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.
UNOP District 4 Meeting August 3, 2006
Agenda set. Will talk about planning teams and give state of neighborhoods as they are introduced.
Groups introduced themselves. Virginia says minutes will be taken and groups listed.
Virginia brings up criteria set-up for District Planner:
o urban planner
o knowledge of funding/government
o cultural diversity
o transportation
o communication and facilitation skills (communicate well with all parts of the district)
o enough resources & staffing
o local representation
o economic development
o Accountability, Availability, Accessibility
o public housing and how to deal with itACORN – big into housing, very involved in New Orleans for years, plenty of students involved. Considers infrastructure as a non-immediate need. Might preserve historical aspects of neighborhoods.
EDSA – local group was both a positive and negative, better equipped to deal with neighborhoods, culturally diverse
SCHWARTZ – worst presentation of all Tuesday night, hyped disaster recovery of 9/11, development in Harlem, lots of glass and steel towers, Considers infrastructure as an immediate need. Will preserve historical aspects of neighborhoods. Had funding strategies. Willing to step back from his plan to go with another plan, if needed. Their role is to get everyone to the same level of planning. Different feel to the group, not as professional, more personal. Richard Campanella on their team
GOODY-CLANCY – online poll for MCNO, experience in communities and feels schools are important to planning. Smart enough to put their local people out front. The retreat idea was a little much. Anchored in “new urbanism” and has done a lot of work in cities. Infrastructure was considered an immediate need. Will preserve historical aspects of neighborhoods. Impressed with what they did with Baltimore and home-ownership. They tout, online, HUD affordable housing developments, including owner-occupied.
H3 STUDIO – their presentation was all about St. Louis. Seemed brusque, structured. Have worked with flooded communities. Have an open, transparent process. Flood mitigation was a strength. Infrastructure is immediate need. Will preserve historical aspects of neighborhoods. Communication skills were least suited for talking to New Orleanians.
Conference calls can be arranged by the ThinkNewOrleans group.
Once discussion was done, the group there voted thusly:
1st choice 2nd choice
Acorn 1 1
EDSA 3 7
Schwartz 21 14
Goody Clancy 20 6
H3 Studio 1 2
Neighborhood Plans: St. Bernard wants to work by itself. Public housing neighborhoods should work together with someone who has expertise. To deal with HUD, resident councils are supposed to have a voice and can have a strong one with planners. Planner will have to know how to network with housing residents who aren’t in New Orleans. As a district, we should demand of HUD to work public housing into our plans. And HUD is the final approval on ALL plans.EDAW, HDR/HOK, KLM/CH Planning, Davis/Brodie/Bond all have experience in working with public housing. From the point of use in Land Use law, federal regulations require communities have a voice in the process.