Mid-City Neighborhood Organization

WE NEED YOUR INPUT!!!

The official District 4 Planning Meeting is Wednesday, April 22, from 6-9pm at Jesuit High School.

On Friday, March 20, planning firm Goody Clancy posted the Draft Master Plan. The proposed land use map for District 4, which includes Mid-City, is here.

The Draft Master Plan is a goldmine of information on the city and its historic and current physical environment. However, MCNO needs your input to determine whether the proposed land uses are appropriate for our neighborhood. They do not match up completely with the land uses proposed by the citizen-guided Lambert Plan.

Specifically, Goody Clancy proposes “low-density multi-family” for all the residential areas of Mid-City other than a small area on the City Park side of Bienville and Carrollton. “Urban Mixed-Use” is proposed for the Tulane Corridor and the Lindy Boggs site. For Canal, “Neighborhood Mixed-Use” is proposed.

After speaking with planners from Goody Clancy at length on Friday, March 27th, and examining the Land Use document posted with the Draft Plan, we have determined the following:

1. “Low-density multi-family” allows up to 36 residential units per acre;

2. Neighborhood mixed-use allows a mix of uses (e.g. residential and commercial), with a FAR (floor to area ratio) of 2.0. FAR is a measurement of the number of floors allowed compared to the amount of space the building takes up on the lot. For example, a two-story property that takes up half of a lot would have a FAR of 1.0. A FAR of 2.0 allows a two-story building that occupies the entire lot, or a four-story building that occupies half of the lot.

3. Urban mixed-use allows a mix of residential and commercial, with a FAR of up to 8.0. That allows a building of up to 8 stories if it consumes the entire lot, or 16 stories if it consumes half the lot.

If we do not provide sufficient input to Goody Clancy, the final land use and zoning will not reflect our desires!!!

Please attend the Neighborhood Meeting on April 6 and provide your input, then plan to attend the District 4 meeting on April 22!!!!!

Jennifer Farwell
Vice President
MCNO

There is a change to tonight’s agenda!

The Veterans Administration has announced its consideration of the Lindy Boggs hospital site as an alternative site for the proposed VA Medical Center. The VA is hosting a public meeting next Monday August 11th at 7pm for this purpose.

MCNO will therefore postpone our main agenda item, Energy Costs, to allow sufficient time to educate our members and neighbors about the VA proposal and how it fits into the Mid-City Plan.

The agenda is now:

Agenda

1. Welcome

2. VA Consideration of Lindy Boggs Hospital as Alternative Site

3. Crime Update

4. Neighborhood Information Sharing

Update from MCNO Board Members on Progress of projects
Announcements of Night Out Against Crime events to be held Tuesday August 5th throughout Mid-City
Guy Fournier – Update on the New Orleans Faith Health Alliance Project
Linda Stone & Raymond Breaux of Global Green – Brief on Green Schools & the Build it Back Green program

The next Mid-City neighborhood meeting is Monday August 6th, 6:30 – 8pm @ Grace Episcopal Church, 3700 Canal St. The agenda is:

1. 1st & 3rd District Police Captains update on Crime
2. Update on 2007 Legislative Session from Dist 94 Rep Nick LoRusso
3. Presentation by 1st & 2nd District Tax Assessors on 2008 Tax Assessment process (we are awaiting confirmation from the Assessors)
4. Breakout Session – Small Groups work on Committee Issues.

The doors open at 6:15pm for informal networking.

Please join us!

Our next neighborhood-wide meeting is Monday May 7, 6:30pm at Grace Episcopal Church. We hope you will join us. Here is a preliminary agenda. If there is a topic you would like to see on a future agenda, or an informational item you would like to briefly present at this meeting, please contact Jennifer Weishaupt or leave a comment below.

Housing – Brice White and Miles Trapolin will present information about addressing blight and problem landlords.

Community Center – Doug Joubert will have the site plans for Comiskey Park and the bullet list of what the facility will include to share with the group. If you didn’t make it to the Mar 31 event, you’ll want to see this!

Info Sharing – brief information of 2-5 minutes each.

Please invite a neighbor!

April 2nd is the first Monday of the month, and that means it’s time for our regular Mid-City Recovery Action Meeting: 6:30 – 8:00 PM at Grace Episcopal Church, 3700 Canal St.

The story in the paper has generated a lot of discussion. We hope it generates a lot of new faces at Monday’s meeting.

A substantial (45 – 60 minutes) portion of the meeting will be dedicated to discussion of Victory’s plans for the Bienville – Toulouse, Jeff Davis to Carrollton corridor, as well as what we understand about the Carrollton to N. Solomon portion (this is between Bienville & St. Louis), including:

1. Providing the background and timeline of what MCNO has learned about Victory’s plans and how we have engaged them in considering the neighborhood’s vision for the area.
2. Discussing the 2 different plans that have been presented by Victory to date.
3. Our efforts to poll the existing businesses in the area.
4. The support we have gained from Councilmembers Head & Midura’s offices regarding respecting the neighborhood plan.

In light of the large amount of information that we have to discuss, we encourage everyone to take a few minutes to read the Mid-City Recovery Plan and the Mid-City Rebuilding Plan [PDF 16MB] by Lambert & Associates. There are references throughout that apply to this specific area of Mid-City (Lindy Boggs, Industrial Corridors, Lafitte Greenway etc).

Lastly, invite your neighbors to join us Monday night. Of course, we have other business we will discuss as well.

Angela Brenneke asked me to post this agenda for tonight’s meeting of Mid-City Recovery Committees on her behalf. (The meeting is tonight, Oct. 2, 2006, from 6:30 to 8:00 PM, at Grace Episcopal Church, 3700 Canal St.)

• Mid-City library
  Boozocracy – support, organization (Bart and Michael)
  Updates on NOPL plans (Jeannette)
• Kiosks – who will take this on/follow it through
• Outreach –
  flyers with phone numbers, bilingual, trash pickup, neighborhood groups, booklet type deal – putting this together.
  Getting more people involved in the meetings/mid-city rebuild
• Community Development Corporation – 2 guest speakers
• ZONING DOCKET ZD049-06 (Jennifer W.) Request by 535 BORDEN AVE LLC & BORDEN VERNON LLC for a Conditional Use to permit a multi-family residential development in an LI Light Industrial District, on Square 795, All lots, in the First Municipal District, bounded by Tulane Ave., Ulloa, S. Alexander and S. Hennessey Streets. The municipal address is 4301 TULANE AVENUE (ZBM B-12)

The first draft plan for District 4 under the Lambert Group will be studied at this meeting. All are encouraged to study the plan before coming to Grace Episcopal Monday at 6:30 p.m. You can view the plan here on the MCNO website:

http://www.mcno.org/MidCityPlanDraft.pdf

Mid-City Recovery Committees will be meeting tonight, Monday August 21st, 2006, at Grace Episcopal Church, 3700 Canal St.

Please join us! (more…)

Mid-City Recovery Committees meet Monday August 14th at 6:30 PM at Grace Episcopal (3700 Canal). Please come and help us develop a plan for Mid-City.

We’ve made a lot of progress. All committees except Transportation have completed their sections of the recovery plan.

Now it’s time to begin a review process. We will break out into committees, read through the plan as a whole, and look for connections. For example, the Education Committee might take note of the vocational programs in the section on Security & Crime Prevention. Look for ideas that could improve your own committee’s portion of the plan or offer constructive criticism for other portions.

If you have a printer, please bring a printed copy of the plan with you. It’s on the web at:
http://thinknola.com/wiki/Mid-City_Recovery_Plan

Monday July 17th, 2006, 6:30-8 PM at Grace Episcopal Church, 3700 Canal Street

• Welcome & Why Being Here is Important (Wendy Laker, 5 minutes)
• History of the Mid-City Recovery Plan (Bart Everson, 5 minutes)
• Questions and Answers with City Council Members/Representatives and Mr. Clifton James (30 minutes)
  Note: Chairs and representatives of the committees met on July 16th and formed five questions which are listed below. These questions will be asked first, then questions will be taken from the floor. Please keep all questions focused of the recovery planning process. If you have other questions for your council rep, please write it on an index card provided at the back of the room.
• Committee Breakout Meetings (7:15-8PM)

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Mid-City Recovery Planning Meeting

Agenda for Monday, June 19th, 6:30 PM at the Grace Episcopal Church, 3700 Canal Street [map]
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