Don’t Write New Orleans Off as Dead
New master plan and CZO invigorates city and citizens

by Heather Livingston
Contributing Editor

How do you . . . give hope to a city whose salvation has been in doubt?

Summary: Three years after Hurricane Katrina decimated the Gulf Coast, New Orleans is finally well under way in creating a new master plan and comprehensive zoning ordinance (CZO) that should return hope and investors to the Crescent City.

Led by Boston-based Goody Clancy, the master plan and CZO will incorporate recommendations developed during three citywide planning initiatives carried out in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, as well as new input from community groups throughout all planning districts. By developing a new zoning ordinance, the city will be implementing a key recommendation of post-Katrina plans.

This process is particularly important for New Orleans because it previously did not have a strong tradition of planning

Goody Clancy Principal David Dixon, FAIA, who served as the team leader, explains that this process is particularly important for New Orleans because it previously did not have a strong tradition of planning. Two full years of work have gone into the creation of the plans, with tremendous input from the community throughout. Dixon says that the city of New Orleans is unlike any other he’s encountered because of the large number of fourth-generation (and higher) residents, 75 percent according to one survey conducted during the process.

Who are your people?
“I came to realize that a great many of them lived in the same neighborhood that their parents and at least their grandparents had lived in,” recalls Dixon. “When we started working there in the planning process, people would say: ‘In your neighborhood your name is David Dixon. When you leave your neighborhood you have no name.’ People identify socially, culturally, economically to an extraordinary degree with their neighborhood. Therefore, to an extent that I think would be distinctly different from most comprehensive master plans, this is one that really needs to focus on enhancing the quality, character, and distinctiveness of neighborhoods.”

People identify socially, culturally, economically to an extraordinary degree with their neighborhood

Dixon believes that the master plan needs to be sensitive to social equity because neighborhoods tend to be black or white. Additionally, because of the strong personal identification with neighborhoods, the shared benefit of citywide economic growth needs to be clearly defined. The master plan also needs to provide stronger protections for historic preservation and, at the same time, demonstrate how a vacant brownfield adjacent to a historic neighborhood can be developed with greater density yet still be fully compatible within the historic context.

Understanding how such previously overlooked development can pump life into the neighborhood and tax dollars into the city is of paramount importance for the citizens of New Orleans. “There’s been a big debate in New Orleans for years between preservation and innovation/change and it’s entirely artificial,” Dixon believes. “It is preservation and the distinctive character of places that attract people and investment, and there’s plenty of land to develop to accommodate this investment.”

Building on its strengths
Other primary considerations in developing the master plan and CZO are:

• Providing affordable housing
• Planning for jobs of the future
• Building on cultural tourism
• Providing better and more efficient public transportation that builds on the streetcar tradition
• Greening building codes
• Planning for climate change in a below-sea-level city.

To help New Orleans make the abundant water an amenity instead of a liability, the city recently invited representatives from The Netherlands to discuss their successes and strategies.

The people in New Orleans who participated were fascinated by the optimism and pro-active attitude that the Dutch brought

“The charrette with the Dutch was really fascinating because they come from a culture that values water; that makes a virtue of it,” says Dixon. “They use canals to create great public places. They designed parks to hold water during heavy rains because when you live below sea level you flood anytime it rains. They create levies that are in fact hills that they then develop. They create islands that break the energy of waves, which considerably reduces the surge. It’s a fascinating attitude, and the people in New Orleans who participated were fascinated by the optimism and pro-active attitude that the Dutch brought. New Orleans has covered up its canals because many of them were seen as unsightly, and people were afraid kids would fall in. What the Dutch said was: ‘Open them up, make them beautiful amenities, and they’ll hold a lot of water when you have heavy rains. Rather than levies that are walls that you don’t have confidence in, build a hill and put some buildings on it with wonderful views out over the lake.’ It really woke up people to the range of possibilities that they have.”

The Big Easy shall rise again
Dixon believes that the creation of the new master plan and CZO has given New Orleans a much brighter future than it’s had in 50 years. “New Orleans had a tradition as being a city people didn’t fully trust,” he explains. “One of the messages I would want to get across is that this planning process is being taken more seriously and conducted with more transparency and integrity than any other process we’ve been involved in. People are absolutely dedicated to doing a planning process that the rest of America respects. I don’t want people to grow discouraged about its future because it has a very bright future. There’s a whole lot that has to be in place, but it’s got a very strong future."