited.

''This is awesome,'' she rejoiced, ready to start phoning her neighbors still in Houston and Atlanta. ''It says to the Lower 9th Ward: You can come home.''

Spirits were equally high in the Spring Lake and Broadmoor neighborhoods.

''I'm just thrilled, because they once had us down as a thumbprint of just green space,'' said Spring Lake association president Bunny Vallon, hoping the city money will leverage private investment for a long envisioned ''town center'' to replace the mostly demolished nearby shopping mall.

Broadmoor activist Virginia Saussy called area residents ''ecstatic'' over the mayor's endorsement of their community center project.

''This is exactly where we wanted to be,'' she told Times-Picayune writer Coleman Warner. ''The last blueprint for the new New Orleans actually had a big green dot over our neighborhood.''

At this time, reports writer Gordon Russell, the city has more than $400 million of the planned $1.1 billion in its grasp, or at least within reach.

The biggest part, $260 million, would come from general obligation bonds passed by voters in 2004, with $117 million practically ensured from block grants and $57.4 million from FEMA's hazard mitigation program.

Questions hang over some $300 million city officials expect from proposed ''blight bonds,'' and over $324 million in federal rebuilding money, usually dependent on a 10 percent state and local match.

Both chambers of Congress have approved a match waiver in emergency supplemental funding bills, the writer notes, but ''President Bush has all but promised a veto, in part because both bills contain language regarding withdrawal of troops from Iraq.''

Office of Gulf Coast Rebuilding spokeswoman Susan Aspey said Louisiana could provide the 10 percent match from its $875 million budget surplus. -- Times-Picayune   3/30/2007

Resource(s): www.nola.com/

New Orleans Identifies 17 Target Zones for Rebuilding in $1.1 Billion First-Phase Recovery Plan

Major Focus of New Orleans Recovery Plan Is Blight Removal New Orleans Identifies 17 Target Zones for Rebuilding in $1.1 Billion First-Phase Recovery Plan Nineteen months after Hurricane Katrina ruptured New Orleans levies, made most residents homeless and dispersed them across the nation, Mayor Ray Nagin presented a $1.1 billion first-phase recovery plan, with some $742 million for citywide improvements and the rest for loans, grants and other incentives to spur private investment in 17 target zones, each stretching four blocks or a quarter-mile in every direction from its main intersection.

Mayoral recovery chief Edward Blakely, report Times-Picayune writers Michelle Krupa and Frank Donze, expects the entire funding package to be ready in June and ''cranes on the skyline'' in September.

A major focus of the citywide spending will be ''blight removal,'' he said, mentioning the proposed ''Lot Next Door'' program, which would give neighbors priority in buying adjacent blighted or abandoned properties.

The money would also help ''The Good Neighbor'' program, requiring owners to clean and board up uninhabitable buildings; advance some capital projects, including neighborhood park and street improvements; and support ''rent-to-own'' housing, local retail and historic preservation.

As to the 17 target zones to spur private investment, Edward Blakely stressed they were selected after a ''scientific'' evaluation of resettlement patterns, and months of planning work with consultants and local residents, including those still displaced.

''They're all centers for the old markets on which the city was built in the first place,'' he said. ''This also creates the opportunities for us to do the kind of clustering around civic assets -- building around these places so we can make this a stronger city in the end.''

Unfamiliar with plan details so far, federal Office of Gulf Coast Rebuilding Director Donald Powell signaled his initial support.

''Any time that you can incentivize the private sector to participate in a recovery, I think it's good,'' he said. ''The private sector will be an important and key sector in the rebuilding of New Orleans.'' -- Times-Picayune 03.30.2007 www.nola.com/   3/30/2007

Resource(s): www.nola.com/

Former Baton Rouge Wal-Mart Will Become 11-Acre Mixed-Use Village

Raising the public expectation bar, the Baton Rouge Area Foundation's for-profit unit, Commercial Properties, reports Baton Rouge Advocate writer Gary Perilloux, will redevelop a former Wal-Mart shopping center in the city's southeast as pedestrian-friendly Acadian Village, offering 130,000 square feet of retail space topped by some 30 rental townhouses and including other smart-growth features, such as an open plaza, landscaped parking lot and public transportation pavilion.

''Given the residential on top, we're trying to get more of a neighborhood community,'' said Commercial Properties CEO Camm Morton. ''Certainly, we hope to find a good grocery store along with some supporting convenience and cool retail and additional restaurants.''

Designed by Baton Rouge-based Chenevert Architects, the 11-acre village is expected to cost up to $20 million, with construction launched late this year and completed before the 2008 holiday shopping season.

The townhouse units, ranging from 1,100 to 1,200 square feet, the writer notes, are expected to draw renters from Louisiana State University (LSU), just a mile away, ''with graduate students, younger faculty and young professionals in the mix.'' -- Advocate   3/7/2007

Resource(s): www.2theadvocate.com/

New Orleans Recovery Czar Boosts Spirits After Residents Approve Unified Plan

Endorsement of the Unified New Orleans Plan (UNOP) by some 1,300 current and still dispersed New Orleans residents at final public input sessions, held simultaneously in New Orleans, Atlanta, Dallas and Houston -- all most concerned about making it easier for everybody to return home -- buoyed the city's new ''recovery czar'' Ed Blakely, who rounded up his immediate five-point agenda with a call for a ''smart and sustainable development pattern.''

Instrumental in an Oakland streamlined housing recovery program for victims of California's 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake, reports New Orleans Times-Picayune writer Michelle Krupa, he promised similar rapid progress for New Orleans.

Amid applause from sessions' participants, interconnected via live Webcast, he promised to advance the ''healing and consultation'' process by visiting evacuees; bolstering neighborhood flood-protection, schools and hospitals; ensuring a ''diverse and robust economy'' based on port activity, international trade, health care and cultural export; and building ''21st and 22nd century infrastructure.''

Glad the city has finally drafted the unified recovery plan and put this ''confidence-inspiring leader'' in charge, the writer notes, listeners still had questions about its funding, implementation and the ''integrity'' of the related political process. Planners said they will address these issues in the final UNOP document, appended with a long list of neighborhood projects and planning maps for each of the city's 13 planning districts.

Mayor Ray Nagin, who a few days earlier took his top aides and director Blakely for talks with New York financiers and philanthropists about investment in New Orleans, expects the UNOP to clear the City Planning Commission and City Council, and to be on his desk by late March.

''I will review, and I'm sure I'm going to sign it,'' he said. ''We will codify all of your hard work into the law of land.'' -- Times-Picayune   1/21/2007

Resource(s): www.nola.com/

Developers, Smart Growth Tammany Group Nearing Settlement Over Colonial Pinnacle Nord du Lack Center

A yearlong test of wills between developers backed by the St. Tammany Parish Council and the grassroots Smart Growth Tammany group over a $200 million ''lifestyle'' retail center, with a Wal-Mart Supercenter and a Sam's Club, on a 160-acre site southwest of Covington, was nearing a settlement by late November, reports New Orleans Times-Picayune writer Charlie Chapple, finding that the Wainer Brothers and Colonial Properties Trust have given up on Wal-Mart and any of its affiliates.

Until now, the writer notes, they argued that the proposed 1.1 million-square-foot Colonial Pinnacle Nord du Lack center, with some 65 stores, boutiques, specialty shops and restaurants wouldn't be economically feasible without Wal-Mart and Sam's Club. They planned its opening for fall 2007 and the Parish Council approved their rezoning request, but hundreds of area residents rose up against the big-boxes, alarmed by prospective road gridlock and damage to the nearby Tchefuncte River, and Smart Growth Tammany's lawsuits blocked the construction.

Now both sides feel relieved. Once the agreement is signed, there will be ''no more differences over the project,'' announced Wainer Brothers principal Bruce Wainer, while Colonial Properties Trust Senior Vice President Richard Yeilding said the center will open in October 2008, with the freed space filed by several smaller stores.

Smart Growth Tammany board member Andrew Varvoutis credited residents with the success. ''This shows you,'' he pointed out, ''what can be done when people work together and do what's best for the community.''

The reported agreement provisions prohibit any Wal-Mart-related business or any other ''big box retailer'' in the center, and limit development of an adjacent tract to single-family homes. In exchange, Smart Growth Tammany and its members will drop all lawsuits against the center, cease their opposition and withdraw any letters of objection to state and federal permits sought for the project.

''We definitely feel like we can wave the victory flag,'' said Andrew Varvoutis. ''This is a big win for the long-term future of St. Tammany Parish.'' -- Times-Picayune   11/29/2006

Resource(s): www.nola.com/

Editorial Suggests Shreveport May Be Ready to Begin Discussion of New Master Plan

With Shreveport's water, sewer and service-extension problems in the news throughout the political season, voters elected Councilman Cedrick Glover as the new mayor, which The Shreveport Times reads as a ''convergence of public interest, business awareness and political will'' to at last update the city's five-decade-old master plan, calling it significant that inspired by the Urban Land Institute, local real estate practitioners and others are pushing for ''smart growth and reclamation of abandoned areas to create a healthier community.''

Mayor-elect Glover, the daily observes, has represented districts plagued by abandonment and stagnation and his transition director Dale Sibley chairs the Metropolitan Planning Commission (MPO), also backing redevelopment. What's more, Councilwoman-elect Joyce Bowman suggested making 2007 a year of education about the master planning process, with the MPO staff responsible for briefing the council, Caddo Parish leaders and appointed zoning officials on planning procedures and issues.

''A master plan would tackle growth management, social issues, transportation, revitalization of the inner city, and more,'' the daily says. ''It would balance development and profit against traffic congestion and environmental impact and other quality of life measures.''

Though not everyone sees the need for master planning, the community must at least consider policies that ''can avoid mistakes of the past'' and help ''revive forgotten areas.''

The community, the daily stresses, ''needs to talk about how to encourage the good and avoid the bad'' through tax abatements, fee breaks, or impact fees, the latter helping offset the costs of municipal service extension. ''Education about the value of such planning,'' the daily concludes, ''is the first step for gathering sufficient public and political will to stand against those who prefer to capitalize on the lack of a plan.'' -- The Shreveport Times   11/20/2006

Resource(s): www.shreveporttimes.com/

Lafayette Study Group Says Urban Areas Need New Development Rules to Protect Sense of Community, Preserve Open Space

Part of a Greater Lafayette Chamber of Commerce smart-growth agenda, reports Baton Rouge Advocate writer Kevin Blanchard, the Leadership Lafayette study group has examined regional education, economic, transportation and health care issues, concluding that urban areas need new development rules to protect a sense of community, save open space and heal the ills of sprawl.

The defeat of tax proposals to fund infrastructure improvements and courthouse construction a few days earlier, said Chamber Board Chairwoman Donna Landry at the group's presentation to elected officials, business leaders and planning board members, mandates ''continuing discussion toward smart growth'' and its strategies. She urged all to focus attention on the ''Lafayette In a Century'' growth-management plan started years ago; to make the smart code that guided the mixed-use River Ranch development an option for developers everywhere and encourage its use through incentives; and to heed consumer demand and apply any new plan to whole Lafayette Parish (county) because sprawl affects all jurisdictions, including smaller municipalities.

Others emphasized related points. Given the parish's small size, said architect Mark Lalande, new land use rules must allow higher densities and protect designated open space, while an accompanying transportation plan should enhance the city's ''gateways'' and promote transit and bicycles.

Speakers Ramesh Kolluru, Linda Larkin and Erin Fitzgerald stressed the need to facilitate the city's transformation into a technology center, support entrepreneurship, expand wireless broadband, ensure access to technology and use skills for all socioeconomic groups, prepare students for careers in entertainment technology, teaching and child care, and promote business and school partnerships and mentoring programs.

Erin Fitzgerald called for preparing future leaders already in grade school, noting that many current public officials should take leadership classes for consensus building, empathy and conflict resolution, since ''(t)here are a lot of issues that seem to divide us.'' -- Advocate   11/10/2006

Resource(s): www.2theadvocate.com/

New Orleans Will Demolish, Redevelop Three of City's Largest Public Housing Complexes

After a quick approval by its federally appointed chief Donald Barbers, the Housing Authority of New Orleans (HANO) confirmed plans to demolish and redevelop the city's three largest public housing complexes -- C.J. Peete, St. Bernard and B.W. Cooper -- as ''mixed-income'' communities, with the fourth, Lafitte near Treme, already leased to nonprofit developers planning a huge reconstruction of its area and the nearby Tulane/Gravier neighborhood.

''These are critical times,'' the HANO chief said. ''This is a major move in the direction we're going in for redevelopment of what we call the 'big four.' It is the future of HANO.''

The first three complexes, shuttered since Hurricane Katrina struck 14 months ago, reports Baton Rouge Times-Picayune writer Gwen Filosa, will include at least 1,285 units, with the proportions of market rate and subsidized housing yet to be determined. The fourth, taken over by nonprofits, is to offer 1,500 units, including almost 900 for families on public assistance.

To launch its three big redevelopment projects, HANO needs $199 million in federal low-income housing tax credits, dependent on the plans' review and approval by the Louisiana Housing Finance Authority. So far, HANO has issued 5,185 ''disaster'' vouchers to families needing housing subsidies, but only 2,185 have actually been used for occupancy, the writer notes, quoting New Orleans Legal Assistance Corp. attorney Laura Tuggle, who said HANO officials must do more to provide homes for the poor. ''We only have about 1,000 families in public housing now,'' she stressed. ''We've got 3,000 folks out there on the streets searching for housing.'' -- Times-Picayune   10/19/2006

Resource(s): www.nola.com/t-p/

Developer Scales Back Plans for Subdivision in Scenic Area North of Covington, But Residents Remain Opposed to Project

In another test of the merits between density and location, developer John Yemelos and Aphelion Holding LLC hoped to mollify neighbors of the proposed 441-acre Beau Lac Estates subdivision along scenic SR-1082 some 10 miles north of Covington by reducing its lots from 220 to 175, with 156 acres left as green space, but that did little to ease local concerns about future traffic and a spoiled countryside.

Hopeful for rezoning of the tract from rural to Planned Unit Development uses, said developers' attorney Jeremy Gould, they also decided to increase the subdivision's minimum lot from under to more than an acre, make perimeter lots of at least three acres, and establish a 400-foot-wide buffer along its eastern boundary and a 300-foot-wide buffer along SR-1028.

Nevertheless, reports Baton Rouge Times-Picayune writer Charlie Chapple, the 150 local residents who packed a St. Tammany Parish Zoning Commission hearing were unmoved. ''This is a very nice development, but it doesn't belong on 1082,'' which is ''one of most beautiful corridors in Louisiana,'' responded resident Sonny Garcia, telling commissioners that by rezoning the tract they ''will destroy what everyone came there for: country life, beautiful country life.'' The proposed subdivision should have 20-acre minimum lots, he argued; otherwise it would set a precedent for further development incompatible with local multi-acre homesteads and cattle and thoroughbred farms.

Although the commissioners liked the revised subdivision plans, they signaled the rezoning request might be denied at the next meeting on November 8. ''I think they've done a nice job of redesigning this,'' said Commissioner Martha Cazaubon. ''If this were planned for somewhere else, it would be approved.'' Commissioner Bernie Willie agreed. ''The second plan is better,'' he observed, but noted that ''density is still a problem'' and that the lot sizes conflict ''with the character of the area.'' -- Times-Picayune   10/19/2006

Resource(s): www.nola.com/t-p/

Mayor Nagin Supports Market-Driven Process for Rebuilding New Orleans

New Orleans has functioned on just a quarter of its pre-Katrina budget so far, but the expected $60 billion in reconstruction money will soon give it an economic boost, said Mayor Ray Nagin on the eve of the disaster's anniversary, telling public leaders and builders at a summit in Kenner that media criticism of city officials for the lack of a detailed rebuilding plan misses the point, because the real problem has been the slow flow of federal aid to homeowners.

The mayoral Bring New Orleans Back Commission's plan, reports New Orleans Times-Picayune writer Gordon Russell, doesn't specify where rebuilding should or should not occur. The mayor trusts the public's common sense. ''We have all the plans we could possibly have,'' he said at the summit, voicing his support for ''a market-driven process,'' in which the city gives people ''enough information and they will make smart, intelligent decisions.''

Builders, he pointed out, are requesting permits on the city's highest ridges and ''shying away from the lower-lying areas,'' but some homeowners still prefer to go back to these areas and they ''deserve to make that decision.''

The city is advising them to ''build smarter, build higher,'' he continued. ''You're going to live in a low-lying area that is vulnerable to flooding? You should build a multistory home: the first floor is parking; you live on the second and third floors.''

Seeing the media as too negative about the city's progress since Katrina, the writer observes, the mayor gave it a ''jovial'' tongue-lashing. He said that at his morning boxing workout, he imagined some of his ''favorite media people'' in place of a punching bag, saying, ''I beat the heck out of that thing.'' -- Times-Picayune   8/29/2006

Resource(s): www.nola.com/t-p/

Unified Recovery Plan for New Orleans Could Be Ready in 3 Months; Would Cover Infrastructure, Parks, Schools, and Neighborhood Needs

To speed up homeowners' access to federal reconstruction money, city officials and their counterparts from the New Orleans foundation and the Rockefeller Foundation, which provided $1 million and $3.5 million in grants, signed an agreement to send consultant teams to all city neighborhoods and complete their ''unified'' recovery plan by the end of this year.

Covering infrastructure, parks, schools and other neighborhood needs, reports New Orleans Time-Picayune writer Coleman Warner, the plan will involve Mayor Ray Nagin's office, the City Council and, indirectly, the gubernatorial Louisiana Recovery Authority (LRA), while being managed by the specially created nonprofit New Orleans Community Support Foundation.

Its Board Chairman Wayne Lee expressed ''a sense of hope that our city is working with one objective in mind, which is to ensure a unified and sustainable recovery and renewal of our community.''

Last month, the writer notes, City Council planning consultant Paul Lambert ''launched a grenade in the form of a full-page newspaper advertisement,'' according to which planning disagreements among council members, mayoral staff, and other public and private players had effectively held up federal funds.

Mayor Nagin, who ''has stayed largely out of the fray,'' welcomed the creation of the Community Support Foundation and its nine-member advisory Community Support Organization, which will monitor the unified planning process.

Asked about the delay of a written agreement, required by the grantors, the mayor said, ''There's always been a fundamental agreement, it's just that the lawyers were working on some final issues. It's signed, sealed and delivered.'' -- Times-Picayune   8/29/2006

Resource(s): www.nola.com/t-p/

Shell Building Joins New Orleans' Downtown Residential Market; Adaptive Reuse Project Began Before Katrina

The first structure in an $800 million downtown New Orleans post-hurricane residential pipeline to reach the market is the historic Shell Building, 925 Common - its $30 million adaptive reuse putting 108 apartments and 11,500 square feet of street-level retail in the area's inventory and, reports GlobeSt.com writer Connie Gore, heralding ''what lies ahead for the Gulf Coast reconstruction.''

All along the coast and in Katrina's path developers are focusing mostly on mixed uses, ''in line with a nationwide trend bolstered by Baby Boomers' demand for convenience-based lifestyles and waterfront views, if possible.''

Being developed by Marc Blumberg of Atlanta-based Palmetto Partners Inc. and Manny Organek of Continental Realty Corp. of Boca Raton, Florida, the project is featuring one-bedroom and two-bedroom apartments from 625 to 1,250 square feet, marketed at pre-Katrina market rates of $2 to $2.30 per square foot, with 10 percent of units already leased.

Started before Katrina and therefore not eligible for special assistance, the project still benefited from a federal historic tax credit increase from 20 to 26 percent. ''This is coming at a very important time,'' comments Marc Blumberg on the project. ''It's in an area of an investment asset class that the city desperately needs, which is housing.''

Although affordable housing advocates have recently questioned the downtown redevelopment direction, its logic seeks ''a critical mass of sustainable development in the inner core -- one that's going to act as a magnet for deep-pocketed investors over the long haul,'' the writer observes, seeing similar reconstruction strategies sprouting in Mississippi, with a focus on casinos and mixed-use resorts.

When Mississippi recovery planning began, says Governor's Housing Recovery Council member, Jackson attorney Jerry Johnson, a series of charettes in 11 municipalities showed across-the-board support for New Urbanism and mixed-use communities. ''Everyone knows what was there cannot come back,'' he adds. ''Mixed use is going to be the key to recovery in an area larger than the recovery area.'' -- GlobeSt.com   8/29/2006

Resource(s): www.globest.com

Impact Fees Become Hot Topic in Louisiana as Baton Rouge Region Feels Post-Katrina Residential Housing Surge

Initiated in Florida in the late 1970s and on the rise in many states, impact fees have only recently become “a hot topic” in Louisiana, especially in the Baton Rouge region, which sees fast residential growth “largely fueled by families seeking higher ground” after last year’s hurricanes, notes Greater Baton Rouge Business Report writer Andre Salvail, confident that strong homebuilder opposition won’t stop area parishes from adopting such fees over the next year or two.

So far, St. Tammany Parish is “a little ahead of the curve,” having adopted the fees early last year. The ones recently passed by west Baton Rouge Parish were found unconstitutional by the state Attorney General. And a traffic impact fee crafted for two years in Ascension Parish failed at its council’s June meeting by one vote. Under the proposed ordinance, the parish would have charged $2,169 for a building permit for a single-family home of 4,000 square feet or more, $975 per room for hotels, $4,468 per 1,000 square feet for banks, and $5,189 per 1,000 square feet for fast-food restaurants -- all intended for a local matching fund to add spurs to its many two-lane state highways, often flanked on both sides by drainage ditches and too narrow to handle future traffic.

Many area developers fight impact fees “tooth and nail” as unfair and certain to hike home prices, the writer reports, quoting Capital Region Builders Association (CRBA) president, Gonzales-based Wood-en Creations owner Roy Domangue, Jr. His group was willing to support a half-cent sales-tax hike, he says, because everyone pays a portion” and all highway drivers “would be paying their fair share.”

He also raises other issues. The parish’s traffic impact fee would have covered only unincorporated areas, exempting the cities of Gonzales, Donaldsonville and Sorrento. The developer fee would have almost tripled its $2,169 cost for a homebuyer, who would have to pay a lender an additional $3,000-plus during a 30-year mortgage, or a total of nearly $6,000.

Louisiana might not need impact fees if tax assessors did not undervalue properties and if the $75,000 homestead tax exemption did not cut into local revenues. And with residential construction driving the nation’s economy for several years and accounting for some 18 percent of gross domestic product, impact fees could undercut the economic benefits. Consequently, the CRBA president intends to promote the idea of special financing districts, which require a public vote and where money from an annual tax lien -- dependent on several factors, including lot sizes -- backs up municipal bonds for infrastructure and service improvements.

A national impact fee “guru,” Austin-based Duncan Associates principal James Duncan, who advised Ascension officials and felt disheartened by their failure to pass the traffic impact fee, points out that builders often exaggerate the fee factor in rising home prices.

“A house is always going to be priced according to the market it’s in. The price of two comparable houses in two comparable markets is not going to differ very much, even if one has an impact fee,” he says, adding, “It’s a service fee. It’s a financing tool that complements a community’s growth policy.”

Baton Rouge Growth Coalition Executive director Mike McDuff voices concern over routine exemption of small projects from current impact-related assessments, predicting “a fee associated with every type of development, large and small, bringing fairness and equity to the system.”

Baton Rouge real estate and land-use law attorney Charles Landry calls impact fees a progressive measure to augment local service funds without or ahead of potential tax increases. “All growth has impact,” he says. “Historically, in Louisiana, we’ve ignored that impact. We often wait until there’s a problem, and then we try to raise taxes that everybody has to pay to cure the sins of the past.”

Smart growth realizes that communities need money for improvement plans before they are overwhelmed by new residents, not after, he observes, stressing, “An impact fee brings certainty to the process. It takes the politics out. It takes the subjectivity out, and by Supreme Court mandate, it has to relate to the actual cost of impact.” -- Greater Baton Rouge Business Report   8/15/2006

Resource(s): www.businessreport.com/index.html

Covington Resident Takes City Council to Task Over Approval of Pinnacle Nord du Lac Project

Slated to discuss flood and drainage issues at a Covington City Council meeting, resident Teddy Barkerding used most of his time to scold the council for its lack of action against the Colonial Pinnacle Nord du Lac ''lifestyle'' shopping complex with a Wal-Mart Supercenter and a Sam's Discount Club, a $200 million project three miles southeast of downtown Covington, approved by St. Tammany Parish over strong public opposition and despite Smart Growth Tammany legal challenges.

''This project,'' he said, ''is a good example of why this City Council needs to become more proactive in being on record about projects upriver and downriver from the city that can have an impact on the city.''

He pointed out that Mayor Candace Watkins also opposed the development at several public meetings even though the city would get 20 percent of the new sales tax revenue.

In response, reports New Orleans Times-Picayune writer Richard Boyd, Councilman Lee Alexius cited the lack of unanimity on the seven-member council as a reason for its inaction. ''Not everyone on this council is totally opposed to this; not everyone on this council is totally in support,'' he explained. ''But we could not adopt an official position because we did not have total agreement over the project.''

Smart Growth Tammany, the writer observes, has lost several suits against the project, but one filed in June is still pending. The suit asks the state court to void a zoning change for about half of the property, which would make the development unworkable. -- Times-Picayune   8/10/2006

Resource(s): www.nola.com/t-p/

Rapid Growth Outpacing Infrastructure Improvements as Lafayette Parish Struggles to Find Revenue for Road and Utility Projects

Some 100 miles west of New Orleans, small Lafayette Parish is seeing its already high population growth even further accelerated by the influx after last year's hurricanes, with subdivisions sprouting throughout unincorporated areas, but no development has ever paid for itself and local officials are hard pressed to find new revenue for costly infrastructure improvement and extension projects, especially for roads.

While city of Lafayette voters approved $215 million over 10 years in additional bonding authority this month, reports Baton Rouge Advocate writer Kevin Blanchard, inflation and higher construction costs will limit the bond capacity, allowing the city to launch only some long-delayed projects. Other major road and drainage improvements over the following 10-15 years would require another $305 million.

''Can Lafayette afford to wait another 25 years?'' asked Chief Administrative Officer Dee Stanley. ''For those who say 'yes,' that's fine. But we're going to be stuck in traffic and stuck in gridlock, because there is no available money.''

What's worse, neither the parish nor the city and five smaller municipalities can expect help from the state, which has its own budgetary problems and is focusing on infrastructure and restoration in areas devastated by the hurricanes.

City-Parish President Joey Durel repeatedly stated that a new source of revenue is crucial to fund future growth. Officials have already formed two special taxing districts along I-10, where an additional penny of sales tax would be charged in new commercial developments, but legislation that would let Lafayette residents vote on an additional gas tax stalled in the state legislature for the second consecutive year.

Since more than half of the $305 million for future needs would go for state highway improvements, President Durel asked the state Department of Transportation and Development to let the parish and the city take over construction of these routes. ''Hopefully,'' he said, ''we can be a model for the rest of the state and show what you can do if you take control of your own destiny.'' -- Advocate   7/27/2006

Resource(s): www.2theadvocate.com/

Preliminary Report on Protecting Louisiana's Coast Raises Possibility of Massive Levees, But Governor's Office Rejects Notion of a ''Great Wall''

As post-hurricane Louisiana planning and reconstruction efforts proceed, Democratic Governor Kathleen Blanco promised St. Tammany Parish President Kevin Davis and area municipal leaders all possible help to accommodate the influx of the displaced and ease strains on local services and infrastructure, federal officials announced $4.2 billion in housing assistance for hurricane victims statewide, and experts from Environmental Defense and the National Wildlife Federation, along with Louisiana State University Hurricane Center Professor Paul Kemp, warned that a preliminary U.S. Army Corps of Engineers report on protecting the coast from category 5 hurricanes -- winds over 155 miles per hour and storm surges of 18 feet and more -- favors costly levees to the detriment of natural restoration and other nonstructural methods.

Six months in the works, its final version due in December 2007, the preliminary report raises the prospect of almost a wall along the Louisiana coast, with some levees 60 feet tall and 800 feet wide, note New Orleans Times-Picayune writer Mark Schleifstein and Baton Rouge Advocate writer Mike Dunne.

According to Professor Kemp, such levees might require a deep concrete foundation and could sink seven to 20 feet within the first ten years. The Corps ''presents two alternatives, massive levees and big levees,'' commented Environmental Defense attorney and water resource expert Tim Searchinger during a telephone news conference, calling that focus wrong. ''Levees should not be built in rural areas where they result in inducing new development that increases future flood damages and takes money away from where we need to spend it.''

Environmental Defense general counsel Jim Tripp, a member of the Governor's Advisory Commission on Coastal Protection, Restoration and Conservation, said levees and other structures should protect New Orleans and other dense urban areas such as Houma-Thibodaux and Lake Charles, with coastal and barrier island restoration aimed at reducing storm surge.

Corps representative Al Naomi thought critics ''are reading the report wrong,'' since it only explains how hurricanes would affect several alternative levee alignments, with no plans to adopt any of them, and restoration options discussed in appendices as part of the final plan.

Expressing more concern that the Bush administration may ignore a congressional requirement for the final plan to recommend projects regardless of their cost-benefit analysis, gubernatorial adviser Sidney Coffee said, ''The state has said from the very beginning that we'll fight any attempt to build the great wall of Louisiana, and the corps has indicated that they're not in favor of that either.'' -- Times-Picayune, Advocate   7/12/2006

Resource(s): www.nola.com/t-p/ ; www.2theadvocate.com/

Public Housing Residents File Suit Against HUD for Failing to Repair Flood-Damaged Complexes

Two weeks after U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Secretary Alphonso Jackson announced plans to raze and redevelop four New Orleans public housing complexes of some 5,000 units as too damaged by Katrina floods for rehabilitation, 18 of their former residents filed a civil rights lawsuit against him, HUD, the Housing Authority of New Orleans (HANO) and its new federal officials Donald Babers and Bill Thorson, claiming they are preventing the plaintiffs and thousands of other low-income black families from returning to their neighborhoods.

Pointing out that the complexes ''are permanent, affordable housing units within the community of their choice,'' the federal lawsuit states: ''Instead of moving quickly to reopen habitable units and make repairs where necessary, for the most part, HANO boarded up units. Most recently, HUD made clear that these families would not be able to return anytime soon when it announced its plan to demolish 5,000 housing units.

HUD spokesman Jerry Brown said the department wants all residents back in the city, but won't put them into damaged, substandard units. Before Katrina, reports New Orleans Times-Picayune writer Gwen Filosa, the city's public housing hosted 5,100 families, while another 9,000 used federal vouchers for rentals elsewhere, but now the housing shortage puts both homes and apartments beyond their reach, with all available units becoming ''rare finds for people of the highest incomes.''

Dislocated and dispersed families live in distress, said Advancement Project attorney Judith Browne-Dianis. ''Public housing residents are not disposable,'' she stressed at a press event outside the federal courthouse. ''You can't move them around like checkers. When you have boarded up the units and spent money on gates and fences instead of on mold remediation that is a clear sign you don't want them to come home.''

St. Bernard complex area activist Endesha Juakali was equally direct. ''St. Bernard is not just public housing,'' the former HANO chair said. ''It's a neighborhood. We want the neighborhood rebuilt, and the anchor of the neighborhood is public housing.'' -- Times-Picayune   6/28/2006

Resource(s): www.nola.com/t-p/

New Orleans Planning Commission Approves Condo Tower Near Warehouse District, Height Bonuses Along Riverfront

Sometimes right, sometimes wrong, some residents' opposition to projects in local neighborhoods always seems to test officials everywhere, with the New Orleans City Planning Commission twice in one day holding its ground and endorsing both the proposed 24-story Tracage condo tower just outside the historic part of the Warehouse District and the ''Riverfront Vision 2005'' redevelopment plan, which seeks 25-foot building height ''bonuses'' over the standard 50 feet in the Marigny and Bywater sections of the Mississippi River riverfront, to ''encourage exceptional and creative design, new residential uses, public open space, improved access and pedestrian amenities'' near its three major streets.

Opponents of the $50 million Tracage tower, with 133 condos and 207 parking spaces, reports New Orleans Times-Picayune writer Bruce Eggler, argued it's out of scale in a neighborhood of mostly two-to-four-story buildings, will worsen traffic and parking problems, and block light and views for some residents.

But Tracage Development LLC co-owner Rob Tatum said the group bought the site because it had no height limitation and called the project ''an excellent example of New Urbanism,'' while co-owner Jason Voyles pointed to its consistency with the Urban Land Institute's call for post-hurricane city redevelopment with ''higher density on higher ground.''

The Planning Commission confirmed the need to redevelop the city up, offering similar reasons to counter similar local objections to the ''Riverfront Vision 2005'' plan for the city's 25-mile riverfront corridor, a plan controversial even before Hurricane Katrina struck.

Many Marigny and Baywater residents called the current 50-foot building height cap important to area character and maintained that the 25-foot height bonus amounts to ''favoring developers' desire to make money over residents' desire to preserve the quality of life that first attracted them to their neighborhoods.''

According to the plan, the east bank of the river, between Jackson Avenue and the Industrial Canal, offers the most redevelopment opportunities and will be ''the principal focus of the planning effort for the immediate future,'' the writer observes, adding that the City Council may endorse, reject or take no action on the document, but would have to approve any related zoning changes, including the higher height limit. -- Times-Picayune   6/28/2006

Resource(s): www.nola.com/t-p/

New Orleans Warehouse District Condo Plan Rejected As Out of Scale

New Orleans developer Tom Bauer called it an example of smart growth and New Urbanism, but the Architectural Review Committee of the Historic District Landmarks Commission unanimously refused to let him demolish several old structures for his planned 367-foot-high condo tower in the heart of the famous Warehouse District where the height cap is 100 feet and most buildings are much lower, a denial he asked the City Council to overrule, with a decision possible June 22.

The developer declined to reveal details of the project, reports New Orleans Times-Picayune writer Bruce Eggler, but its plan, drawn up by the prominent Connecticut-based Kevin Roche John Dinkeloo and Associates architectural firm, shows a 28-story luxury tower of about 150 one-bedroom and two-bedroom units, with a garage for a several hundred cars.

The architectural committee said its mass and height are ''completely out of scale'' with the Warehouse District, and Landmarks Commission acting director Elliott Perkins told the developer in a letter that his project ''in no way relates to the low-scale masonry warehouse structures that lend the district both its character and name.'' The developer disagreed, pointing to two high-rise hotels nearby, to the commission's approval of another tall hotel and a 22-story condo tower a few block away, and to the role of his planned big garage in relieving the local parking shortage.

Some commission members indicated they might agree to demolition if the City Planning Commission and the City Council grant the developer the necessary zoning change this fall, but they don't want to see him tear down the structures, fail to win rezoning and leave the site vacant.

Preservationists, the writer adds, are expected to fight the zoning change, concerned that the tower would be more detrimental to the low-rise neighborhood than the other new or planned high-rises. -- Times-Picayune   6/12/2006

Resource(s): www.nola.com/t-p/

Architect Praises Lafayette's Focus on Smart Growth at Acadiana Regional Lecture, Urges Leaders to Adopt Smart Codes

Complimenting the Greater Lafayette Chamber of Commerce for focusing on Smart Growth this year and City-Parish President Joey Durel for supporting New Urbanism, Architects Southwest principal Steve Oubre told more than 300 Acadiana region residents and business leaders at his smart-growth lecture at City Club, in the heart of the famous Traditional Neighborhood Design (TND) River Ranch community he has master-planned, that recent local opposition to two higher-density projects in Lafayette stems from lack of trust in the long-prevalent development model.

Some neighbors, notes Lafayette Advertiser writer Jan Risher, have fought a 142-unit apartment complex for University of Louisiana students; others opposed a 200-unit project because of its feared traffic impact.

Steve Oubre urged the listeners to push for adoption of Smart Codes, which facilitate mixed uses, and to make sure new development uses street grids, which disperse traffic instead of clogging arteries as the suburban-sprawl model does.

Pointing to Portland, Oregon growth-management success, he said the city has been repeatedly ranked as ''the best place to live, yet what they've done would be illegal in Lafayette.''

Developers of his mixed-use, varied-income, pedestrian-friendly 256-acre River Ranch community in south Lafayette, he observed, had to get 119 variances for what is currently seen as a Smart Growth model for the state and the Gulf region.

''Acadiana is special because of the cultural richness of the area,'' he said of the region west of New Orleans and east of the Texas border. ''If we don't wake up, the only thing separating us from the rest of the world will be replaced.'' -- Advertiser   5/18/2006

Resource(s): www.theadvertiser.com/apps/pbcs.dll/frontpage

Support for Covington ''Lifestyle Center'' Switches to Frustration After Residents Learn of Plan to Anchor Project With Wal-Mart Supercenter

When developers announced plans last year for a $200 million Pinnacle Nord du Lac ''lifestyle center'' of more that 60 stores, boutiques and restaurants at Covington's I-12 and Louisiana 21 intersection some five miles north of Lake Pontchartrain, the project seemed perfect for the fast-growing area, ''where mega-SUVs and Starbucks are de rigeur and disposable income is as weighty as August humidity,'' notes New Orleans Times-Picayune writer Charlie Chapple, but when residents learned later it will be anchored by a Wal-Mart Supercenter and Sam's Club, both more pedestrian and taking up almost a third of the site, they formed a Smart Growth Tammany group and moved to stop the project through the ''initiative and referendum'' provision in the parish (county) charter, a move challenged by the parish and developers in state district court.

Although the home rule charter allows public initiatives to repeal parish ordinances by another council vote or by referendum, the parish and the developers want the court to decide whether such a process to revoke zoning is legal under the state Constitution and state laws that give zoning power only to local governments.

With a court hearing in Covington scheduled for May 18, the writer reports, the war of words and ads continued unabated. Parish Council President Kevin Davis and Chairman Steve Stefancik called project opponents ''elitists'' who simply don't want a Wal-Mart nearby. Councilman Marty Gould agreed, saying, ''It has something to do with social status'' and a fear of bringing ''a negative element to their neighborhoods.''

Area Councilman Marty Dean acknowledged that ''some people feel that way,'' but he also emphasized that ''a lot of it is about traffic and concrete being poured next to a scenic (Tchefuncte) river.''

Irked by Smart Growth Tammany newspaper ads hitting the council and the district attorney's office for trying to scuttle a citizens' initiative, District Attorney Walter Reed accused the group in his full-page ad of ''mean spirited and misleading advertisement.'' Opponents, the writer observes, have said they would back off if the Supercenter and Sam's Club is removed from the project, but Colonial Rust Properties senior vice president Richard Yeilding maintained both are necessary to make the center economically feasible and successful.

Opponents responded that they were deceived about the project and that officials should have heeded their initial concerns. ''You would still have people upset,'' noted Smart Growth Tammany petition coordinator Rick Wilke, ''but you wouldn't have this large group of people who feel railroaded.''

Ditto, Smart Growth Tammany Secretary Andrew Varvoutis. ''It was billed to us as an upscale shopping center, and people got excited about a project that appeared a well-planned development and unobtrusive,'' he said, stressing, ''The issue is about good government and not allowing a group of elected officials to run roughshod over the people of this parish.'' -- Times-Picayune   5/14/2006

Resource(s): www.nola.com/t-p/

With Community Visioning Work Behind Them, Planning Experts Wait for Hurricane-Damaged Communities to Choose Their Future Growth Plans

Having dedicated hundreds of hours to the Louisiana Recovery Authority (LRA) post-hurricane efforts and spent hundreds more on community visioning and planning, New Urbanist planner-architect Andres Duany and his team of experts don't really know to what extent their growth pattern-change recommendations will be implemented, because much depends on local choices and available funds, but they can take heart from several speedy approvals of the proposals -- within a day by Lake Charles and Abbeville officials, and within a week by Vermilion Parish and St. Bernard Parish leaders.

The St. Bernard Parish Council, reports New Orleans Times-Picayune writer Karen Turni Bazile, adopted a package of 17 proposals as binding resolutions by a 6-1 vote, with Chairman Lynn Dean voting ''no,'' saying later that digging canals for flood protection is wasteful, since all efforts should focus on construction larger levees.

But other council members were enthusiastic about Duany's plan. ''It's important that we act on it immediately,'' said Executive-Finance Committee Chairman Mark Madary, promising to hold the first detail-oriented neighborhood charette for residents of his Arabi district April 1-2. The charette will decide the redevelopment scope, pattern and density along a some three-mile segment of the 10-mile-long 40-Arpent Canal, where flood surges caused the most destruction.

Planners advised fast action on the plan, noting it can be tweaked later. ''It activates it,'' said Duany. ''You launch it, and if it gets funding, then you worry about it.''

He also told the council his Miami firm is getting more than $1 million to draw up a similar mixed-use higher-density plan for his city. ''It is the first fully integrated ordinance for new communities,'' he stressed. ''It's a heavy-duty document but it takes the place of five or six ordinances.'' -- Times-Picayune   4/22/2006

Resource(s): www.nola.com/t-p/

Abita Springs Sets Moratorium on PUDs; New Code Amendments Require Grid Network to Manage Growth, Fit Town's Character

As displaced New Orleans residents continued their search for homes north of Lake Pontchartrain and St. Tammany County's construction market heated up, Abita Springs Mayor Louis Fitzmorris set a moratorium on planned unit developments (PUDs) late last month, staffers began work on stricter regulations, and the Board of Aldermen followed with several code amendments, under which PUDs and subdivisions must be built in 300-foot grids, a requirement that will help manage growth and make new infrastructure fit the town's character.

''We don't want Abita to be circled by developments that look like they belong in Mandeville or Covington,'' said Alderman Troy Dugas. ''We don't want it to look like everywhere else.''

Passed several years ago, the PUD regulations were never used, reports New Orleans Times-Picayune writer Bruce Hamilton, finding that suddenly developers submitted seven projects totaling 467 lots, with only one project fully approved before the moratorium.

In response to some residents concerned over smaller PUD lots, the writer notes, Mayor Fitzmorris and the aldermen emphasized PUD's advantages, including more public green space, better land preservation and less extended thus less costly infrastructure.

''What we really need to be focused on is density,'' said the mayor, while Alderwoman Patricia Edmiston called regulation revision a ''constant struggle,'' adding, ''Developers find loopholes, and as we find them, we close them up.'' -- Times-Picayune   4/20/2006

Resource(s): www.nola.com/t-p/

Lafayette City-Parish Council Endorses 11 Developer Applications for Affordable Housing Funds

Although some northern Lafayette residents feared the impact on schools and roads, and even a possible ghettoization of their neighborhoods, the Lafayette City-Parish Council endorsed a total of 11 developer applications for affordable housing funds under the post-hurricane federal Gulf Opportunity Zone Act this month, with Louisiana Housing Finance Agency Greg Gachassin confident the developers won't let the complexes deteriorate, because they would lose tax credits and could face $10 million in penalties during the first 10 years.

Before the latest council meeting, which endorsed nine of these lower-income home and apartment projects, including six in the city's north, reports Lafayette Daily Advertiser writer Claire Taylor, north side business owner Karl Breaux questioned their compatibility with the city's incipient smart growth planning, complained that developers are eager for federal money but unwilling to build the necessary roads for new apartments, and promised to fight this ''carpetbagging.''

But Councilman Chris Williams pointed out that Lafayette has little housing for under $100,000 and needs affordable units for its lower-income workers.

''A lot of our people live in deplorable conditions,'' he stressed. ''There are over 800 people on the waiting list for Section 8 (government assisted) housing.''

Still, the writer notes, both Planning Commissioner Fred Prejean and Lafayette Consolidated Government planning manager Mike Hollier promised to look into the issues of traffic and development ''overconcentration.'' The manager thought some questions could be resolved by September, before a new wave of development applications. -- Daily Advertiser   4/19/2006

Resource(s): www.theadvertiser.com/apps/pbcs.dll/frontpage

Lafayette Chamber of Commerce Brings Smart Growth Message to 160 Area Leaders

Gathering more than 160 local officials, business leaders and others at its weekend Building Community Conference, with expert presentations and a planning charette, the Lafayette Chamber of Commerce succeeded in getting many of them ready to promote smart growth in the region, reports Lafayette Daily Advertiser writer Jan Risher, quoting University of Louisiana School of Architecture and Design's Community Design Workshop Director Tom Sammons, who said, ''we used the charette as a teaching tool to consolidate and reinforce ideas for smart growth.''

Professor Sammons listed six basic smart growth ideas: mixed use development, compact building design, sense of place, alternative forms of transportation, economically viable downtowns, traditional neighborhoods and small towns, and alternative forms of housing.

The other key presenter, prominent area architect Steve Oubre, said old-time community cohesiveness and family-value structures have been undermined by decades of separate-use zoning, nothing perhaps exemplifying the social setback extremes more shockingly than the tragic Columbine school shooting.

''We began to understand these kind of communities have lost the sense of the old saying, 'It takes a village to raise a child','' he observed. ''There are no more villages.''

Smart growth helps bring villages back, he noted, advising communities to avoid cul-de-sacs; organize streets in a grid; establish a hierarchy of their size and use; allow street-side parking; ensure a street curve, a traffic circle or roundabout at least every 600 feet; set orientation in the grid and maintain it in curvilinear streets; build pedestrian-friendly sidewalks; and buffer sidewalks with planted strips.

With Broussard Mayor Charlie Langlinas, Youngsville Mayor Wilson Viator and Carencro Mayor Glenn Brasseaux telling the audience about their smart growth initiatives, Lafayette City-Parish (county) planner Mike Hollier said the conference signifies the profound reevaluation of development patterns in Louisiana, including the Lafayette region.

''I think the Chamber taking this on is a powerful indicator of change,'' he stressed. ''I'm not sure if the Chamber would have taken on this topic pre-Katrina.'' -- Daily Advertiser   3/26/2006

Resource(s): www.theadvertiser.com/apps/pbcs.dll/frontpage

Baton Rouge Hosts Public Workshops to Help Designers Fine-Tune Plans for 200-Acre Smart Growth Project

The smart growth principles of mixed uses, diversified housing and broad community involvement in the development process is taking hold in Baton Rouge, with a five-firm group led by Commercial Properties Development Corp. holding six public workshops over five days in the Smiley Heights neighborhood, just northeast of the city center, to help designers fine-tune plans for a 200-acre traditional neighborhood development (TND), which will include some 1,000 single-family homes, plus apartments, assisted-living facilities for the elderly, small retail stores, parks and churches -- all anchored by two schools and flanked by a business center. The $300 million project, its housing prices ranging from about $100,000 to $350,000, is expected to attract residents from across the entire age, income and ethnicity spectrum, reports Baton Rouge Advocate business writer Ted Griggs, quoting Commercial Properties president and CEO Camm Morton, who says, ''The whole idea is to take people from early graduate status to retirement age.''

Baton Rouge-East Baton Rouge Parish (County) Mayor-President Kip Holden endorsed the project, saying in a press release it ensures traffic solutions, neighborhood safety, and quality education -- all through an open governmental process.

In a separate press release, Center for Planning Excellence Executive Director Boo Thomas called the project a model for enhancing quality of life throughout the parish. -- Advocate   3/21/2006

Resource(s): www.2theadvocate.com/

''Radical'' Blueprint Unveiled for Rebuilding St. Bernard Parish, Katrina's Hardest-Hit Community

Wedged along the Mississippi River into New Orleans' east side, the sole urban stretch of St. Bernard Parish (county) failed to benefit from the building boom of the last decade, but took the brunt of hurricane floods last year, with only three of several thousand houses left intact, and with recent recovery workshops asking New Urbanism planner-architect Andres Duany to help make the area better and safer, a plea he and his team answered in ''the most radical'' redesign blueprint, showing compact pedestrian-friendly neighborhoods, raised home lots, large detention ponds, and plenty of open space.

''New Orleans is not ground zero for destruction, St. Bernard Parish is,'' said the planner at the first of two presentations in the tightly packed Parish Courthouse in Chalmette. ''I am going to show you what this could look like as a 21st-century community.'' The crowd of several hundred, focused much more on rebuilding than buyouts, was generally receptive, reported New Orleans Times-Picayune writer Karen Turni Bazile, an attitude also shown by some 1,000 at the final session six days later.

Estimating the cost of elevating the partly damaged post-war slab-on-grade brick ranch homes that prevail in the parish at $80,00-$100,000 each, reports Baton Rouge Advocate writer Joe Gyan Jr., Andres Duany said it's better to tear them down and rebuild higher, along with turn-of-the-century ''shotguns'' and doubles, pre-war cottages, and suburban homes built after 1990. He pointed out that antebellum homes and 19th-century Victorian houses should be fully restored, that the area needs a town center, that reconstruction concentrated around a town square would be safer and less costly than rebuilding all dispersed subdivisions, and that St Bernard Highway could be turned into a high-speed, tree-lined parkway flanked only by industries, while Judge Perez Drive could serve as Main Street.

''It is not a good policy to rebuild everywhere,'' the planner said, envisaging more open space especially throughout the low and flood-prone area along the 40-Arpent Canal, extending from Arabi some eight miles southeast to Violet.

The Parish Council, the writer notes, will ask the Louisiana Recovery Authority to include about 2,000 homes, mostly in that area, in its hazard-mitigation buyout program, under which the properties would became green space, to help absorb stormwater and floods. -- Times-Picayune, Advocate   3/11/2006

Resource(s): www.nola.com/t-p/ ; www.2theadvocate.com/

Gov. Blanco Outlines Post-Hurricane Housing Reconstruction, Resident Relocation and Buyout Plan

With some 128,000 homes severely damaged, another 210,000 more or less bruised, and thousands of their owners still dispersed throughout the nation, Democratic Governor Kathleen Blanco proposed a first of its kind, $7.5-billion comprehensive post-hurricane housing reconstruction and resident relocation and buyout plan, providing relief to all affected, but reserving the best aid package -- grants of up to $150,000 per homeowner, and often low-rate loans -- for those ''determined to rebuild'' and stay in Louisiana.

''In the not too distant future,'' the governor told her Louisiana Recovery Authority (LRA) at a meeting in hard-hit Lake Charles, ''I predict the sounds of hammers and saws will be ringing through all of our communities as our homes are rebuilt.''

Dependent on Congressional approval for an extra $4.2 billion in federal money, reports New Orleans Times-Picayune writer Laura Maggi, the plan draft offers 100 percent of a home's pre-storm value -- $150,000 maximum -- to insured homeowners, those outside of flood plains, and those in areas excluded from reconstruction if they wanted to get a similar house elsewhere in the state. Homeowners unwilling to relocate or rebuild in Louisiana would be bought out at 60 percent of the pre-storm home value.

Aware that costs of rebuilding may exceed some pre-storm home values or lower-income earners' ability to bear the additional financial burden, plan drafters earmarked about $13 billion to help them with low-interest loans or ''silent'' mortgages that wouldn't need to be paid off until the homes were sold or otherwise transferred to new owners.

''The policy is not 100 percent compensation, it is also to encourage reinvestment,'' said LRA member Sean Reilly. ''This is a slight shift in emphasis from strict compensation to reinvestment.'' His LRA colleague Walter Leger added, ''The priority is to help people return to their way of life, to return to their homes and their communities.''

Stressing that the plan's final details will depend on public input and that local governments will control reconstruction in their areas, Governor Blanco and LRA officials will hold a series of town hall meetings across the devastated region. In early March, the state will launch a Web site and a call center to begin the claim registration process for homeowners with at least $5,200 in uninsured damage if already registered in the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). -- Times-Picayune, BayouBuzz   2/21/2006

Resource(s): www.nola.com/t p/ ; www.bayoubuzz.com/

Smart Growth, ''Politics of Sprawl'' Editorials Draw Praise from Baton Rouge Growth Coalition

Concerned about ''traffic congestion, poor road systems and insufficient funding for infrastructure,'' the industry-based Baton Rouge Growth Coalition Executive Director Michael McDuff complemented the Baton Rouge Advocate for its recent series of editorials on the ''politics of sprawl'' locally and nationwide, and for ''promotion of 'smart growth' policies that encourage low-impact development.''

Noting in the letter to the Editor that the coalition endorsed the independent Smart Growth Audit Report for the city last year, he pointed out that although its findings ''will in some cases increase our cost of doing business,'' commercial and residential builders agree they must raise standards and plan better for the future.

''The real estate development industry in Baton Rouge has stepped forward and is working with the Smart Growth Partnership under the leadership of Plan Baton Rouge and the Mayors' Office,'' he stressed. ''We encourage other stakeholders to do the same.'' -- Advocate   2/20/2006

Resource(s): www.2theadvocate.com/

Lake Charles Endorses New Urbanist Downtown and Riverfront Renewal Plan

Setting an example of post-hurricane decisiveness and readiness for change, the Lake Charles City Council unanimously endorsed a long-term downtown and riverfront renewal plan, worked out by New Urbanism co-founder Andres Duany under the Louisiana Recovery Authority local charette process, pledging both city and federal resources for better land uses and already revising area zoning to implement new design standards.

The city, notes Baton Rouge Advocate editorial writer Lanny Keller, will use its own lakefront parcels as an incentive for new upscale hotels and other quality construction, and will work with private landowners to assemble land for similar development in the urban-core Ryan Street corridor.

The plan envisions intense land use -- including an eastside public plaza -- around the lakefront Civic Center, now surrounded by large parking lots, and full integration of a rebuilt Harrah's casino with the center, nearby hotels and adjacent neighborhoods.

Saying he and city officials are encouraged by Harrah's willingness to join their work and configure its complex within the downtown plan, Andres Duany stressed that moving fast from the well-advanced cleanup phase toward thoroughly planned recovery is crucial to secure federal dollars. Federal reconstruction grants are time-limited, he said, and powerful business tax incentives such as the Gulf Opportunity Zone tax credits and depreciation rules expire in three years.

Impressed by the ''enthusiastic reception of the plan by the political leadership,'' the Advocate writer wished the same was true several years ago in his hometown. But Baton Rouge Metro Council never adopted Duany's downtown master plan and the 1998 Plan Baton Rouge, he writes, ''nor is it expected to adopt a similarly progressive plan for Old South Baton Rouge neighborhoods between downtown and Louisiana State University.'' -- Advocate   2/14/2006

Resource(s): www.2theadvocate.com/

More Residential Buildings Needed in Lafayette's Downtown, Architects Say

As Lafayette continues its center-focused redevelopment, it must spur residential construction downtown, stressed Architects Southwest principal Steve Oubre and Downtown Development Authority Executive Director Cathy Webre, the former saying, ''The richness of a downtown has to do with all levels of society and trying to represent a cross-section of American culture;'' the latter observing, ''Downtown is the original smart growth place.''

Both spoke ahead of the 19th annual Downtown Meeting and breakfast scheduled for February 8, its program including presentation of the authority's Cornerstone Awards for best downtown projects in the past year.

The authority, reports Lafayette Advertiser writer Jan Risher, is also bringing in New Urbanism expert Laurie Volk to determine the city's housing market potential.

Jefferson Street Market co-owner and meeting co-sponsor Rob Robinson agrees that downtown needs housing. ''When you have people who live here on a 24-hour basis,'' he said, ''it necessitates things like grocery stores and other businesses.''

Director Webre called the push for residential projects ''part of a concerted effort to make people more aware of housing opportunities, not only downtown, but also near downtown areas.''

With sprawl-related traffic problems on the rise, she noted, area residents, business leaders and City-Parish President Joey Durel are increasingly looking to downtown housing and ''picking up the concept of smart growth.'' -- Advertiser   2/4/2006

Resource(s): www.theadvertiser.com/

Judge Rules That St. Tammany Parish's Land-Use Plan Can't Prevent Massive Retail Center Due to Adoption as Nonbinding Resolution

In the first round of the legal fight over the proposed 1.1 million-square-foot Colonial Nord du Lac center, with a Wal-Mart Supercenter and a Sam's Club, on 150 acres in the Mississippi River Delta and wetlands area south of Covington and north of Lake Pontchartrain, state District Judge Donald Fendlason agreed that St. Tammany Parish should have adopted its public-driven land-use plan by ordinance rather than by a nonbinding resolution, which could have kept the site for mixed uses, but he denied the Smart Growth Tammany grassroots group's request to make the parish do so or at least to issue a rezoning injunction.

In his comment on the land-use plan, part of a New Directions 2025 growth blueprint still under work, reports Times-Picayune writer Charlie Chapple, the judge recognized ''the years of hard work by citizens who worked to do what's in the best interest of the parish.''

At the same time, he also accepted the parish's argument that its 1970 comprehensive plan meets parish home-rule charter and state law requirements even if it may not preclude ''hodgepodge zoning.''

Feeling unable to rule for the smart-growth group and force the Parish Council ''to vote and to vote yes'' on a specific plan, because the right to vote is the most discretionary of personal prerogatives, the judge said, ''If the public disagrees with the actions of a governing body, their recourse is at the polling place.'' -- Times-Picayune   1/27/2006

Resource(s): www.nola.com/t-p/

New Orleans Looks at Opportunity to Develop Model School System in Wake of Hurricane Katrina's Devastation

Left ''in tatters'' by Hurricane Katrina and long seen as one of the weakest in the nation anyway, the New Orleans school system, where all depends on the superintendent and the board, should be replaced with a new model that gives schools a greater voice in their own affairs and lets students choose which one to attend -- that's the key advice from the Bring New Orleans Back Commission's education committee, whose chairman, Tulane University president Scott Cowen, said, ''We have an opportunity of a lifetime: out of adversity to create a school system that would be the envy of people around the country.''

The 122-school system, reports Associated Press writer Cain Burdeau, has reopened only 17 schools so far, 14 of them charter schools, with broad managerial independence from the Orleans Parish School Board.

''This is a model that is starting to emerge in America, and we could be the first to bless it,'' chairman Cowen said. ''You hear the phrase, 'No child left behind,' I'd like to give meaning to that.''

The plan draw praise and criticism at its public presentation, with some residents questioning the commission's commitment ''to helping blacks return to the city,'' the writer notes, but was endorsed by the parish school board. It still needs approval from the state's board of education and Department of Education, and Mayor Ray Nagin. -- Times-Picayune   1/17/2006

Resource(s): www.nola.com/

Gov. Blanco Outlines Plan to Consolidate New Orleans' City Offices; Recovery Authority Expects Approval of Proposed Louisiana Receivership Act

With the pre-hurricane New Orleans population of 462,000 currently at about 150,000 -- and those who are still displaced but want to return having no homes to return to -- Democratic Governor Kathleen Blanco said a special session of the legislature February 6-17 will focus on consolidation of numerous city offices to save state taxpayer money and streamline services, and on housing repair and construction.

The consolidation, reports Shreveport Times writer John Hill, will include mergers of seven district assessor posts and of the criminal and civil courts, and creation of a single regional levee board, whose members will have strong professional credentials.

''The appointments will be taken out of the political process,'' the governor stressed, also promising to channel some federal reconstruction funds directly to hurricane victims, to cover their uninsured or underinsured losses and let others reclaim apartment repair investment faster.

''Our plan is not attempting to save the mortgage banks like the Mississippi plan,'' she said. ''We're going to give individual homeowners grants.''

As time is of the essence, the Louisiana Recovery Authority (LRA) is expecting the special session's approval for the proposed Louisiana Receivership Act, to accelerate the local process of taking property for tax nonpayment. ''The process can now take up to five years,'' pointed out LRA executive director Andy Kopplin. ''We want to collapse that to 180 days,'' but without making it ''punitive to the owner.''

Therefore, the writer notes, the act provides for donation of property to the city, which would rehabilitate houses and let owners stay in for 18 months, and subsequently buy their homes back at rehabilitation costs or see them sold. -- Shreveport Times   1/12/2006

Resource(s): www.shreveporttimes.com/

New Orleans Rebuilding Plan Draws Praise for Some Elements, But Angers Residents Who Fear Losing Right to Rebuild

The pivotal first report from Mayor Ray Nagin's Bring New Orleans Back Commission, by its Urban Planning Committee, recommends spending $17 billion for city post-hurricane redevelopment, with $12 billion earmarked for property acquisition, proposing a four-month moratorium on building permits in the hardest-hit neighborhoods, to determine whether returnees can make them sustainable or must face buyout and relocation -- a proposal decried by many residents, four City Council members, the local NAACP and Louisiana ACORN.

''I'm ready to rebuild. I'm not letting you take it (my property),'' shouted resident Harvey Bender at the plan's presentation, attended by some 500 people, many applauding its other elements.

''We are firmly committed to the right of everyone to return and the right of everyone to rebuild,'' said Councilwoman Cynthia Willard-Lewis at a separate news conference, flanked by her three colleagues, Renee Gill Pratt, Jacquelyn Clarkson and Jay Batt.

Branch NAACP President Danatus King saw the potential buyout in targeted ''infill areas'' as beneficial to ''fat cats'' and a ''chosen few, while ACORN spokeswoman Dorothy Stukes called the proposed four-month time frame for determining neighborhood viability too short and set ''to justify land grab.''

Shortly later Mayor Nagin expressed ''serious reservations'' about the permit moratorium, but described the whole plan as a good starting point, a view shared by the local Sierra Club chapter, which called it a ''thoughtful step forward.''

According to the plan, reports Baton Rouge Advocate writer Joe Gyan Jr., a viable and sustainable neighborhood, worthy of reconstruction and city services, should have 5,000 to 10,000 residents, with 50 percent ready to return; reasonably efficient infrastructure, services and utilities; one or two 8-grade public schools and a shared high school for each 11,000 people; reasonable access to convenience, retail, health, cultural and community facilities; places of worship, parks and open space; convenient public transit links; and contiguity with at least two other neighborhoods.

The neighborhood planning teams should be in place by January 20, at work by February 20, and ready with their plans by June 20, to make property acquisition possible by August. Owners should receive the full pre-hurricane value of their properties instead of only 60 percent as envisaged in Louisiana Republican Representative Richard Baker's legislation, which stalled in Congress last year, but may be revisited in the next few weeks.

In addition, the plan calls for a comprehensive flood and storm water protection system; internal levees; coastal wetland restoration; a regional levee authority; parks in every neighborhood; a cross-city light-rail system; a commuter line to the international airport, Baton Rouge and Mississippi Gulf Coast; and large mixed-income projects.

Chosen to oversee the neighborhood planning, New Orleans architect Ray Manning and Tulane University's school of architecture dean Reed Kroloff, report Times-Picayune writers Gordon Russell and Frank Donze, will begin to collect necessary redevelopment data immediately, expecting to include teleconferences with displaced residents who may not be able to attend meetings in New Orleans.

Within days, the commission's six other committees will present their respective reports on education, infrastructure, government efficiency, health care, culture and economic development. -- Advocate, Times-Picayune   1/12/2006

Resource(s): www.2theadvocate.com/ ; www.nola.com/news/t-p

Lafayette Commerce Leader Wants Planning Commission to Focus on Smart Growth Principles During Project Debates

As the Lafayette City-Parish Council awaits a Smart Code draft from its planning commission, the Greater Lafayette Chamber of Commerce's new leader, General Medical Center CEO Donna Landry, aims the 2006 agenda squarely at Smart Growth, telling board members to consider its principles in debates on I-49 completion, public schools, technology development, workforce preparation and infrastructure.

Accordingly, writes board member Cherry Fisher May in the Lafayette Independent Weekly, she has named two new board members with solid smart growth expertise, University of Louisiana professor Tom Sammons and planning and zoning commission chairman John Barras.

Several years ago, professor Sammons helped create the broad-based Lafayette in the Next Century (LINC) community development plan, which Donna Landry described as a roadmap for the city's future, because it incorporates smart growth principles. And since some smart growth concepts ''might not be palatable here,'' she said, the board needed John Barras, who emphasizes their ''elective, not directive use.''

Seeing higher densities and zero lot lines as potentially controversial, she expressed confidence in the broad appeal of mixed uses, green space expansion, walkable streets and curbs on sprawl. This year the chamber will learn more about these concepts, she stressed, adding, ''Eventually we'll want to know, 'How do we embed some of the qualities of Smart Growth in our community?' ''

Last March, the writer recalls, The Independent Weekly's first Smart Growth forum, featuring Urban Land Institute senior fellow and Chevy Chase (MD) Mayor William Hudnut, focused on sprawl costs, already straining Lafayette Parish resources; this year's forum, also in March, will explore community building challenges. -- Independent Weekly   1/11/2006

Resource(s): www.theind.com/index.asp

State Recovery Authority Selects Three Design Firms With Smart Growth Backgrounds to Help Create Long-Term Rebuilding Plans

In another crucial step to rebuild the state's 205,000 lost homes and recharge its hard-hit economy, the Louisiana Recovery Authority (LRA) Support Organization selected three nationally known urban planning and architecture firms with solid New Urbanism and Smart Growth track records -- Calthorpe Associates of Berkeley, California; Urban Design associates of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; and Duany Plater-Zyberk of Miami, Florida.

Chosen from among 14 applicants, the firms will work with LRA to help communities forge their detailed long-term reconstruction plans. ''Ideas will bubble up from communities,'' stressed LRA Board member Rod West. ''The planners' job is to incorporate them into a regional vision.''

According to core policy goals and planning principles established at the national Louisiana Recovery and Rebuilding Conference in New Orleans last month, the region must ''create infrastructure that supports recovery by restoring confidence, enhancing quality of life, and withstanding future disasters;'' promote equitable economic growth; provide public services -- including regional transit, great parks and other community spaces -- necessary for better quality of life; pursue policies beneficial for the environment and public health, with sustainable approaches to energy, transit, land use, building design and other renewal elements; and build more livable communities, with a focus on preserving ''the best of the past,'' on mixed-income and mixed-use neighborhoods, and on ''smart growth at an urban, suburban, and rural scale that balances recovery and sustainability.''

During the process, LRA will have pro bono assistance from the national PolicyLink nonprofit consulting group, which will concentrate on economic and social equity issues, long-term affordable housing policy, community outreach, and a media and communication strategy.

Gulf Coast reconstruction, said PolicyLink CEO Angela Glover Blackwell, should ''demonstrate how equitable development can result in opportunities for everyone in the region to participate and prosper.'' -- Bayou Buzz, Louisiana Recovery Authority   12/1/2005

Resource(s): www.bayoubuzz.com/index.aspx ; www.lra.louisiana.gov/index.html

Realtors Underwrite Study Seeking Best Ways to Re-Energize Shreveport Metro Area Around Existing Community Assets

It's great that the communities of Shreveport, Bossier City and Caddo and Bossier parishes (counties) are ''thinking about 'smart growth' rather than the perpetuation of urban sprawl,'' but smart growth ''needs a boost,'' stresses a Shreveport Times editorial, commending their governments and private groups -- especially the Northwest Louisiana Board of Realtors and its member Linc Coleman -- for underwriting a $125,000 study by the Washington-based Urban Land Institute, which will examine how the metropolitan region can ''maximize the community's assets, re-energize forgotten areas and responsibly develop new ones.''

The region needs new strategies ''to reclaim older industrial and residential centers where utilities and streets and public safety services already are in place,'' the editorial says, encouraged by other recent steps in that direction.

The city of Shreveport, Shreveport-Bossier Community Renewal and the Fuller Center for Housing will use ''the Habitat for Humanity sweat-equity blueprint'' for new housing in neglected neighborhoods, which should spark retail, office and other commercial development.

Bossier City Mayor Lo Walker envisions possible acquisition of parcels near the Louisiana Boardwalk and Arthur Ray Teague Parkway for more green space, which can beautify the Red River waterfront ''while reinventing older neighborhoods'' as more pedestrian-friendly, mixed-use and recreational areas.

In Shreveport, the Biomedical Research Foundation plans to reuse ''older industrial properties'' near Louisiana State University's Health Sciences Center for a clean-technology and information-based economy.

Although developers ''may sometimes feel constrained by land-use plans that might short-circuit their potential for profitable ventures,'' such planning lets communities set priorities and offers ''some predictability about what can or should work,'' the editorial observes, noting that it also can guide economic development to the right areas and help ensure that green spaces aren't sacrificed for ''concrete and asphalt.'' -- Times   11/29/2005

Resource(s): www.shreveporttimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/frontpage

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

Resource(s): www.nola.com/t-p/ ; www.uli.org

Shreveport Area Communities Fund Land-Use, Economic Development Study to Help Maximize Region's Potential

In another step toward Smart Growth and cooperation across their Red River jurisdictional line, Shreveport and Caddo Parish on the west and Bossier City and Bossier Parish on the east, aided by major area businesses, are funding a $125,000 land-use and economic development study (Project SB) by the Urban Land Institute, with Bossier City Projects Coordinator Pam Glorioso confident the institute's expertise in planning and design strategies will help to maximize the entire region's potential.

Listing the 10 Smart Growth principles advanced by the U.S. EPA and the national Smart Growth Network, Bossier Press-Tribune columnist Marty Carlson points out that despite their common sense character, ''it's not a given that they are employed in the development rush.''

Having adopted the Comprehensive Land Use and Development Plan and the Unified Development Plan, Bossier city and county have already made strides in managing their fast growth, she writes, but their ''transportation choices'' and ''housing opportunities and choices,'' are still limited, and many neighborhoods, even though ''walkable,'' are far from commercial areas, ''necessitating a drive rather than a walk or bike ride to pick up a gallon of milk.''

Still, the columnist feels optimistic about area prospects for creating a ''strong sense of place'' as it grows. ''Consistent application of existing master planning tools, adoption of economic development tools, and exploration of smart growth principles can only enhance our community growth,'' she concludes. ''Those are opportunities we can't afford to miss.'' -- Bossier Press-Tribune   11/15/2005

Resource(s): www.bossierpress.com/

New Orleans Recovery Conference Closes with Mixed Views on How to Blend Smart Growth Tenets With Character and Culture of City

Even though New Urbanism, smart growth and their tenets dominated discussions at the recent three-day Louisiana Recovery and Rebuilding Conference in New Orleans, views differed about whether or to what extent they can be implemented in this city without undercutting its special character and cultural uniqueness, reports Times-Picayune writer Doug MacCash, finding some experts for, some against and most in between.

One of the top local New Urbanism practitioners, Historic Restoration Inc. CEO Pres Kabacoff, pointed out that the concept works best when linked to transportation, envisioning new ''housing throughout the city along a light railway, mixed income communities with residences, business, even a school'' -- many of them in a series of new 10-acre high-density enclaves between downtown and the airport about eight miles west.

They would partly mirror his conversion of the old St. Thomas public housing into the mixed-use and mixed-income River Garden complex, sometimes criticized for its Wal-Mart Supercenter, but singled out by Mayor Ray Nagin as a possible model for post-hurricane reconstruction, an idea backed by U.S. Housing and Urban Development Secretary Alphonso Jackson.

On the other hand, New Orleans architects Lee Ledbetter and Errol Barron fault New Urbanism for ''a certain false historicism'' and ''the artificiality of something planned all at once,'' respectively. ''It's like gingerbread cookie-cutter houses,'' said the former. ''The thought of the city turning into that frightens me.''

The latter added, ''New Urbanism is a concept of something we already have in New Orleans ... something that developed over a very long period of time, with lots of incremental adjustments along the way.''

But another local architect, Peter Trapolin, who ''has a foot in both the aesthetic spheres of traditional New Orleans and Duany-style New Urbanism,'' the writer notes, expressed confidence that some of the movement precepts, especially higher density, match the city character.

''New Orleans has always been land-poor,'' he observed. ''To accommodate a growing population you used small parcels of land. That should be a model of how it should be rebuilt.''

Trapolin's cautionary remark that New Orleans shouldn't be simply remodeled after the famous Seaside, Fla., was echoed by its creator and New Urbanism co-founder Andres Duany, who reminded critics that he designed it 25 years ago in response to the challenges of the time.

''New Orleans is a very complicated place, very unique. It must be preserved at all cost,'' Duany stressed, suggesting Baton Rouge as an example to follow. ''The plan of downtown Baton Rouge is an unmitigated success story,'' he said. ''The new museums, revival of hotels, integrated parking lots, the revival of two moribund downtown residential neighborhoods. The design is in the absolute intrinsic qualities of community and energy.'' -- Times-Picayune   11/14/2005

Resource(s): www.nola.com/t-p/

Smart Growth America Co-Chair Whitman Hopes Thoughtful Planning, Smart Growth Principles Will Be Used in New Orleans Rebuilding Effort

Encouraged by the huge investment of ''money, resources, and technical expertise'' into New Orleans' post-hurricane reconstruction, former New Jersey Governor and EPA Administrator Christine Todd Whitman thinks the single most important challenge now is to avoid past mistakes, telling the Seattle-based environment-focused Grist magazine, ''I hope that local authorities take just a modicum of time to thoughtfully plan and apply smart-growth principles to the redevelopment effort.''

Co-chair of the national advisory council to Washington-based Smart Growth America, she cautioned against development ''in the wrong places,'' including low-lying neighborhoods, the barrier islands and coastal wetlands; against ''concentrating poor families in just a few wards and isolating them from the greater prosperity of the region;'' and against the rush toward another round of land-wasteful and infrastructure-hungry sprawl.

''Instead, we need compact 'walking neighborhoods' that feature a mix of market-rate and affordable housing, convenient transportation choices, and easy access to jobs, medical services, and other daily needs,'' she said. ''Smart planning and an open public process can deliver those outcomes.'' -- Grist Magazine   10/24/2005

Resource(s): www.grist.org/

Gov. Blanco Establishes Louisiana Recovery Authority to Help State Build ''Smarter, Safer and Stronger''

With 1.5 million Louisianans displaced, about 81,000 businesses at risk, some 200,000 homes due for replacement, and the environment and infrastructure seriously hurt, Democratic Governor Kathleen Babineaux Blanco established the Louisiana Recovery Authority, led by her Chief of Staff Andy Kopplin, stressing at its Board of Directors swearing-in ceremony, ''We cannot simply recreate what the storms destroyed. We must make the new Louisiana smarter, safer and stronger.''

The authority, she said, ''will be a unified voice with the single focus on rebuilding,'' a goal as urgent for housing, transportation and jobs as for healthcare, education and the environment.

The Board of Directors, headed by long-time Xavier University President Dr. Norman Francis, and including among its 24 members Democratic political strategist Donna Brazile and Republican political consultant Mary Matalin, will seek public input in the planning process and advise the governor on its progress.

Governor Blanco, reports the Environment News Service (ENS), put both entities on a fast track. She gave them seven days to fill senior staff positions, set preliminary meetings with local and regional officials, outline short-term priorities, and schedule an American Institute of Architects (AIA) reconstruction conference and a U.S. Chamber of Commerce redevelopment summit.

Within 30 days, they will present a comprehensive agenda for federal and state legislation to help the most affected parishes and localities financially, prioritize federal appropriations for Louisiana's top reconstruction needs, prepare measures to protect residents from fraud and predatory contractor and builder practices, ensure avenues for direct community input into local recovery planning, establish communication with evacuees nationwide to inform them about reconstruction progress and bring them home, propose a strategy to boost housing redevelopment, draw up guidelines to reopen schools, initiate business recovery and expansion efforts, and provide the means to train and link displaced residents with reconstruction jobs.

And as the authority and the board move toward their several 100-day goals, they will work with federal partners to secure the levee reconstruction and improvement plan necessary for crucial investment and rebuilding decisions, roll out ''a locally driven'' statewide recovery plan, and ''(d)esign neighborhoods that meet the comprehensive needs of our citizens while restoring and enhancing the cultural and historic fabric of our communities.''   10/18/2005

Resource(s): www.ens-newswire.com/index.asp

Galvez Resident Works to Bring Smart Growth Basics to Ascension Parish

''When you have a good cause that can impact a lot of people, it's easy to get them motivated,'' says Galvez resident Jonette Buat, whose smart-growth drive to protect Ascension Parish (county) schools and overall quality of life spawned the grassroots Citizens United for Responsible and Intelligent Growth (CURIG) group in August 2004 and later its Adequate Public Facilities Ordinance proposal, now under consideration by the Parish Council Strategic Planning Commission.

CURIG, reports Baton Rouge Advocate writer John Dupont, works with area officials to ensure adequate local schools, roads and drainage -- the proposed ordinance, modeled after one in Bossier Parish in the state's northwest corner, requiring developers to demonstrate adequacy once their projects are ready for occupancy.

The group insists on these requirements not because it opposes growth, Jonette Buat stresses, but because ''we're at a crossroads and need to make some vital decisions'' to realize the parish's full potential.

Calling herself ''a fixer,'' in contrast to ''the whining, nagging complainers who'll do nothing,'' the full-time Georgia-Gulf information service worker, wife of an attorney at the state Department of Environmental Quality and mother of two, sometimes puts in more than 30 hours a week in research for her group, enjoying the effort and its rewards.

''In the last few months, I've seen folks who never talked in front of a public body finally offer their opinions,'' she points out. ''It's a honor to work with people like that who never stepped forth in this arena before but felt so strongly.'' -- Advocate   8/18/2005

Resource(s): www.2theadvocate.com/

Editorial: Public Will Pay for Sprawling Growth in East Baton Rouge Parish

Unable to get a rational answer to the question why East Baton Rouge Parish (county) has been clearing ''every nook and cranny'' for new housing while its population numbers remain flat or even decline, Greater Baton Rouge Business Report Executive Editor JR Ball sees one thing clearly -- this ''unchecked'' housing expansion brings in strip shopping centers, all-you-can-eat buffet restaurants and ''those Acadian-style office buildings,'' all of which require more roads, utility lines and basic services, and all of which cost public money.

Although his developer friends argue that these costs are covered by their ''extraction fees (offsetting some traffic and sewer costs)'' and new property, income and sales taxes, the editor believes his smart-growth friends and their ''armada of research,'' showing that sprawl drains public dollars and pushes up taxes.

''How else do you explain all the new property taxes for new parks and libraries and the desire to make a temporary tax permanent so we can have more and bigger roads?'' he asks. ''Especially when there are scores of parks and libraries and miles of roads that are hardly touched in Mid City and Old South Baton Rouge.''

Therefore, he writes, ''now is the time to 1) levy impact fees on green space development and 2) cut development fees and expedite permitting on in-fill and restoration projects.''

Developers are willing to pay traffic impact fees instead of extraction fees, which are determined on a case-by-case basis and considered ''unfair'' and perhaps ''illegal,'' the editor writes, also arguing for the need to eliminate the exemption for fast-food restaurants, convenience stores, bank branches and other small structures since they generate traffic, too.

Calling a traffic impact fee ''almost a certainty,'' but acknowledging that builders may never accept ''additional fees to cover the cost of sprawl,'' the editor stresses that ''if those who create growth don't pay for it, then the rest of us will.'' -- Greater Baton Rouge Business Report   8/3/2005

Resource(s): www.businessreport.com/index.html

State Constitutional Amendments Would Protect Louisiana Landowners from Property Seizures for ''Public Purpose''

''You shouldn't extend expropriation authority for the purpose of economic development,'' explained state Democratic Senator Joe McPherson about his draft of a constitutional amendment to give homeowners additional protection in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court's recent decision to let government seize private property for private projects needed for a ''public purpose,'' while leaving states the prerogative to decide otherwise.

Senator McPherson, reports Baton Rouge Advocate writer Mark Ballard, feels uneasy about the growing number of ''quasi-agencies'' -- economic development districts and reservoir authorities -- that can take private property, with the last legislative session adding eight to the 16 created in previous years.

Key Republican Senator Jay Dardenne is drafting similar constitutional legislation, saying, ''That Supreme Court decision scared an awful lot of us.''

In the 5-4 majority decision, Justice John Paul Stevens stated ''there is no basis for exempting economic development from our traditionally broad understanding of public purpose.'' But retired state Democratic Senator Don Kelly, a delegate to the 1972 constitutional convention, reports Advocate writer Timothy Boone, told listeners at a panel discussion sponsored by the League of Women Voters that the state constitution's language is too general to protect people from losing property for economic development and ''needs to be changed to say 'public use,' not 'public purpose'.''

On the other hand, Greater Baton Rouge Business Report executive editor J. R. Ball cautioned that restrictions on eminent domain could stem efforts to eradicate blight and revitalize Old South Baton Rouge. ''In a knee-jerk reaction to rush to save us from something,'' he pointed out, ''government could end up hurting us.'' -- Advocate   7/22/2005

Resource(s): www.2theadvocate.com/index.shtml

New Orleans' Oak Street Keeps Its Neighborhood Feel

Although small neighborhood business districts with familiar services went out of fashion in past decades, victimized by enclosed malls or Wal-Marts miles away, Oak Street in southwestern New Orleans, reports Times-Picayune writer Bruce Eggler, has absorbed all retail-mix changes and ''continues to hang on,'' exemplifying smart-growth core beliefs that with some help it ''could once again thrive.''

Complementing art galleries, clothing boutiques and various ''junk-to-antiques stores,'' its new businesses like the Maple Leaf Bar, Jacques-Imo's Café, and the Double ''M'' Feed, Garden and Pet Supply store attract customers from throughout the city and elsewhere, while a former funeral home is being turned into condos. On the last Saturday of each month, local merchants are holding an ''Art on Oak'' event, with art displays and a ''sidewalk chalk contest,'' the writer continues, noting that the street's old-time look brought in makers of the new ''All the King's Men'' movie version late last year, to film scenes in a small-town Louisiana main street around 1940.

At the city's recent ''Smart Growth Summit,'' sponsored by the Regional Planning Commission, the American Institute of Architects, the Urban Land Institute and other groups, the writer notes, one of the charrettes focused on Oak Street zoning, transportation, housing, poverty and economic development. To help it rebound and flourish, participants suggested several steps. Among others, they mentioned the need for more parking, perhaps in a garage; a small shuttle bus or van service, with a Mississippi River taxi to the Central Business District; new housing compatibility with local density and various demographic needs; a nonprofit agency or program to research and administer economic development incentives; and a greater role for nearby Tulane and Loyola universities in revitalization of the street. -- Times-Picayune   6/1/2005

Resource(s): www.nola.com/t-p/

River Ranch Developer Says Lafayette Will Benefit from Replacing Old Zoning Regulations with Smart Growth Codes

''Smart growth is the recognition that the way we develop real estate can have a tremendous impact on quality of life issues,'' said mixed-use developer Robert Daigle at a smart-growth workshop held by the Lafayette Planning Commission and the Lafayette Council of Governments, telling some 50 city and parish (county) officials that his nationally admired River Ranch, the 256-acre Traditional Neighborhood Development (TND) in south Lafayette, would be much easier to build had they replaced their 1960-era zoning and building regulations with smart growth codes.

He acknowledged, reports Lafayette Daily Advertiser writer Claire Taylor, that some developers and landowners will fight new guidelines, but stressed that in the long term smart growth boosts property values.

''On Johnson Street, for example, if you had the courage to outlaw 90 percent of what you see -- continuous curb cuts, signage -- in the short term there would be an adverse reaction,'' he observed. ''But I guarantee you, five to ten years down the road that real estate would be worth more.''

With City-Parish Councilman Bruce Conque recalling that River Ranch indeed needed so many waivers that zoning staff nicknamed it ''Waiver Ranch,'' Lafayette Consolidated Government development manager Rebekka Raines said the parish has given preliminary plot approvals to more than 1,500 lots since January, most of them in areas with little or on infrastructure, and has to ''find a way to control'' this huge growth.

She noted that Lafayette's planning, zoning and code department is seeking a federal Smart Growth grant to draw up a parish TND ordinance. Planning manager Mike Hollier said many smart growth policies are being incorporated into the ''Lafayette in a Century'' (LINC) comprehensive plan, in the works since 1997.

Carencro Mayor Glenn Brasseaux called for planning cooperation between municipalities, pointing out that Lafayette's regulations for mobile-home parks spurred their development in his city some seven miles north, and that a similar ordinance Carencro passed later prompted Scott and Youngsville to follow suit. ''Each area's rules can have impact on the others,'' the mayor said. -- Lafayette Daily Advertiser, The Advocate   5/21/2005

Resource(s): http://2theadvocate.com/index.shtml ; www.theadvertiser.com

Baton Rouge Revitalization Plan Involves LSU, Local Stakeholders

Clearly one of the top congressional advocates of smart growth and New Urbanism, Louisiana Democratic Senator Mary Landrieu commended Baton Rouge efforts to advance both, especially through revitalization of the distressed area between downtown and Louisiana State University (LSU) some two miles south, telling officials and onlookers at a vacant neighborhood site that will soon be reclaimed for an $18.6 million Hope VI housing project that she is working to increase the profile of smart growth initiatives and add federal funds for their implementation.

Appearing at the site with City-Parish Mayor-President Kim Holden, Plan Baton Rouge official Gwen Hamilton and Baton Rouge Housing Authority executive director Richard Murray, reports Baton Rouge Advocate business writer Chad Calder, Senator Landrieu expressed confidence that involvement of LSU, Plan Baton Rouge and other stakeholders in the project guarantees maximal effectiveness of the Hope VI money, saying, ''We think private sector development will dwarf the public sector investment.''

Mayor-President Holden pledged quick action on economic development, infrastructure upgrades and safety improvements, noting his recent contacts with businesses potentially interested in the area and mentioning the possibility of new incentives. One, he said, may be a revolving loan fund that would offer up to $100,000 for businesses coming to Old South Baton Rouge. -- Advocate   5/5/2005

Resource(s): www.2theadvocate.com/index.shtml

Baton Rouge Officials Urged to Get Neighborhood Input on Road Projects for Long-Term Bond Issue

As they move to convert the Baton Rouge-East Baton Rouge Parish sales tax into a 20- to 25-year bond issue and to put a plan for faster road construction and repair on the October ballot, Democratic Mayor-President Kim Holden and the City Council must extend their pledge to get neighborhood input to smart-growth advocates, says a Baton Rouge Advocate editorial, stressing, ''The old habits of building four- and six-lane highways, to build our way out of congestion, demonstrably haven't worked.''

Core city neighborhoods especially need street repair and maintenance, not major road construction, while others may prefer ''alternative routes around traffic bottlenecks'' or smaller new roads to ''complement redevelopment of commercial or residential districts,'' the editorial points out, seeing this city-parish infrastructure funding push as ''an obvious occasion for a smart-growth analysis of any proposed plan.''

The previous mayor-president, Republican Bobby Simpson, had a broad-based smart-growth task force, which benefitted from the advice of many of the movement's national leaders, who also spoke at other local public forums. Having ''the best track record of actually pushing for the better urban planning policies,'' the editorial concludes, the task force or a very similar group should help plan for the currently envisioned road improvement program. -- Advocate   4/23/2005

Resource(s): www.2theadvocate.com/index.shtml

Senator Views Development Solutions Through Eyes of Local Communities at Louisiana Smart Growth Conference

Often ''caricatured as a liberal obsession,'' for Louisiana Democratic Senator Mary Landrieu, smart growth embodies principles ''consistent with her conservative upbringing in New Orleans'' -- it improves quality of life, boosts property values, and allows zoning flexibility, reports Baton Rouge Advocate editorial writer Lanny Keller from a recent smart-growth workshop she co-sponsored at Southeastern Louisiana University, where she said, ''We have to have different strategies for different parishes (counties) growing in different ways.''

In the increasingly bi-partisan ranks of elected officials striving to make neighborhoods ''more functional and cohesive,'' the writer observes, Senator Landrieu shares the understanding of smart growth's importance with such politicians as former Utah Republican Governor and EPA Administrator, now Health and Human Services Secretary Michael Leavitt, and Michigan Democratic Governor Jennifer Granholm.

The senator sees the destructive impact of long commutes on family life, the writer notes, and she wants Louisiana to pursue economic prosperity in the spiritual and emotional context of its history and landscape, with care about amenities ranging from bike trails to distinctive architecture, all crucial for holding its creative young generation.

Other conference speakers made similar points. The senator's neighbor in childhood, attorney and planner Stephen Villavaso, recalled they could bike to 10 grocery stores, now all gone, due mostly to single-use zoning. He stressed the need to stop building the ''sterile single-family suburbs that ring our cities,'' even if smart-growth strategies may stir knee-jerk opposition, including fear of higher-density housing.

But architect Steve Oubre, the creator of the successful neo-traditional River Ranch in Lafayette, contrasted such fears with the groundswell of support for smart growth as promising to alleviate traffic, pollution and other community hardships. ''We are driving on concrete highways to the exclusion of knowing our neighbors and taking our kids to the park,'' he said. ''It's time to rethink the model.'' -- Advocate   4/22/2005

Resource(s): www.2theadvocate.com/index.shtml

Lafayette Urged to Nurture Smart Growth Efforts

Well on its way toward smart growth, Lafayette should now build more downtown housing, halt midtown Johnston Street deterioration, and facilitate traditional neighborhood developments (TNDs) such as the 256-acre, mixed-use River Ranch in its south, said one of the national movement leaders, the former four-term mayor of Indianapolis and present mayor of Chevy Chase, Md., Urban Land Institute senior public policy expert William Hudnut.

Guest of the weekly Independent newspaper at a packed River Ranch City Club event, reports Baton Rouge Advocate writer Patrick Courreges, the speaker praised local leaders for supporting downtown arts, museums, festivals and parks.

''This kind of commitment to culture can help revitalize a central city,'' he said, wishing the area had buildings suitable for conversion to lofts and other housing. He also commended the city-parish (county) and Lafayette Utilities System officials for their ''visionary'' though controversial plan to install broadband Internet, TV and telephone lines in all homes and businesses throughout the city, which would put it ''on the cutting edge of new information technologies that will be a driver in the 21st century.''

The plan, the writer notes, is opposed by Atlanta-based BellSouth and Cox Communications in court, the state legislature, and an ad campaign.

Urging officials to seize the opportunity for redevelopment of vacant lots and troubled strip malls along Johnston Street, the speaker advised them to ''eradicate the ugliness'' by burying utility lines, shortening signs and moving parking behind buildings, and to rezone the corridor for mixed uses, including residential and parkland.

As for an urban growth model, he cited the exact neighborhood where the event was held -- River Ranch, with 1,200 varied-income and varied-type housing units, shops, restaurants, a town center, parks, walkways and a lake. The antithesis of sprawl, such ''smart growth'' compact development works, he added, by making better use of land and reducing infrastructure and service costs. -- Advocate   4/1/2005

Resource(s): www.2theadvocate.com/index.shtml

Baton Rouge Welcomes Wal-Mart to Government Street Project, But Expects Modifications to Meet Smart Growth Principles

Having jointly worked out a revitalization plan for Baton Rouge's 2.5-mile partly blighted Government Street, the Mid-City Redevelopment Alliance, the Mid-City Merchant Association, the Downtown Redevelopment District and Plan Baton Rouge welcome a proposed 40,000-square-foot Wal-Mart Neighborhood Market as a vital addition to small local businesses, thrift shops and artist studios, but expect the Meyers Brothers development company to redraw its construction blueprint, with Alliance executive director Perry Franklin stressing, ''We just want the project to meet smart growth principles.''

Noting that the company's blueprint for replacing the Westmoreland Shopping Center with the Wal-Mart convenience store and two other retail buildings includes a big frontal parking lot, Mid-City Merchants Association president Mary Ann Caffery says, ''Government Street is not a strip mall-type neighborhood.''

All four groups, reports Baton Rouge Advocate business writer Timothy Boone, asked the East Baton Rouge Planning Commission to delay project approval so Meyers Brothers can adjust the blueprint to the street plan, with director Franklin calling the company's local attorney Charles Landry ''very amenable to the slowing-up process and giving us a chance to be heard.''

Completed in early 2004, after a year-long series of public meetings and help from Louisiana State University's Office of Community Design and Development, the writer notes, the Government Street Master Action Plan (GoMAP) outlines design standards to make the corridor more attractive and pedestrian-friendly, with sidewalks, parking behind buildings, landscaping and limited signs. -- Advocate   2/15/2005

Resource(s): www.2theadvocate.com/index.shtml

Editorial Asks Mayor to Actively Promote Smart Growth for Baton Rouge

Not surprised that a recent smart growth presentation by Plan Baton Rouge and the Smart Growth Task Force drew ''mixed reviews'' from the area's Federation of Civic Associations audience, because that's also ''political reality'' elsewhere, a Baton Rouge Advocate editorial is encouraged by the presence of Baton Rouge-East Baton Rouge Parish Mayor-President Kip Holden at the meeting, but asks him ''to use his bully pulpit and political influence to make smart growth a reality in Baton Rouge.''

Although local reception of smart growth shows promise, its principles will have to be energetically ''sold to residents'' to succeed, the editorial notes, recalling that Baton Rouge leaders visiting Nashville, Tennessee last year heard from planning expert Rick Bernhardt that they need to lay the reform groundwork at the grassroots level through neighborhood meetings.

Citing his advice that the process ''must be participatory and inclusive,'' the editorial stresses that reform implementation ''will also require the support of the Metro Council and the East Baton Rouge Parish Planning Commission,'' which ''have been less than vigorous in embracing smart-growth concepts.''

The editorial concludes: ''Smart growth should be viewed not as a single idea, but as a mix of strategies that can be used to help communities keep what is good as they grow. Not everyone will like every principle of smart growth, but that shouldn't be used as an excuse to torpedo the whole process.''

For more information on smart growth, the editorial directs readers to www.planbr.org and www.smartgrowth.org -- Advocate   2/1/2005

Resource(s): www.2theadvocate.com/index.shtml

Majority of Louisiana Voters Oppose Using Tax Incentives for Discount Chain Stores

A statewide poll, conducted by Loyola University political scientist Ed Renwick for the Baton Rouge Advocate, found 68 percent of voters against ''the use of tax incentives for large discount chain stores,'' with 21 percent in favor and the rest undecided -- the results exactly the same in the entire Baton Rouge region, including Livingston Parish, where $50 million bonds for construction of a Bass Pro sporting goods outlet that would anchor a 75-acre retail complex are being challenged in the state Supreme Court.

The plaintiffs argue that the tax incentives would give Bass Pro an unfair advantage over local retailers, says an Advocate editorial, considering it possible that poll results ''reflect reaction to recent negative publicity about large discount chains,'' especially about Wal-Mart.

Neighborhood and smart-growth groups frequently blame Wal-Mart and other ''big-box'' retailers for ''increasing traffic problems and driving business away from town centers.'' This has likely ''darkened the public's view of large retail chains in general,'' the editorial notes, pointing out that Wal-Mart chief executive Lee Scott launched a nationwide counter-offensive this month, with more than 100 full-page newspaper ads that hail its workforce's wages and benefits.

''In America in general, and perhaps to a greater degree in populist Louisiana,'' the editorial observes, ''there's a native distrust of big business, a sentiment bound to color public attitudes toward large retail chains.'' But their always seemingly full parking lots suggest ''that people have more mixed attitudes toward such retailers than the stark positions staked out by either opponents or champions of large chains would imply.'' -- Advocate   1/28/2005

Resource(s): www.2theadvocate.com/index.shtml

Public Response Mixed to Infill Redevelopment Ideas at Baton Rouge Smart Growth Presentation

After a ''Smart Growth'' presentation by Plan Baton Rouge and Smart Growth Task Force members to East Baton Rouge Parish's Federation of Civic Associations, some in the audience ''bashed the idea without saying much specifically against it,'' but most welcomed the prospects for infill redevelopment in the ''first ring'' neighborhoods between the center city and outer suburbs, which would ensure mixed uses, better street connectivity and more affordable housing.

In its Baton Rouge law and code audit last year, recalls Advocate writer Mike Dunne, the Washington-based Smart Growth Leadership Institute advised area leaders to create infill incentives, encourage ''traditional neighborhood design,'' promote residential development near job centers, reduce car dependency, offer density bonuses for affordable units, and streamline the permitting process to increase its predictability.

Although Councilwoman Martha Jane Tassin said the Parish Planning Commission finds the street and subdivision connectivity issue the hardest to solve in many planning and zoning cases, many in the audience saw it as crucial for their neighborhoods' livability and success.

The writer quotes Southdowns area resident Liza Armshaw who pointed out that her neighborhood is so attractive largely thanks to its connected streets, but that it still needs more sidewalks. He also mentions Garden District resident Kevin Thibodeaux who said he always liked his neighborhood but only recently realized it epitomized Smart Growth. -- Advocate   1/17/2005

Resource(s): www.theadvocate.com/index.shtml

Baton Rouge Mayor-President Outlines Plan to Draft Smart Growth Ordinances Based on Stakeholders' Common Issues

Taking over the reins of Baton Rouge-East Baton Rouge Parish, Democratic Mayor-President Melvin ''Kip'' Holden -- the first African-American in this post -- aims for measures to ease traffic, to encourage more walkable neighborhoods and other projects that help curb urban sprawl, and to spur both downtown and riverfront revival through trendy stores, restaurants and entertainment.

Asked by Greater Baton Rouge Business Report interviewer Mukul Verma about former Republican Mayor-President Bobby Simpson's smart growth task force, which talked for three years but accomplished close to nothing, the new mayor said he will ask stakeholders to specify goals within their own organizations first, submit them on paper, and come for a whole-day joint session to identify common issues for ''ordinances that we can put together right away.''

Next, ''we will deal with thorny issues,'' he said. ''One thorny issue a year.''

The mayor told the interviewer that the person he will appoint to lead the Planning Commission will understand that ''I'm not anti-development, but I'm pro-reality,'' and ''pro-reality means that we can't keep approving everything if the infrastructure is not in place.''

He also pointed out that his team is already at work with several inner-city community development partnerships on their role in expanding affordable housing. He said he intends to attract retail and other business to impoverished neighborhoods by cleaning them up first, and to improve their safety by offering perhaps ''no-interest or low-interest (mortgage) loans for police and fire personnel.'' -- Business Report   1/3/2005

Resource(s): www.businessreport.com/

Lawsuit Challenges Ruling for Redevelopment of New Orleans Public Housing Site

Smart Growth of Louisiana and its four local nonprofit allies gained high-power national support for their legal appeal against the $325-million redevelopment of the 64-acre former St. Thomas public housing site in New Orleans as ignoring federal law, the impact of a newly built Wal-Mart Superstore on a National Register historic district, and the prospective permanent displacement of 730 of the area's 800 low-income families.

Filing Amicus Curiae briefs on behalf of the local groups, which charge the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) with procedural illegality in providing a $25-million Hope VI grant for the project, five national organizations -- the American Planning Association, the National Trust for Historic Preservation, the Sierra Club, the Institute for Local Self-Reliance and the Great Rivers Environmental Law Center -- are also challenging HUD's failure to come up with a federally mandated environmental impact statement.

According to their briefs in the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeal, HUD left the site's environmental procedures to the HRI development company and the city's Housing Authority, which demolished 1,500 public housing units to accommodate their insufficiently studied replacement not only by subsidized and market-rate homes and apartments, but also by a Wal-Mart Superstore.   12/8/2004

Resource(s): http://bizneworleans.com/

Connecting Subdivisions Proves Troublesome in Baton Rouge

Although Baton Rouge's Unified Development Code calls for subdivision connectivity to ensure traffic flow and alternate routes, especially in emergency situations, the Planning Commission and the Metro Council have routinely waived the requirement, while Central District Councilman Joe Greco told a recent meeting of the mayoral smart-growth task force that his constituents ''want isolation,'' not a street grid, all of this making Baton Rouge Advocate editorial writer Lanny Keller wonder ''whether elected officials owe their constituents obedience or good judgement.''

The writer notes that the force's outside advisors, like a chief of staff to former two-term Maryland Democratic Governor Parris N. Glendening, might differ on other specifics, but ''are unanimous in talking about the importance of maintaining -- or building where it does not exist -- a comprehensive street grid.''

City professional staff shares the view, and City-Parish Democratic Mayor-President-elect Kip Holden also has emphasized that ''one-entrance subdivisions pose a serious public safety hazard.'' An accident or a toxic spill at a subdivision's only entrance blocks emergency vehicles or residents' escape route, the editor writes, pointing out that street connectivity foes ''might be sowing the seeds of disaster for their own families,'' while trading lower local traffic for outer sprawl, with all these separated subdivisions feeding congestion on major roads.

He concludes: ''People wanting isolation get it. They get isolated in traffic jams. They are isolated with children who must be driven to every activity, or to school. They waste time on clogged roads to get every gallon of milk.'' -- Advocate   12/7/2004

Resource(s): www.2theadvocate.com/index.shtml

Baton Rouge Mayor-President Vows to Deliver Plans to Contain Urban Sprawl

One of his top priorities once he takes office in January, said Baton Rouge city-parish Democratic Mayor-President-elect Melvin ''Kip'' Holden in a speech to the Baton Rouge Press Club, will involve efforts to ensure broad-based cooperation on a plan for containing urban sprawl.

Fully aware that sprawl is going to be ''a very contentious'' issue, the state Senator turned mayor-president, emphasized, ''I can't sit back and allow it to address itself because we would have uncontrollable growth'' and increased traffic would put the city virtually in gridlock.''

Determined not to let it happen, he will convene a February meeting of key agencies and interest groups, including the Department of Public Works, the Planning and Zoning Commission, Plan Baton Rouge, the housing industry and several civic associations, to focus on future growth in the context of traffic flow, public safety, health effects and related issues.

Even though the process ''may not be a popular thing,'' causing a slowdown in development and resistance in some quarters, he observed, he feels an obligation ''to go out and tackle some of these problems.''

Wishing the mayor-president-elect success with his challenging agenda, which also calls for working with Livingston Parish to establish ''light-rail'' service between Denham Springs and downtown Baton Rouge, Advocate managing editor Carl Redman cautioned him that he will find his job very different than state lawmakers have.

''As mayor-president, Holden has a greater burden to make things happen,'' the editor opined. ''It's one thing to make laws and set policies, and quite another to implement them.'' Nevertheless, the mayor-president stressed, ''We intend to deliver.'' -- Advocate   11/21/2004

Resource(s): www.2theadvocate.com/index.shtml

New Baton Rouge Mayor Will Need Metro Council Help to Advance Smart Growth Ideas

Having defeated incumbent Baton Rouge-East Baton Rouge Parish Republican Mayor-President Bobby Simpson, state Democratic Senator Melvin ''Kip'' Holden -- the first African-American on this city-parish post -- will need help from the Metro Council, which has retained its 7-5 Republican majority, to advance his smart growth ideas and win taxpayer support for a major program to improve the area infrastructure.

Unlike mayors in many other cities, observes the Baton Rouge Advocate in a post-election opinion, the Baton Rouge mayor-president shares roughly equal power with the Metro Council that approves the budget and oversees both residential and commercial development.

''While compromise is always key, a mayor too inclined to easy consensus can keep a community confined to the status quo,'' the daily points out. ''This was a frequent criticism of Simpson, and surely one of the factors that frustrated his bid for re-election.''

Referring to council members' public pronouncements, the daily hopes that they will cooperate with the new mayor-president who takes office on January 11. Indeed, Advocate writer Mike Dunne reported shortly after the election that many council members told him ''party labels like 'Republican' or 'Democrat' really don't control local decision making, although they can reflect philosophies, such as in terms of budgeting and spending.''

Democratic Mayor Pro Tem Lorri Burgess, who presides over the council during the mayor's absence and hopes to keep the post, said members got to know each other in past years and will be ''more efficient'' in 2005-2009. Republican member Martha Jane Tassin added, ''I think it should come down to what's best for Baton Rouge -- and that should be everyone's concern.'' -- Advocate   11/8/2004

Resource(s): www.2theadvocate.com/index.shtml

Baton Rouge Newspaper Urges City to Draft Smart Growth Proposals

Days after Smart Growth Leadership Institute president, former Maryland Democratic Governor Parris N. Glendening, advised the Louisiana Chapter of the American Planners Association in Lafayette to seek incentives for city development and disincentives to sprawl, the Baton Rouge Advocate reminded this city's conservative electorate about his often-voiced conviction that smart growth is really a ''conservative idea,'' because it saves public money, protects small-town values, and fosters ''a community sense of belonging and fellowship as it develops.''

Although Baton Rouge incumbent Republican Mayor Bobby Simpson and many council members embrace smart growth, they still have to come up with bold proposals, the daily said, encouraging them to start with lessons from a recent trip of 140 area officials, business leaders and civic activists to Nashville, Tennessee, where they heard about the pitfalls of car-dependency and the advantages of pedestrian-friendly neighborhoods.

Nashville chief planner Rick Bernhardt told them cars clog roads, people lack exercise and gain weight, the health-care system gets strained, congestion relief projects cost taxpayers a lot of money, tailpipe emissions foul air, the quality of life declines and the city attracts less outside investment.

On the other hand, the planner said, sidewalks and bike paths give people a chance to leave cars sometimes, while new subdivisions near businesses, churches and schools also mean more exercise, better health, cleaner air and higher quality of life.

The lesson should strike a chord in Baton Rouge, ''where traffic is a perennial problem and obesity ranks as a prominent health concern,'' the daily noted, stressing that one way to build support ''for a less car-addicted Baton Rouge is to discuss not only the cost of sidewalks, bike paths and walkable neighborhoods, but the benefits.''

Since walking and biking can improve not only public and atmospheric but also civic health -- because sidewalks and pedestrian-friendly neighborhoods ''can help nourish the small-town virtues that Baton Rougeans profess to hold dear'' -- the daily hopes ''that smart growth can have a future, even in conservative Baton Rouge.'' -- Advocate   10/19/2004

Resource(s): www.2theadvocate.com/index.shtml

Elevated Highway Plan Threatens Lafayette Historic District

Its proposed $300-million elevated Interstate 49 Connector over an old Lafayette neighborhood is a bad answer to the area's traffic problems, especially since the Federal Highway Administration (FHA) hadn't really considered ''reasonable alternatives,'' such as mass transit or the Teche Ridge route through a sparsely populated St. Martin County stretch east of the city, says the local Concerned Citizens Coalition, reading an appeal to a judicial green light for the project.

In August, reports Baton Rouge Advocate writer K. Blanchard, U.S. District Court Judge Tucker L. Melancon said that he did not necessarily agreed with federal planners, but they followed the law in making their choice.

The Concerned Citizens Coalition, aided by the Tulane Environmental Law Clinic, is challenging his ruling on two points. In line with their original April 2003 lawsuit, the plaintiffs argue that the FHA failed to pursue the alternatives and that the connector would harm the nearby Sterling Grove Historic District and Beaver Park, both covered by federal historic-site and parkland protection laws.

According to federal officials, the writer adds, the connector wouldn't affect those areas more than the roughly parallel U.S. 90 does. -- Advocate   10/5/2004

Resource(s): www.2theadvocate.com/

Editorial Predicts Tough Battles Over Baton Rouge's Smart Growth Efforts

Although most candidates in the Baton Rouge city-parish (county) election this November, including Mayor-President Bobby Simpson and his rival state Senator Kip Holden, embrace smart growth, a Baton Rouge Advocate editorial urges an incisive public debate on ways to turn the words into deeds, predicting ''tough political battles ahead over the practical implications of policies promoting better streets and neighborhoods.''

Published on the day of the mayoral Smart Growth Task Force's workshop for the Metro Council, the Planning Commission and other agencies, the editorial strongly supports its three top policy recommendations -- to promote higher-density projects in the city's urban core, to make planning and permitting procedures facilitate communication and cooperation among development interests, and to establish street design standards.

The Unified Development Code is overdue for thorough revision, since the area is ''deplorably ill-served by today's system,'' the editorial says. ''Developers are angry at neighborhood representatives, and vice-versa. The Horizon Plan is widely ignored. The lowest common denominator is usually the standard for architecture and urban design; low-cost development fronts on drab and utilitarian public places,'' the editorial stresses, before concluding: ''We believe it is past time for smart growth policies to be adopted, but that won't happen until specific ordinances or regulations are proposed for an up-or-down vote by either planning commissioners or Metro Council members.'' -- Advocate   9/30/2004

Resource(s): www.2theadvocate.com/

Ascension Parish Residents Voice Concern Over Location of Planned Mixed-Use Project

Ascension Parish (County) officials and business leaders declare their general support for smart growth, but the 500-acre mixed-use ''Trails at Spanish Moss'' project recently approved by the Planning and Zoning Commission for Geismar suddenly encountered such opposition from local residents and the Chamber of Commerce that developer L. J. Grezaffi withdrew his request to rezone the site from one to three housing units per acre until development terms and formal smart-growth guarantees are worked out.

With up to 1,500 new single-family homes and condominiums and no law on the books to make the developer stick to his current plan, reports Ascension Citizen writer Wade McIntyre, residents are afraid of excessive traffic congestion, worse school overcrowding, and the parish's inability to pay for additional services, including police and fire protection.

The Chambers of Commerce goes even further. E-mailing members a warning about the project's impact on schools, infrastructure and taxes, Chairman Don Ramsey and President-CEO Alice Bourque also had a ''big issue'' with its location, which would hamper nearby industrial operations.

Parish President Ronnie Hughes shares this concern, saying the project ''is basically what I would want, but it's in the wrong area.'' He pointed out that residential or mixed-use developments across from industrial and chemical plans, which would be hard to move, would be exposed to threats of industrial accidents and terrorism. Beside housing, the writer adds, the project would include a 12-screen movie theater, a medical center, restaurants and other facilities. -- Ascension Citizen   9/8/2004

Resource(s): www.ascensioncitizen.com/

Ascension Parish Council Rezones 500 Acres to Make Way for Mixed-Use Community

With the Ascension Parish (county) Council firmly set against any standard cookie-cutter subdivision for a 500-acre tract in Geismar, some 20 miles south of central Baton Rouge, planning commissioners approved developer L. J. Grezaffi's request to rezone the tract from one to three housing units per acre, which would let him build his smart-growth Trails at Spanish Moss mixed-use community for more than 1,440 families.

As presented by Spencer Design Group planner Bridget W. Spencer on behalf of his LJG Land Group, reports Ascension Citizen writer Darlene Denstorff, the project would include country estates, villas, cottages, townhouses and condominiums, along with shops, restaurants and various businesses, all situated in four-minute walk sections. The developer also promised to secure 6.8 miles of trail and 37 acres of waterways, and donate 9 acres for a school, fire station or sheriff's substation.

The project, the writer notes, resembles the River Ranch in Lafayette, applauded earlier this year by Parish President Ronnie Hughes as development the parish needs. Still, County Councilman and former planning and zoning commissioner Kent Schexnaydre would like the developer to pay for a detailed smart-growth plan for the council to consider. -- Ascension Citizen   8/17/2004

Resource(s): www.ascensioncitizen.com/

Glendening Credits Citizen Advocacy and Community Groups for Making Smart Growth a Priority Issue

''Smart Growth is becoming 'THE' issue in state and local politics and it is the citizen advocacy and community groups that are bringing it to the forefront and keeping it there!'' said Smart Growth Institute President, former Maryland Governor Parris N. Glendening in a speech to some 200 officials, activists and business leaders gathered by Plan Baton Rouge and Forum 35 at the city's Old State Capitol.

The former Maryland governor noted that since his 1997 Smart Growth and Neighborhood Conservation initiative, the idea has spawned programs in 27 states and earned commitment from leaders as diverse as former Utah Republican Governor, EPA Administrator Michael Leavitt and former U.S. Energy Secretary, New Mexico Democratic Governor Bill Richardson.

In Maryland, Glendening said, the new philosophy was, ''Sorry, the state will not pay to subsidize sprawl.'' The goal was to protect and enhance towns and cities, identify and preserve the best farms and natural areas, and save taxpayers from the high cost of the new infrastructure and services demanded by sprawl, he noted, pointing out that the state helped build in older communities and designated growth areas, but all outside construction required full private or local funding for roads, water and sewer lines, and schools, with developers or area officials having ''to explain -- to customers or taxpayers -- why they are driving up the cost of a project.''

All the state's 157 municipalities and the heavily urbanized expanse inside the Baltimore and Washington beltways became Smart Growth areas, while all its 23 counties were required to designate Priority Funding Areas, with a minimum housing density of 3.5 units per acre, current water and sewer services, and relevant 20-year population projections.

While the state aided growth in target areas, it also saved nearly 400,000 acres in eight years -- about a quarter of its protected land total.

Describing himself as ''a passionate environmentalist,'' the governor stressed the crucial importance of density in the fight against sprawl. ''Density, design and mixed-use development go hand in hand economically and socially,'' which includes new issues of community participation and affordable housing, he said, calling Smart Growth ''a political battle of wills.''

Telling its advocates to lead officials and business leaders ''in the right direction,'' he said, ''We have to show business groups that building and redeveloping in smart growth areas is also where they will find the profits.'' And the biggest profits are in downtown and ''carefully designed, high-density, mixed use growth areas.''

With some trying ''to pit conservatives versus progressives on Smart Growth,'' but with Maryland having proved that the so-called choice between economic growth and environmental protection is a ''false dichotomy,'' the governor called Smart Growth a conservative idea, since it saves money, and urged Baton Rouge residents to continue their strong push for a better quality of life.

He closed with remarks on the nation's ''three great waves of environmentalism.'' In the early 1900s, the first wave was led by President Teddy Roosevelt and Sierra Club founder John Muir, securing preservation of Yellowstone, Grand Canyon, and other great natural areas. In the 1960s, the second wave was spurred by Rachel Carson's book ''Silent Spring,'' leading to overhaul of federal and state environmental laws and bans on many toxic air and water pollutants. The third wave should be a movement toward Smart Growth, the governor said, concluding, ''If we are going to be successful in this third wave, we must stop sprawl.''   7/6/2004

Resource(s): www.smartgrowthamerica.org

S.G. Institute Report Advises Revision of East Baton Rouge Code to Align With Long-Term Land Use Code

''As it is now, smart growth projects are hard to do in Baton Rouge,'' but the Plan Baton Rouge's downtown vision is ''a shining example'' of how to create mixed-use, high-density, pedestrian-friendly neighborhoods with varied housing, says an audit report by the national Smart Growth Leadership Institute, recommending thorough revision of the East Baton Rouge Parish (county) Unified Development Code (UDC) to align it with the parish's long-term land-use Horizon Plan.

One of nine jurisdictions selected from more than 100 that applied for the smart growth audit, run by the institute and funded by the U.S. EPA., Baton Rouge hosted the institute's team of four national experts in March, reports Advocate writer Mike Dunne, their 79-page report now in the hands of Mayor Bobby Simpson's Smart Growth Task Force, created 30 months ago.

Presented by Smart Growth Institute President, former Maryland Governor Parris N. Glendening, and audit-team members Jessica Cogan Millman of the institute and Susan Wesson of the University of Southern California, the report should ''help move Smart Growth forward,'' the governor said, convinced that Baton Rouge could be among the movement's leaders.

Following the presentation, which included an overview of 10 Smart Growth principles in the local context, the writer reports, Mayor Simpson said the parish is using its developable land quickly, and if it wants to encourage infill and redevelopment, ''now is the time'' to set up the process and the necessary incentives.

He urged all groups to work together, cautioning listeners against inconsistency with an example of everyone seemingly favoring streets between older and new subdivisions ''as long as it is not my subdivision.'' -- Advocate   7/6/2004

Resource(s): www.2theadvocate.com/index.shtml

Citing Environmental Concerns, Group Files Suit to Halt Louisiana Wetlands Development Project

Undeterred in its fight against further development between Slidell and Lake Pontchartrain, the Save Our Wetlands group filed a suit against the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in federal court for a wetlands-mitigation permit and against the Department of Environmental Quality in state court for water-quality certification, a week later suing the St. Tammany Parish (County) Council in another state court for violating subdivision regulations to ensure the project is in ''the best interest of the public health, safety and welfare.''

With some 900 acres of the 2,500-acre area used by Tammany Holding Corp. for its already-finished Lakeshore Estates subdivision, reports New Orleans Times-Picayune writer Paul Bartels, the Save our Wetlands group, joined in the suit against the parish by Pirates Harbor resident Glynn Brock, wants the corporation to forgo the two Planned Unit Development (PUD) projects -- Lakeshore Estates and Lakeshore Village -- envisioned in its master plan, which the parish approved in 2001.

The group charges that dredging or filling of the last 650 acres of wetlands will harm a crucial fish habitat, and that the enlargement of the East Diversion Canal along Louisiana 433 will worsen pollution, flooding and the threat to homes and camps along the canal. The group also sees the PUD projects as incompatible with the parish's comprehensive New Directions 2025 land-use plan adopted last December. -- Times-Picayune   6/23/2004

Resource(s): www.nola.com/t-p/

Wetlands Group Upset Over Destruction of Estuary for Mixed-Use Project

Even though Tammany Holding Corp. intends to expand its 1998 Lakeshore Estates and start Lakeshore Village as mixed-use Planned Unit Developments (PUDs) with a variety of housing, the Save Our Wetlands group faulted the St. Tammany Parish Zoning Commission and Parish Council for allowing the destruction of the last 650 acres of wetlands ''out of a vast 5,200-acre wetland estuary'' along Lake Pontchartrain south of Slidell, and in a last-ditch effort sued the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers over its construction permit.

In the first phase of Lakeshore Estates, reports Times-Picayune writer Charlie Chapple, the company built several hundred upscale homes and a large apartment complex; in the second phase it will construct 250 homes and 1,000 multifamily units, while Lakeshore Village nearby will add about 5,000 single-family and multifamily homes.

Both communities, on a total of 2,500 acres, will include commercial space, professional offices, medical facilities, government buildings, schools, churches, yacht clubs and marinas. -- Times-Picayune   6/5/2004

Resource(s): www.nola.com/t-p/

Ascension Parish Team Impressed by Lafayette's Traditional Neighborhood Development

Concerned over his region's ''dumb growth'' in recent years, Ascension Parish (county) President Ronnie Hughes took Councilmen Jared ''Burger'' Beiriger and Kent Schexnaydre, Planning and Development Director Tom Fancett and grant consultant Dara Ewin to Lafayette, some 70 miles west, to see an example of ''smart growth'' -- the state's first and not yet completed traditional neighborhood development (TND), 256-acre River Ranch, acclaimed today, but not easy to launch.

First envisioned by planner-architect Steve Oubre in 1989, reports Ascension Citizen writer Darlene Denstorff, the mixed-use River Ranch project collapsed the following year; it was brought back, killed by the local planning commission, and proposed once more in 1997, and, ''some 100 variances later,'' sold its first lots in January 1998.

Planned for 1,200 families, River Ranch features landscaped walkways, a town square, shops, apartments and 350 single-family homes, with average 45-foot-wide lots, back alleys, and front porches but no front driveways. The neighborhood offers housing for various socio-economic groups, including rentals for college students and smaller homes for retirees, the writer observes, quoting developer Oubre, who points out it also sees little speeding since most drivers understand there are pedestrians all around.

The visitors from Ascension Parish were impressed. Mayor Hughes said River Ranch is the right model and invited the developer to the parish to evaluate its TND prospects. Councilman Schexnaydre, whose Strategic Planning Committee is reviewing development codes to address traffic and density issues, thought ''if people went to see it, they would want to live in a similar community.''

A builder by trade, Commissioner Beirgier also liked the mixed-use concept, but cautioned that it may take a while for the public to seek such subdivisions. -- Ascension Citizen   6/2/2004

Resource(s): www.ascensioncitizen.com/

Smart Growth Group Protests Proposed Covington Wetlands Development

Controversial since 1999, the 276-home Timber Branch II subdivision proposal for a mostly wetlands site just southwest of Covington is now in court, with a local Advocates for Smart Growth group complaining that its approval by the St. Tammany Parish Council earlier this month ignores several subdivision requirements and violates the New Directions 2025 plan's already-approved protections against more flooding and traffic jams.

Several plaintiffs, long involved in the still-continuing work on the 2025 plan, reports Times Picayune writer Richard Boyd, pointed out at a news conference that their group offered to have the project plans redrawn -- to make them compatible with parish requirements and the finished part of New Directions 2025 -- by nationally known planner Randall Arendt, but he was denied access to the site.

Area resident and opposition leader Hazel Sinclair stressed that the necessary filling of wetlands would damage nearby Little Tchefuncte River, and that the subdivision would destroy a pine savannah habitat, classified by EPA five years ago as worthy of saving.

Parish Councilman Marty Dean said he was repeatedly assured by the parish planning staff and legal counsel that the project meets all requirements and guidelines, adding, ''Had we turned it down, the developers would have sued us.'' -- Times Picayune   5/27/2004

Resource(s): www.nola.com/t-p/

Fast-Growing Parishes Worry That New Growth Will Outpace Infrastructure Development

''When we talk about smart growth, we're really talking about directed growth,'' said New Orleans Regional Planning Executive Director Walter Brooks at Louisiana's ''Smart Growth'' summit sponsored by Democratic Senator Mary Landrieu, who equated smart growth with sustainable development and cautioned suburbs to be careful about how they grow or ''all the reasons that people move there can evaporate.''

Held at the University of New Orleans, the summit drew representatives from 15 of the fastest-growing parishes (counties), reports Baton Rouge Advocate writer Joe Gyan Jr., quoting newly elected Ascension Parish President Ronnie Hughes, who expressed concern about the second-fastest-growing parish's infrastructure backlog, saying, ''Economic development will be driven by infrastructure development.''

New Livingston Parish President Mike Grimmer was equally concerned that his parish, projected to jump from the third to the first spot among the state's fastest-growing, will be overwhelmed by traffic, while lacking money to keep up with service demand.

Another top issue was the ever greater importance of coastal restoration in smart growth. ''As the threats to our coast and its communities have grown,'' said Coalition to Restore Coastal Louisiana director Mark Davis, ''so has the awareness that the survival of much of our way of life is tied to the survival of our coastal wetland, water and barrier islands.'' -- Advocate   4/27/2004

Resource(s): www.2theadvocate.com/index.shtml

Baton Rouge Invites National Experts to Review City's Planning and Development Codes

Smart growth is gaining ground in Baton Rouge, with The Advocate welcoming a '' 'Smart Growth' audit of the city's planning and development codes'' by three national experts invited by the Mayor's Task Force on Smart Growth and the Plan Baton Rouge downtown group, and The Business Report finding a potential flare-up at the task force's latest meeting promptly deflated by Greater Baton Rouge Growth Coalition president-elect Camm Morton, who said, ''When the bar is raised, you get better development and developers make more money.''

The president-elect, head of Commercial Properties Development Corp., notes Business Report writer Hal Cohen, voiced his opinion after Growth Coalition spokeswoman Marlene Weyand expressed concern that painting developers as villains may make them leave the parish (county), to which local land-use activist Thomas Marino responded, ''Don't let the door hit you on the way out.''

Plan Baton Rouge chairwoman Boo Thomas pointed out that developers ''have been a huge part of this (planning) process since day one,'' and the Growth Coalition president-elect stressed that ''some developers might leave, but more will come to fill the void,'' adding, ''Some of us might be comfortable doing what we've always done, but the better the planning and the better the zoning, the better development you get.'' -- The Advocate, The Business Report   3/20/2004

Resource(s): www.2theadvocate.com/index.shtml ; www.businessreport.com/

Baton Rouge Residents Hopeful for Quick Formation of Historic Preservation Committee

Dismayed by the failure of the Baton Rouge city-parish (county) Metro Council to create a historic preservation committee before the March 14 expiration of a 60-day moratorium on demolition permits for old downtown buildings, a moratorium urged by Mayor Bobby Simpson, the Baton Rouge Advocate says in an editorial the leadership's ''inertia'' is hardly new, since earlier mayoral task forces also have done little, including the Smart Growth Task Force that ''has produced nothing but Powerpoint presentations in more than two years of meetings.''

With a downtown preservation ordinance now ''engulfed in a sea of inertia,'' the editorial takes heart that residents ''who truly care about preserving old buildings and who wish to be appointed to the nascent preservation committee already have begun to meet in anticipation of action by the Metro Council.''

Reminding the mayor of his first campaign's phrase, ''If the people will lead, the leaders will follow,'' the editorial awaits ''formation of a committee to study ways of implementing the philosophy.'' -- Advocate   3/18/2004

Resource(s): www.2theadvocate.com/

New Orleans Unveils $17 Million Plan to Restore City's ''Front Door''

The six-year debate about beautification details for the 17-block stretch of Canal Street between Claiborne Avenue and the Mississippi River ''is officially over,'' said New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin, unveiling a final $17 million plan to restore the street as the city's ''front door'' -- a 24-hour gathering place, and pedestrian-friendly shopping and entertainment center -- a plan criticized by some as too costly, but approved two days later both by the Downtown Development District and the Canal Street Development Corp., as certain to spur hundreds of millions of dollars in private investment.

The revised beautification plan, reports Times-Picayune writer Bruce Eggler, envisages new granite or brick sidewalks for different street sections and repair of the old slate ones; numerous 8-by-20-foot ''bump-outs'' along the sidewalks, to reduce the curb-to-curb pedestrian crossing distance; a total of about 250 newly planted palm trees, most of them at the bump-outs; and much improved lighting. The mayor expects to invite bids for the work in June and construction to take about 18 months.

Still, Downtown Redevelopment District executive director Kurt Weigle noted that if his agency fails to secure the right terms for a $1.6 million city loan needed to complete the whole project, it will eliminate some features to get by with $15 million.

At the same time, the writer finds, the agency is working with the city on a long-range economic strategy for the Canal Street area. They want to redevelop the Iberville public housing complex as a mixed-use neighborhood, attract more upscale shops, and convert the vacant upper stores of commercial buildings into residential units.

''We need to make Canal 24 hours -- residential as well as retail -- so there is always something going on,'' said City Councilwoman Renee Gill Pratt. ''I'm very happy we're finally going to bring it back to life and have a renaissance on Canal Street.'' -- Times-Picayune   2/19/2004

Resource(s): www.nola.com/

Baton Rouge to Get Planning Advice from S.G. Leadership Institute

Widely recognized as a smart growth model for its reliance on present infrastructure, pedestrian-friendliness and potential to curb sprawl and invigorate the central city, Plan Baton Rouge will get a boost from the Washington-based Smart Growth Leadership Institute, whose national experts will visit early next year to evaluate the city-parish (county) ordinances and building codes and to recommend changes, a job that would otherwise cost the city some $60,000 to $100,000.

Announcing the institute's grant, Plan Baton Rouge Director Elizabeth ''Boo'' Thomas said, ''This is a wonderful opportunity, and one that I hope will help us better structure our local systems to make smart growth easier and profitable.'' Created by Smart Growth America, headed by former Maryland Governor Parris N. Glendening, and funded in part by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, notes Baton Rouge Advocate writer Mike Dunne, the Smart Growth Leadership Institute is helping ''state and local elected, civic and business leaders design and implement effective smart growth strategies.'' -- Advocate   12/23/2003

Resource(s): www.2theadvocate.com

Baton Rouge Proposed Mixed-Use Project Faces Daunting City Code Hurdles

Eager for a quality Traditional Neighborhood Development (TND) to compliment the nationally known New Urbanist downtown plan in Baton Rouge -- ''one of the most suburbanized towns with a tradition'' not of neighborhood but ticky-tacky cheap development, where Mayor-President Bobby Simpson's long-standing smart-growth task force produces ''little action'' -- the Baton Rouge Advocate hopes the River Ranch TND proposed by planner Steve Oubre and builder Richard Carmouche for the old Kleinpeter farm will convincingly demonstrate the advantages of mixed-use, pedestrian-friendly development over car-oriented sprawl.

Noting that ''building a neighborhood is much more difficult that just laying another cookie-cutter subdivision to yield the quickest profit,'' the daily's editorial says true ''new urbanist'' projects require ''a real mix of housing prices,'' since ''the people who work in the neighborhood coffee shops ought to also be walking to work.''

All this poses problems. River Ranch needs 119 waivers of the city development codes, the editorial finds, also citing Miami New Urbanist Andres Duany's observation that ''exquisite -- and expensive -- areas such as Georgetown in Washington, D.C., or downtown Savannah cannot be legally built in the typical American city.'' That's ''just nuts,'' but changing it, the editorial points out, requires some demonstration project that people can look at and see'' the difference from what ''they live in today.'' -- Advocate   12/8/2003

Resource(s): www.2theadvocate.com/index.shtml

St. Tammany's New Land-Use Plan Would Limit Suburban Subdivisions in Rural Areas, Preserve Farm and Timber Tracts

Crafted over the past four years with extensive public input, the St. Tammany Parish (County) New Directions 2025 land-use plan -- slated to replace a 1985 document and ensure better growth management while protecting local quality of life -- drew broad support at the final parish council hearing, which promises easy approval on December 4, reports New Orleans Times-Picayune writer Trey Iles. Already endorsed by the Planning Commission, the plan would require a series ordinances next year to limit suburban- style subdivisions in rural areas and preserve large tracts of farmland and timberland in the parish's center and north.

Hearing attendees urged special care for orderly growth along some five miles of Louisiana 21 between Madisonville and Covington, with resident Colleen Holley calling development along other area roads ''the ugly stretch marks of St. Tammany Parish (caused by) the unanticipated rapid growth that the parish was unable to keep up with.'' In response, parish land-use committee chairman George Hopkins described the parish as ''a composition of towns, corridors and countryside'' and stressed, ''We can concentrate on the new commercial (projects) closer to those towns and at the major intersections'' and leave corridors as ''open green spaces and residential areas.'' -- Times-Picayune   11/19/2003

Resource(s): www.nola.com/t-p/

Report Urges New Orleans to Empower Neighborhoods, Promote Fair Planning Decisions

''Progressive cities have found ways to empower neighborhoods while creating a clear, consistent and fair process in which business can operate'' and it is time for New Orleans to do the same, said the nonpartisan Bureau of Governmental Research's chairman Louis Freeman, releasing its ''Runaway Discretion: Land Use Decision Making in New Orleans'' report, finding the procedure marred by ''systemic weaknesses and an ad hoc approach.'' Consequently, Times-Picayune writer Bruce Eggler quotes from the report, ''planning decisions do not emerge from a fair, rational and consistent process'' and ''neighborhoods lack an adequate voice in their future.'' The report urges officials to ''strengthen the role of the master plan, clarify the zoning rules, limit the City Council's discretion and establish a system for organized, meaningful neighborhood participation in land use decisions that puts neighborhoods at the beginning of the decision-making process, rather than the end.'' Specifically, officials should set a deadline for the completion of the master plan; amend the City Charter to give the master plan in all its components ''the force of law;'' and shift the power of decisions on conditional-use applications from the City Council to the Planning Commission, while limiting the power ''to grant waivers and variances solely to the Board of Zoning Adjustments.'' -- Times-Picayune   10/9/2003

Resource(s): www.nola.com/news

NIMBY Resistance Thwarts Baton Rouge Smart Growth Projects

Most developers ready for smart growth, mixed-use or dense infill development in Baton Rouge have met stiff ''Not In My Back Yard'' (NIMBY) opposition, which usually forces project delays, costly changes or rejections by the East Baton Rouge Parish (County) Planning Commission or the Metro Council, both susceptible to claims that such projects would hurt property values, worsen flooding, intensify traffic and otherwise diminish local quality of life. Developer Mike Wampold, who wants to turn a weed-filled lot and a blighted vacant building on Stanford Avenue near the LSU campus lakes into ''the ultimate'' infill mix of apartments, condos and small shops, with sidewalks and landscaped green space, faced hostile area residents pressing officials to buy the site for a park, won approval only through a legal settlement and didn't yet break ground, reports Greater Baton Rouge Business Report writer JR Ball, with the developer saying NIMBY people ''show up in force to impose their will on any proposed development.'' City-parish public works director Fred Raiford says ''try to build a so-called smart growth project'' and you'll get the idea ''beat out of you by the residents already out there,'' adding that the definition of smart growth is ''(w)hatever the neighbors around it want it to be.'' Reviewing the most frequent complaints at project hearings, the writer finds that residents want single-entrance subdivisions separated from adjacent residential areas; homes away from apartments, shops or offices; and low-density neighborhoods without sidewalks. Thus, the routine zoning and development code waivers are explained by pro-infill planning commissioner Herb Gomez this way: ''If you're on the Metro Council, and 50 people from your district show up to say they don't want streets to connect, then you're looking at losing 50 votes if you follow the rules and force those streets to connect.'' Consequently, many developers prefer the easier single-use projects on open land, but each such project, notes national smart growth expert Ben Starett, expands the NIMBY zone, taking developers farther and farther into the countryside. To free officials from NIMBY coercion, Dallas architect and urban planner Paris Rutherford proposes replacing the current case-by-case development review rules with design and use guidelines that would determine the future look of a wider area. Sprawl ''reflects the path of least resistance,'' with the system ''well-honed and orchestrated, to create sprawl,'' he says. ''The only way to stop it is to retool the system.'' -- Greater Baton Rouge Business Report   7/23/2003

Resource(s): www.businessreport.com/index.html

Editorial Cites Need for Infill to Revitalize East Baton Rouge

As fast growth in East Baton Rouge Parish (County) expands the city's suburbs to the north, east and south beyond the parish line, and some older neighborhoods have lost many residents, city-parish officials should focus more on filling holes in the city fabric and on ''the revitalization of the urban core'' with new complexes of homes, apartments and shops that would also boost downtown growth, opines the Baton Rouge Advocate, applauding Mayor-President Bobby Simpson for his urban blight task force. The daily expects the task force to take advantage of the National Vacant Properties Campaign just launched by several smart-growth advocacy groups in Washington, D.C., and to act rather than only deliberate. The campaign, funded partly by the U.S. EPA, will help educate communities nationwide about vacant site reclamation and other ways of erasing urban blight, the daily says, urging Baton Rouge officials to study such cities as Flint, Mich., and Richmond, Va., already singled out for their successful revitalization efforts, and to apply the lessons locally. This would help them address other urgent Baton Rouge problems, including population loss, the daily adds, noting that a ''smaller population in the urban core results in decisions about the allocation of public services that have the consequences of making blight worse.'' -- Advocate   7/14/2003

Resource(s): www.2theadvocate.com/index.shtml

East Baton Rouge Road Expansion Delights Developers, But Concerns Mount Over Infrastructure Costs

With bulldozers tearing through East Baton Rouge Parish (county) woods and fields for the 2.5-mile extension of Bluebonnet Boulevard towards the Mississippi River, developers ''are salivating,'' but Department of Public Works director Fred Raiford is worrying about the cost of new services for this growth ''by leaps and bounds,'' reports Baton Rouge Business Report writer JR Ball, noting the evidence from more than 80 studies that sprawling subdivisions return less in taxes than they take in public money and quoting Founders' Network for Smart Growth and Livable Communities founding director Ben Starrett, who says fiscal conservatives should care for smart growth, since ''the only way to maintain the infrastructure in a sprawling community is through higher taxes.'' Real estate experts expect the boulevard extension to bring in retail shops, one or two ''big boxes'' and some offices first, then subdivisions and more stores, offices and homes, which will require still more services, in a cycle ''that will repeat itself for several miles, all the way to the parish line.'' Although builders will pay for most of the their projects' roads and utility lines, the writer observes, the public will always face the much higher maintenance bills, along with other sprawl-related costs. Living far from their jobs, suburbanites ''pay a hidden price in commuting costs;'' car dependency and sidewalk absence contributes to obesity and ''raising health care costs;'' and many once-vibrant city neighborhoods struggle and deteriorate. One is a ''moat of urban blight'' stretching ''through an area commonly called 'The Bottoms' and into the western edge of Mid City,'' the writer adds, quoting Dallas urban planner Paris Rutheford, who stresses, ''This is an area that should be developed, not open spaces.'' -- Baton Rouge Business Report   6/21/2003

Resource(s): www.businessreport.com/index.html

Baton Rouge Must Revise Zoning Codes to Reduce Sprawl, Experts Say

Ranked by Washington-based Smart Growth America as the nation's 24th most sprawling city -- because of the four-parish (county) region's low population density, separate land uses, poor street network and bad road congestion -- Baton Rouge must revamp zoning codes to save open space, promote mixed-use, infill and renovation projects and impose high developer impact fees for building in the suburbs, stated national experts at its recent two-day smart growth summit, advice welcomed by Mayor Bobby Simpson, area officials and developers, but also seen as easier to give than to implement. The mayor is frustrated by his two-year-old Smart Growth Task Force's inability to agree on any prospective growth-management measure, report Greater Baton Rouge Business Report writers JR Ball and Mukul Verma, quoting him as saying, ''Just about every smart growth principle is a complete shift from the way this community has thought for the past 30 years.'' The few developers willing to try smart growth -- the writers mention Tommy Spinosa, Mike Wampold and R.W. Day -- are also frustrated by red tape and neighborhood opposition. They pointed out that current planning and zoning makes greenfield projects much easier and more profitable than infill and renovation, and that residents prefer low density and ''hard boundaries between the places they sleep, shop and work.'' That's exactly why, stressed Funders' Network for Smart Growth and Livable Communities founding director Ben Starrett, Washington's King County Executive Ron Sims and others, Baton Rouge leaders should work with residents on smart growth regulations. ''Once those regulations are in place,'' director Starrett said, ''government leaders must have the backbone to ignore the complaints and allow development to happen.'' Referring to his statement that ''Sprawl and urban disintegration are the result of deliberate policy choices over the past 70 years,'' Executive Sims said it included spending of scarce public funds on infrastructure in outer areas, a policy reversed in King County and Seattle through political arm-twisting and forming diverse coalitions for a regulatory overhaul. It set a requirement for builders and corporations to compensate the county with open space donations for the right to build beyond the city limits, he said, adding, ''When you're not allowed to flee, when you're forced to stay, that's when you see change.'' -- Business Report   5/27/2003

Resource(s): www.businessreport.com/

New Orleans Regional Transit Authority Plans October Grand Opening for Streetcar Route, Eyes Future Expansion

With work well advanced on the $161 million New Orleans project to restore the 3.1-mile Canal Street streetcar route, one of the city's staples between the early 1930s and 1964, the Regional Transit Authority (RTA) already plans a grand opening for October, hoping merchants and restaurateurs will recognize the event as a floodgate for more business and mark it with special sales, free samples and discounted meals. Replacing diesel buses, dozens of apple-red Canal line streetcars will look like their ''venerable'' counterparts running along the historic St. Charles route, reports Times-Picayune writer Frank Donze, but will feature a modern propulsion system, air conditioning and hydraulic lifts for wheelchairs. Upbeat about the prospects, RTA officials expect to hold a Christmas week debut for the Canal line's one-mile Carrollton Avenue spur to City Park, while preparing their next big-ticket project -- the $115 million Desire streetcar line. Both projects, the writer notes, faced risk last year when the Federal Transit Administration (FTA) halted its aid while Congress debated a proposal to cut the federal share of funding for mass transit from 80 to 60 percent. With the help of Louisiana's congressional delegation, especially Democratic Senator John Breaux, the writer adds, the impasse was broken and the FTA promised to pay 80 percent of New Orleans' streetcar costs. -- Times-Picayune   4/24/2003

Resource(s): www.nola.com/news/t-p/frontpage/

Editorial Questions Slow Pace of Baton Rouge's Smart Growth Task Force

One trait of initiatives by the Baton Rouge Mayor-President Bobby Simpson's administration is the establishment of a task force, usually launching a long, and sometimes spotty, series of meetings, observes the Baton Rouge Advocate, giving as a prime example the ''smart growth'' task force, whose members represent ''all shades of opinion about town planning'' but have met ''only sporadically over almost two full years,'' which makes the daily wonder ''what's taking so long -- especially since many other cities, some of them larger and some much smaller than Baton Rouge, have been getting with the program.'' The daily points out that at a recent national Smart Growth conference in New Orleans many urban experts listed specific steps to spur mixed-use, pedestrian-friendly development using present city infrastructure and focusing on mass transit, all of which shows ''it's not rocket science.'' Quoting a conference speaker, the two-term Republican mayor of Charlotte, NC, Patrick McCrory, who said he doesn't need a definition of smart growth because he knows it when he sees it, the daily thinks his speech could provide an easy smart growth primer for Baton Rouge. With planners across the nation concerned about the decay of ''inner-ring suburbs,'' auto-dependent and marred by strip malls, the daily calls it also a problem in Baton Rouge and concludes: ''We believe McCrory's lessons ought to be high on the agenda for Simpson's task force, and we hope that specific recommendations about how to curb sprawl don't have to wait for another two years of the mayor's term.'' -- Baton Rouge Advocate   2/18/2003

Resource(s): www.theadvocate.com/

Final Public Hearings Scheduled for New Orleans Downtown Streetcar Line

Having recently released a two-year environmental study on New Orleans' proposed three-mile downtown Desire streetcar line, the Regional Transit Authority (RTA) is gathering final input from a series of three public meetings this month, and written comments till February 26, planning to send the US EPA the final Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) in July, to secure the 60 percent federal cost share and launch the $108 million construction in mid-2004 for completion in late 2006. Named after the famous Tennessee Williams' play ''Streetcar Named Desire,'' reports New Orleans Times-Picayune writer Frank Donze, the line still faces several design and track arrangement problems, which could raise its cost to about $136 million. He also notes that two downtown firm executives question the proposed layout of the line's final section, between Toulouse and Canal streets, arguing it would interfere with their businesses. -- New Orleans Times- Picayune   1/28/2003

Resource(s): www.nola.com/news/t-p/neworleans/

Revival Plan Spurs Hope in New Orleans' Upper 9th Ward

After years of neglect, New Orleans' Upper 9th Ward -- where 40 percent of 14,000 residents live in poverty, less than 10 percent gets public assistance, and 533 empty lots or buildings spawn pockets of crime -- is placing its hopes in an ambitious revival plan, under which a long-abandoned school would become a community center, with senior housing, offices, a gym, outdoor basketball courts and a nearby park. The plan, inspired by the interfaith All Congregations Together (ACT) group, funded with a Wisner Foundation grant, crafted by the director of planning for the University of New Orleans' (UNO) College of Urban Affairs, Wendel Dufour and UNO assistant professor David Gladstone, and unveiled before 800 faithful at St. Mary of the Angels Catholic Church, reports New Orleans Times-Picayune writer Leslie Williams, offers several strategies for solving the area's housing, economic, recreation and crime problems. The planning team, stressed director Dufour, made the blighted school ''both a symbol and centerpiece of the Upper 9th Ward revitalization,'' telling congregants that their ''next challenge is to set up a task force'' with city officials and others who can help implement the plan. Quoting ACT board members, Paula Arcenaux who said, ''We want this vision to become a reality'' and Gale Armant who called it ''a great start,'' the writer points out that the plan was also embraced by attending City Council members Cynthia Willard and Marlin Gusman and representatives of Mayor Ray Nagin. -- Times-Picayune   1/16/2003

Resource(s): www.nola.com/archives/t-p/

Louisiana Parish Purchases Former Scout Camp for Recreation, Preservation

Launching four months of work on a master plan for turning the 106- acre Camp Salmen site along Bayou Liberty west of Slidell into a recreation area, part of it open to the public early next year, St. Tammany Parish (county) President Kevin Davis said, ''We want to keep it pristine. The whole idea of acquiring the property was to prevent urban sprawl.'' A camp of New Orleans-area Boy Scouts for more than 60 years until 1983, the site was bought from a private owner by the nonprofit Trust for Public Land and turned over to the parish last year, with the parish having three more years to repay the remaining $1.8 million of the $2.25 million purchase price. Having spent the initial $450,000 of its own money and federal aid secured by Republican Congressman David Vitter, parish officials, reports New Orleans Times-Picayune writer Charlie Chapple, expect to pay off the debt on schedule with another $225,000 federal grant, state contributions and tax-deductible private donations. The first of them, in the amount of more than $4,100, came from about 20 families from the Bayou Liberty Association. Among the site's cabins and cottages, the writer adds, is ''the Block House,'' considered the parish's oldest and possibly ''one of the oldest surviving structures in the Mississippi Valley.'' The parish will restore the building. -- Times-Picayune   1/12/2003

Resource(s): www.nola.com/archives/t-p/

New Orleans Planning Commission Unanimously Approves Master Plan's Quality of Life Documents

Having approved a ''vision statement'' for New Orleans' 13-part, long-range master plan several years ago, a land-use blueprint in 1999, and three of the seven ''quality of life'' documents earlier this year, the City Planning Commission unanimously passed the other four and is now ready to fine-tune the sections on safety and the environment, community facilities and infrastructure, critical areas and natural hazards, and environmental quality and energy, expecting to finish the task by mid-2003. Under the four just-approved quality of life documents, reports Times-Picayune writer Bruce Eggler, the city will improve social and economic conditions for the advancement of arts and culture, which includes the French Quarter's North Rampart Street, envisioned initially as a bar and live music entertainment corridor; support businesses, diversify the economy and create quality jobs; protect and promote its historic character and its neighborhoods through preservation and revitalization; and minimize the impact of tourism on historical and cultural resources, while expanding the range of visitor activities beyond the French Quarter.   10/23/2002

Resource(s): www.nola.com/t-p/

Eastern Louisiana Parishes Include On-Demand Vans, Buses in Transit Plan

Having studied the feasibility of integrated transit in three Mississippi River parishes (counties) east of New Orleans, the St. Charles Parish's South-Central Planning and Development Commission is asking its parish and St. John the Baptist Parish to form an on-demand system of small buses and vans, which tied with the present system in St. James Parish, would reduce traffic and provide access to jobs, stores and services for 2,000 elderly, disabled and other area residents who lack transportation. With a one-way trip costing $2, a daily ticket $4 and a monthly pass $60, the system would require $1.35 million a year -- $500,000 from the two parishes and the rest from state and federal agencies, reports New Orleans Times-Picayune writer Mary Swerczek. The system also could include a $3 park-and-ride connection between Destrehan and the New Orleans Central Business District, which would cost each parish an additional $65,000 a year, said commission CEO Kevin Belanger. Responding to council concerns about the proposed system's cost-effectiveness and self-sufficiency, the CEO stressed repeatedly, ''There is no transit system in the world that is self-sufficient.'' -- New Orleans Times-Picayune   8/20/2002

Resource(s): www.nola.com/news/t-p/riverparishes/

Baton Rouge Planners, Activists Urged to Read Smart Growth Network Handbook

Since the preservation of ''a beautiful old brick street'' discovered during resurfacing a portion of Convention Street in Baton Rouge was too costly, city officials and area business owners settled for a pedestrian brick-crosswalk provision in the work contract, prompting Advocate editorial writer Lanny Keller's reflection that ''these small touches'' are rarely thought about by local planners and that they, along with community activists, should be required to read a Smart Growth Network handbook, ''Getting to Smart Growth: 100 Policies for Implementation.'' The handbook explains the importance of pedestrian crosswalks and its ''host of ideas,'' supplemented by practical examples, may also help Mayor Bobby Simpson's task forces to ''define 'smart growth' for Baton Rouge'' and scrutinize the ''city-parish zoning and land-use process.'' Noting that other Louisiana cities -- Shreveport, Lafayette and Lake Charles -- already make it ''easier and nicer'' to cross downtown streets on crosswalks other than worn stripes of asphalt and paint, which seldom slows down drivers enough, the writer considers his city fortunate for ''having had a thorough indoctrination in a cohesive planning philosophy'' championed by ''new-urbanist'' planner Andres Duany and reflected in the downtown master plan. The ideas for better growth abound, the writer concludes; the issue is the ''political will to use them.'' -- The Advocate   5/29/2002

Resource(s): www.theadvocate.com/

Citizen Input Meetings Held for New Orleans Light Rail Corridor

Following the 1999 Major Investment Study, which showed the need for a better New Orleans area transit and rail system, a team of federal, state and regional planers and engineers opened a series of three meetings with local residents to get their input on the area's first priority, a $300 million East-West light-rail corridor. The light rail would link St. Charles, Jefferson and Orleans parishes (counties) with downtown New Orleans, reports Times-Picayune writer Tara Young, ease the chronically congested Earhart Boulevard thoroughfare, provide reliable transportation for residents without cars and spur economic development around stations. Although environmental assessment has not been completed nor funds secured, officials are confident that the corridor will have little impact on area communities and that money will come from federal, state and local governments.   4/12/2002

Resource(s): www.nola.com/news/

Residents Suggest Small Business Provisions for Proposed Commercial Development Clusters

St. Tammany Parish's proposals to cluster its southwestern commercial development primarily near Louisiana 21 and Interstate 12 satisfied most of the 50 attendees at a hearing in Covington, but some residents of this fast-growing area wondered how far they have to drive ''to get a quart of milk'' and suggested provisions for allowing grocery stores and small businesses near residential areas. According to Times-Picayune writer Charlie Chapple, developer John Schroder told consultants for the county's comprehensive New Directions 2025 plan that they force local traffic onto major highways, Covington architect Sam Fauntleroy saw ''nothing wrong with commercial developments along neighborhoods'' and Madisonville area resident Louis Ogle Jr. cautioned that if the plan isn't realistic, ''it will make it very weak.'' The meeting's local moderator, George Hopkins Jr., responded that the plan reflects most county residents' wishes for orderly growth development, preservation of rural land and community identities, and clustering commercial growth around major intersections. The writer notes that proposals for southwestern St. Tammany include greenbelt buffers and setbacks along I 12; designation of a stretch of Louisiana 1077 as a scenic corridor; preservation of environmentally-fragile areas along the lower Tchefuncte River; a bicycle path along Brewster Road southwest of Covington; and protection for large timberland tracts in the area's northern part.   2/21/2002

Resource(s): www.nolalive.com/

Quality of Life Projects Underway in Louisiana Parish

Buoyed by last month's voter approval of $18 million in general obligation bonds, St. John the Baptist Parish officials launched a process of hiring consultants, architects and engineers to start at once almost 30 long-envisioned quality of life advancement projects when the money becomes available in June and to complete them by 2005. They want to improve parish parks and drainage, enhance streets in several cities, and build a civic center in LaPlace, a library in Garyville and a recreational complex on the west bank of the Mississippi. Officials expect to detail their projects within a few months.   2/14/2002

Resource(s): www.nola.com/news/

Home Ownership Program for Teachers Takes Off in Louisiana

A pilot low-interest mortgage program to boost Louisiana teacher homeownership -- set up through Hibernia National Bank and the Federal National Mortgage Association (Fannie Mae) and launched by Governor Mike Foster and state Treasurer John Kennedy on January 22 -- ran out of its $10 million within three days, giving 84 teachers 5.8 percent loans to buy homes at an average price of $136,720. ''We knew the program would take off,'' said Governor Foster, ''but I don't think any of us realized the money would go this quickly.'' New Orleans Times-Picayune writer Laura Maggi reports from Baton Rouge that the loans, awarded regardless of family income, required down payments of only $500 or 1 percent of the house's purchase price, whichever was less, with applicants paying closing costs and other fees. Treasurer Kennedy said the program could be expanded depending on other money sources -- possibly the teacher retirement fund, which is already investing in similar securities. Hibernia National Bank is reportedly placing the names of qualified applicants on a waiting list.   1/30/2002

Resource(s): www.nola.com/

Wal-Mart Debate Overshadows Housing Needs at New Orleans Council Meeting

At an intense ten-hour public hearing on a proposed Wal-Mart Supercenter in the Lower Garden District and a 1,200-unit residential project for the former St. Thomas public housing site, the New Orleans City Council approved zoning petitions to keep the proposals alive, but put off votes on specific ordinances -- including one to create a tax increment financing (TIF) district for the housing -- until early February. Wal-Mart proponents argued, reports Times-Picayune writer Bruce Eggler, that the huge store is needed to create jobs, help finance the adjacent housing construction and show the city's readiness for economic development. Opponents countered that the store would be too big for the historic neighborhood, jam local streets with traffic and hurt dozens of smaller businesses. But council members themselves focused instead on the $322.7 million housing development partly financed under the federal HOPE VI program, which replaces high- density public complexes with smaller, varied-income neighborhoods. Wal-Mart is important, said Councilman Troy Carter, but the key issue is ''what are we going to do about the people who've lost their homes'' due to the planned redevelopment. The writer notes that under the TIF district rules, the Wal-Mart sales tax revenue would be kept from the city's general fund, to help pay off bonds for 705 of the proposed 1,200 housing units.   1/4/2002

Resource(s): www.nola.com/news/

Louisiana Town Creates Plan to Save Bayous from Overdevelopment

Officials and life-long residents of small St. Bernard Parish coastal towns are ambivalent about the new subdivisions sparked by a recent influx of affluent retirees, recreational anglers and other city dwellers -- they benefit from brisk business, but fret over local quality of life and hope to save their bayous from overdevelopment with an ordinance that tightens permits for docks and wharves. Times-Picayune writer Aaron Kuriloff reports that the ordinance is the area's ''first attempt to control development before it compromises the identity'' of towns like Shell Beach, Hopedale, Reggio and Delacroix Island. Noting that home values in the parish's eastern part have jumped more than 20 percent during the past two years -- almost tripling the decade's average for the whole New Orleans metro area -- the writer quotes the ordinance's author, Henry ''Junior'' Rodriguez, who says the growth is ''going to get worse'' and the parish needs to regulate construction of ''camps and docks that obstruct the waterways'' which ''belong to the public.'' Parish planning commission chairman Earl Dauterive points out that since each new subdivision poses immediate sewage, drainage and water supply problems, threatens fragile wetlands and invites other environmental troubles, the commission is conducting a land-use study to determine ''what parish residents actually want, not just what developers want.'' A public land manager at the Louisiana State Land Office, Clay Carter, adds that other metro area communities are watching St. Bernard Parish closely, to see if its ordinance may serve as a model for their growth-management efforts.   12/26/2001

Resource(s): http://www.nola.com/

Committee on the Future of Coastal Louisiana began shaping a plan to stop the chronic erosion of 40 square miles each year

Governor Mike Foster's new Committee on the Future of Coastal Louisiana began shaping a plan to stop the chronic erosion of 40 square miles each year, with a dire warning from its chairman, New Orleans Whitney Bank president King Milling, that otherwise the shore erosion "will incrementally destroy the economy, culture, ecology and infrastructure -- not to mention the valuable tax base -- of southern Louisiana." The state has spent about $150 million over the past decade on isolated shore-preservation projects, with research continuing at several universities, but the efforts have been largely "ineffective," he said, due to political turf battles, the lack of an agency in-charge and the huge $15-$20 billion remedial costs. He stressed that since coastal preservation requires at least ten years to succeed, local and state leaders must adopt "a different mind-set," an effort "which arguably runs counter to normal political cycles of two, four and six years" between elections and that they must face short-term consequences for the sake of imperative long-term goals. Advocate writer John LaPlante reports that the governor expects the commission's coastal preservation plan by January.   10/24/2001

Resource(s): www.theadvocate.com

Afraid that a proposed 120-day construction ...

Afraid that a proposed 120-day construction moratorium in its unincorporated areas would have deprived this Baton Rouge community of revenue from developer fees, St. Tammany Parish Council promised instead to tighten drainage requirements for new projects as early as October 4. Developers are currently required to prevent runoff increases at residential projects and to reduce runoff from a "10-year storm" -- which brings rainfall of 3.6 inches an hour or 8.4 inches in 24 hours -- by 10 to 25 percent at commercial projects, depending on their size. Parish President Kevin Davis now wants developers to reduce runoff by 25 percent from a "100-year storm" -- which brings rainfall f 4.7 inches an hour or 13 inches in 24 hours -- both at commercial and residential projects, with an additional key requirement that the runoff figures must be calculated before the sites are cleared. The president says that would make developers build drainage systems capable of handling more runoff. 08.31.2001   9/4/2001

Resource(s): www.nola.com

Smart growth means planning," opines the Baton ...

Smart growth means planning, opines the Baton Rouge Advocate, summing up a detailed presentation for Mayor Bobby Simpson's advisory committee, by his Texas guest, Austin urban expert Austen Librach. Noting wide recognition of the similarities between the two cities and their environmental challenges, the daily reports that Librach depicted smart growth "as very much in line with the sometimes controversial 'New Urbanism' that is the heart of the Plan Baton Rouge," the city's master downtown plan. Smart growth is not anti-growth and developers "are not endangered species in Austin," Librach said, explaining that the city seeks to preserve adjacent open space, while promoting development closer to its core and along designated smart-growth corridors. The city sets aside land near newly acquired park sites for transit-oriented projects along bus lines and a proposed light rail, narrowly defeated by voters so far, but likely to be approved this year. The city also offers developers financial incentives and faster approvals to encourage a shift from strip malls to mixed-use building designs, with ground-floor shops and businesses, upstairs residential units, wider sidewalks, trees and backside parking. "Planning," the daily says, "is an intense and many-faceted discussion about buildings and neighborhoods, rather than a bureaucratic process of complying with long lists of subdivision codes." Also, a "Great Streets" beautification and functionality program, like Plan Baton Rouge, advocates slower two-way traffic to make streets safer for pedestrians. Librach conceded, the daily observes, that smart growth isn't cheap or easy. Austin has spent $147 million on area parkland and on development rights to protect its aquifer since 1992; has been relaxing development regulations more slowly than smart growth advocates hoped four years ago; and still must convince some homeowner groups that they don't "own a neighborhood" and should cooperate with others in the planning process. He also pointed out that Baton Rouge is ahead of Austin with such downtown attractions as a planetarium, an art museum, a theater and protected historical sites. The daily concludes that Austin "has a coherent philosophy" of its growth management, adding, "It will be interesting to see what Simpson's advisory committee will make of it." 08.29.2001   9/4/2001

Resource(s): www.theadvocate.com

Having recently spent $44.5 million to redevelop ...

Having recently spent $44.5 million to redevelop another old New Orleans building -- the abandoned and partly burned American Can Co. plant -- into 268 high-ceiling apartments with huge windows, developer Pres Kabacoff of Historic Preservation, Inc. says, "With the baby boomers getting to be 50 and younger professionals wanting to work near town, you can capture the market that wants to be close to the restaurants, museums and the amenities that the tourists love." His company, reports Associated Press writer Alan Sayre, has invested about $750 million since 1980 doing just that, renovating decrepit buildings, warehouses and department stores into unique apartment complexes, retirement homes and hotels in New Orleans, Houston and St. Louis. The company's president, Tom Leonhard, stresses that the century-old buildings were constructed so well that they could take "a lot of abuse and are still safe." The American Can apartment complex, made possible by $29 million in tax-exempt state bonds and $7.5 million from the city, reserves 20 percent of units for renters with low and moderate incomes, which increases its appeal to diverse groups. Convinced that upscale urban housing will bring back residents to cities, Kabacoff says, "We've gotten carried away a bit with the American dream. People are recognizing the waste. They're stuck in traffic and ... want to return to a different environment. Over time, this movement will continue to grow."   9/4/2001

Resource(s): www.detnews.com

With residents of East Baton Rouge Parish ...

With residents of East Baton Rouge Parish urging "more and better planning" after "years of growth-at-all-cost policies," an Advocate editorial applauds the Metro Council's unanimous vote to televise Planning and Zoning Commission meetings on the Metro 21 cable channel as "a healthy step forward for public access to government." But the fact that it required protracted public efforts and raising the money for the TV costs, suggests "a significant constituency among commissioners for keeping planning decisions -- millions of dollars are sometimes involved for private interests -- as close to the insiders' circle as possible." Noting that neither Mayor-President Bobby Simpson nor commission chairman Frank Muscarello have promised to continue the TV coverage after the money raised runs out next year, the editorial says the "strained" relations among developers, homeowners and comprehensive planning proponents require more public oversight and involvement, especially with major decisions ahead. The editorial mentions decisions on new roads, pedestrian-friendly development downtown and future, highway-induced pressures on "the northeast quadrant of the parish," where "rural zoning is something of a happy hunting ground for urban sprawl, and one of the few chances to preserve green space in the center of an urban area building out toward Hammond and Clinton." The editorial places its hopes "for new thinking about suburban sprawl and its financial and social implications for the city" in mayoral committees of residents and developers due to recommend changes in growth planning and permit approval by October 1. 08.14.2001   8/16/2001

Resource(s): www.theadvocate.com

With drugstore giant Walgreens planning a big ...

With drugstore giant Walgreens planning a big store in New Orleans' French Quarter, conservationists and residents of the tradition-rich district fear that its history and character are slowly losing out to commercial interests. They have gone to court to fight the zoning variance that allows Walgreens to build a store almost twice the size allowed for local retailers, says Associated Press writer Brett Martel in a report carried by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. He writes that the French Quarter Citizens for the Preservation of Residential Quality group lost its first zoning variance argument, but Civil District Judge Robin Giarusso ruled in a second suit that the Vieux Carre Commission, responsible for the Quarter's architectural integrity, must hold a hearing on the project. The city's appeal of the order antagonizes many. A former councilwoman, Peggy Wilson, criticizes giving variances in the French Quarter, saying that's one place where we ought to hold to the letter of the law at least.   7/18/2000

New Orleans: The U.S. Conference of Mayors ...

New Orleans: The U.S. Conference of Mayors and the American Farmland Trust have formed an urban-rural partnership to promote city revitalization and farmland protection. Announcing the partnership at the Conference of Mayors 67th Annual Meeting here, the Conference President, Mayor Deedee Corradini, stressed the partners' common interest in using "economic resources more wisely ... to preserve natural resources." American Farmland Trust Poresident Ralph Grossi said the partners can best ensure "recycling of brownfields and protection of greenfields" by working together as a united "constituency for a broad, smart growth policy agenda."   6/18/1999

New Orleans: At the U.S. Conference of ...

New Orleans: At the U.S. Conference of Mayors 67th Annual Meeting here, its new president, Denver Mayor Wellington Webb, urged a push for regional city, suburban and rural partnerships against sprawl and for smart growth. His nine-point agenda calls for capital investments in cities, better quality of life for working families, business participation in urban transit financing and more leeway for cities to structure federal tax incentives and grants for specific needs. Mayor Webb said his top priority as the organization's president is producing a document for presidential candidates about working families and smart growth issues, creating an alliance of mayors and county officials, and "putting an urban agenda in this nation's spotlight."   6/18/1999

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