back

Rebuilding New Orleans

Unified Plan Gaining Steam

January 27, 2007
By Coleman Warner
Excerpts

Mayor Ray Nagin told more than 1,000 people attending a "community congress" for the project last weekend that he liked what he knows of the plan and expects to sign it, adding, "We should move to implementation with rapid speed." Council President Oliver Thomas, in an interview, praised the "clustering" and house-elevation ideas and, in a point echoed by others, said planners did a good job of eliciting feedback from citizens in New Orleans and displaced elsewhere.

New Orleans City Councilwoman Cynthia Hedge-Morrell, serving on an advisory panel that monitored the planning, said, 'this has been the most open process that has ever been done on this scale ... I don't think that anybody can say that we didn't make every effort.'

During a Thursday meeting of the Community Support Organization, the planning advisory panel, the group's chairwoman, Vera Triplett, asked if the "clustering" effort will in time include a tough approach with people who refuse to move.

"Will there eventually be some entity that says, 'You have to do this,' " Triplett asked, referring to the idea of closing certain neighborhoods to resettlement.

A consultant for the planning effort, Troy Henry, assured that won't happen, saying the plan is "purely incentive- and voluntary based."

---

Neighborhood-Planning Project Near Completion

January 27, 2007
By Molly Reid
Excerpts

Begun in mid-September with a $3.5 million grant from the Rockefeller Foundation and an additional $1 million from the Greater New Orleans Foundation, the Unified New Orleans Plan aimed to combine all the initial recovery plans with fresh citizen input into a unified, citywide, overarching whole.

Unified New Orleans Plan officials say they expect the plan to be adopted by the mayor and the City Council by March 7. Until it is incorporated into the city charter, the plan will remain an unfinished product, and residents will have opportunities to make their voices heard, said Jeff Thomas, a New Orleans lawyer who has been advising city officials on recovery policy.

...the public presentation of the plan to the City Planning Commission is scheduled for Feb. 13...From there, a six-week-long public comment period will begin, during which the plan may be adjusted by the City Planning Commission and the City Council. The Planning Commission will host at least two public comment meetings for residents to voice concerns, priorities or questions...Unified New Orleans Plan officials say they expect the plan to be adopted by the mayor and the City Council by March 7...residents will have opportunities to make their voices heard...

'This is not going to be an easy mountain to climb, but the people . . . have taken the bull by the horns and have recognized that to get the funding they want, a lot of the work's going to have to come from them,' said Ron Mallis of the Goody, Clancy team that has been working in planning districts 1, 6 and 7. 'They are really pumped.'

top of the page