Mid-City Neighborhood Organization

Wednesday, April 4th’s edition of the Times-Picayune had the latest news and information on the proposed community center at Comiskey.

The community center was also featured on 99.5 FM, as DNA Media CEO Damon Harmon was interviewed. You can download the audio [mp3, 7MB].

Here’s the text of the article in the TP:
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Thanks to Janet Ward Pease and Michael Homan for compiling an addendum to the Lambert Plan for Mid-City. This addendum was compiled from notes on the Lambert Plan taken by many participants in the recovery planning process, and we respectfully ask anyone reading the Lambert Plan for the Mid-City neighborhood to also read our addendum. To quote from the addendum itself:

We commend the Lambert Group for the work they have done in laying out recovery projects for
Mid-City. This addendum adds to the Lambert Plan our perspective for Mid-City’s growth
beyond recovery. It also outlines our certain concerns we have with the Lambert plan; edits the
Lambert funding matrix, and finally lists factual and typographical errors.

We’ve posted this document as a PDF [41 KB] so check it out.

It’s here at last: The final version of the Mid-City Neighborhood Rebuilding Plan by Lambert Advisory, LLC.

You can download it, but be advised that it’s a 16 MB file.

This document is just one of many neighborhood rebuilding plans submitted to the New Orleans City Council yesterday. (We believe MCNO is the only neighborhood group to receive a true final copy of their plan on the same day the council received theirs.) This plan is the result of many months of work by community members and professional planners, especially Clifton James & Associates who were assigned to the Mid-City neighborhood. It draws heavily upon our Mid-City Recovery Plan, which is a living, grassroots, community-authored document which we continue to develop.

What’s next? We’ve been told that this plan is “representative of what MCNO and other residents of Mid-City have requested.” We trust that this is so. But as Ronald Reagan said: “Trust, but verify.” Therefore we are asking all the chairs of the Mid-City Recovery Committees to read the plan closely and critically, and to make notes. We will compile these notes and share them with Lambert Advisory, the City Council and any other relevant parties.

Also, we want to make sure that our immediate priorities get converted to funding requests as soon as possible. This is where the rubber meets the road as far as dollars are concerned. We must examine the report and make sure that the early and mid-term priorities are accurate. The LRA and the mayor’s office seem to be adopting an accelerated timeframe. That could be a good thing; as LRA Director Kopplin has said, money can be released in a matter of weeks.

The Mid-City Neighborhood’s Rebuilding Plan is now available online. Thanks to the neighborhood committees, Clifton James, Steven Dominick, Paul Lambert and everyone else who worked so hard on this.

In a Times-Picayune story today about neighborhood recovery plans by Coleman Warner, Mid-City looks pretty good:

But most plans feature a dizzying array of ideas. Among those rich in intriguing detail is the plan for Mid-City. In addition to calling for creation of the railway linear park that stretches to Treme, that plan proposes a health/residential complex for the elderly, a dog park, a multiple-use recreation complex, restored public schools and four small community gardens.

Long term, the Mid-City neighborhood plan calls for creation of a high-density commercial and residential district in a largely rundown area near the junction of South Carrollton Avenue and Interstate 10.

Val Dansereau, zoning chairman for the Mid-City Neighborhood Organization, said ideas that are filtering into recovery plans are a mix of pre-Katrina and post-storm thinking, hashed out during Monday night meetings that draw 80 to 90 at a time to Grace Episcopal Church on Canal Street. Optimism is running high about the Mid-City plan, in part because businesses are opening and progress is being made in landing a public library branch in the area, he said.

“They’re enthused, otherwise they’d just give up, and we wouldn’t have anyone at the meetings,” Dansereau said. “It’s shoot for the moon.”

The Mid-City Recovery Committees will not be meeting on Monday, September 25th. Apparently there is a big sporting event that night, some American version of soccer I believe.

Mid-City Recovery Committees will resume their work on a recovery plan for Mid-City on Monday, October 2nd, 2006, with a meeting 6:30 - 8:00 PM at Grace Episcopal Church (3700 Canal Street). Please join us!

We have two meetings set up next week to talk about the District 4 recovery plan.

Data Sharing Session I with Schwartz Representatives: Monday Sept 11th at 6:30pm at Grace Episcopal on Canal Street. Bring all the material you can. - Facilitated by MCNO, PNOLA and any volunteers.

Data Sharing Session II and First Meeting with Frederick Schwartz himself: Wednesday Sept 13th at 6:30pm at St. Leo’s in the Cafeteria (Air conditioning, 100 person occupancy) located in the DeSaix neighborhood along St. Bernard Ave. Meet our district planner and add to the data sharing material from Monday. Facilitated by Frederick Schwartz, DeSaix, PNOLA and any volunteers.

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

I’ve finally taken a stab at completing the section of our Mid-City Recovery Plan which deals with the issue of local control. (more…)

Think New Orleans has posted audio recordings of conference calls between MCNO and two prospective planners: Frederic Schwarz and Goody Clancy.

Alan Guitierrez has some questions and criticism relating to the impending UNOP voting process, by which New Orleans neighborhoods are supposed to choose planning teams.

Neighborhoods from District 4 of the Unified New Orleans Plan met August 3rd at Grace Episcopal to give the pros and cons on the five planners to be voted upon for district planning.  These are the minutes (incomplete as they may be) from that gathering.

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Although the current status of the Community Support Organization for the Unified New Orleans Plan is unclear, there may still be an opportunity for neighborhood groups to nominate representatives. According to the UNOP FAQ, the CSO will have “Five people selected from nominations submitted by individual neighborhood organizations.” Therefore, at our next meeting of the Mid-City Recovery Committees (Monday, August 7th, 6:30 PM, Grace Episcopal, 3700 Canal) we will nominate an individual to represent Mid-City on the CSO.

Update: Scratch all that. I just talked to Brenda Cho and she confirmed that although the slots have not been filled yet, nevertheless the nomination process has been closed since mid-June. Sorry for the confusion.

The Community Support Foundation is playing a key role in the unified planning process for the City of New Orleans. We need some Mid-City represntation at this meeting!

New Orleans Community Support Foundation Meeting

WHEN: Friday, July 21, 8:00 am to 9:15 am

WHERE: Greater New Orleans Foundation, 1055 St. Charles Avenue, 1st floor (K&B Plaza, Lee Circle)

MORE INFO: Call (504) 598-4663

I called the above number to try to get a sense of the agenda and was referred to Brenda Cho at Concordia (569-1818). I left her a voicemail. I will post more info here if and when it becomes available.

Thaks to Neighborhoods Planning Network for putting the word out.

Update: Here’s the agenda, via NPN:

I. Welcome
II. Approval of June 17, 2006 Meeting Minutes
III. Ratify Review Panel recommendations for City Wide Planning
IV. Team and Neighborhood/District Planning Teams
V. Approval of contract for project Coordination and Oversight Team
VI. Approval of contract for project website consultant
VII. Approval of contract for project communications consultant
VIII. New Business
Adjourn

Schroeder of People Get Ready has posted notes on the July 12th NPN forum wherein a panel of key players answered questions about the city’s unified planning process. This is a good resource if you want to come up to speed on the process, but be warned, it’s a moving target and continues to develop even as I type.

MCNO has obtained a copy of Starting Point, a report from the Louisiana Recovery and Rebuilding Conference. Although the document is dated November 22nd, 2005, we’re only seeing it now. We believe it deserves wider distribution for the insight that it provides into the recovery planning process. The document was posted at LouisianaRecoveryAndRebuilding.org but that website isn’t working at the moment. Fortunately a PDF of the Starting Point report is available from the LRA website. We’re also posting a copy on our site just in case that one disappears.

Please come to Grace Episcopal Church (3700 Canal Street) Saturday at 10 Am for the Mid-City Planning Meeting. Clifton James, the architect assigned to our neighborhood, will be presenting his plan (based on our plan) for the recovery of our neighborhood.

Saturday June 24, 2006, 10:00 am - 12:00 noon, Grace Episcopal Church, 3700 Canal St.

We will be meeting with Clifton James to discuss issues and ideas developed by planning committees. All Mid-City residents welcome. Please join us. Tell your neighbors!

Afterwards, head over to City Park for the Mid-City Art Market and the first-ever Festival of Neighborhoods.

We’ve published a list of Mid-City Recovery Committees. Please join one!