News
Whose Vision for Mid-City?
May 18, 2007
Original The Times-Picayune (posted on nola.com) article→
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The test for our mayor, recovery chief Ed Blakely and the City Council is whether the offer of large-scale economic retail development post-Katrina and the tax dollars it will generate is tempting enough to prompt them to abandon the entire neighborhood planning process. The abandonment of the Mid-City recovery plan by any of our leaders would be a public announcement that the planning process was simply a feel-good process to keep the locals happy.
The Times-Picayune
Whose Vision for Mid-City?
Point of View
Friday, May 18, 2007
Miles Trapolin
After the storm, in every flooded neighborhood and in the midst of the piles of debris and lost memories, signs proudly proclaimed “We are coming back.”
Included was a promise: that we would grab this opportunity to come back better than before.
To make that promise a reality, neighbors gathered in every part of town to plan our future. It was our time to design a course for the rebuilding and future growth of the city.
Now we, as a city, will learn whether the forces of post-storm development will supersede the vision our neighborhoods crafted for their future. The contest that will prove the case is forming in Mid-City, where Victory Development of Columbus, Ga., has announced a major retail development that would irrevocably change the character of the neighborhood.
The Victory development would cover about 35 city blocks in Mid-City, stretching from Carrollton Avenue to Jefferson Davis Parkway and from Bienville to Toulouse Street. It is a suburban-style development with large retail anchor stores and 2,500 parking places. The development would obliterate the street grid in the area and put thousands of cars onto city streets that are too small to accommodate that volume of traffic.
Victory’s concept for retail development in this area is diametrically opposed to the Mid-City recovery plan that residents created after the storm. The final plan addressed economic development in the land targeted by Victory.
That area is currently a mix of commercial businesses, light industrial, the closed Lindy Boggs Hospital and empty lots. The Mid-City plan for this area is mixed-used development that maintains the street grid and consists of small- and medium-sized commercial businesses, residences and green space. The plan follows recommendations made by the City Planning Commission in 1999.
The plan envisions development on a scale that is consistent with the neighborhood. It would be a place that invites pedestrians, bike-riders and the use of public transit — including our prized Canal Street streetcar. This plan preserves the character of Mid-City, which is a mixed-race and mixed-income area with long-time neighborhood businesses and historic buildings.
The Mid-City Plan also embraces developments such as the one proposed by Victory, but it puts that development where it logically belongs: on Tulane Avenue.
Tulane Avenue has long been a struggling business corridor. The UNOP plan supports large retail development in the area between Interstate 10 and Tulane Avenue, an area that can handle both trucks and volumes of cars.
The test for our mayor, recovery chief Ed Blakely and the City Council is whether the offer of large-scale economic retail development post-Katrina and the tax dollars it will generate is tempting enough to prompt them to abandon the entire neighborhood planning process. The abandonment of the Mid-City recovery plan by any of our leaders would be a public announcement that the planning process was simply a feel-good process to keep the locals happy.
Councilmembers Shelley Midura and Stacy Head, who represent this area, have publicly stated that they support the Mid-City neighborhood plan. Ms. Midura has presented urban developments from other cities that are consistent with the vision we have for Mid-City. The examples she has brought forward prove that the neighborhood plan can work.
Like most New Orleanians, I am working hard to help our city recover. I moved to Mid-City after the storm. With my neighbors, I have contributed through the various planning processes. It would be a betrayal not only to Mid-City, but to every neighborhood in New Orleans, to have our recovery plan tossed aside because an out-of-town developer has other ideas for our neighborhood.
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Miles Trapolin is an attorney who serves on the board of the Mid-City Neighborhood Organization. He can be reached at miles@trapolinlawfirm.com.
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