This timeline tracks The National Trust for Historic Preservation and our continued involvement in the revitalization and rebuilding of the Gulf Coast region.
Created by emilynthp on Sep 19, 2008
Last updated: 10/17/10 at 10:58 PM
Tags: National Trust for Historic Preservation Gulf Coast Recovery Mississippi Louisiana New Orleans Hurricane Katrina rebuilding Charity Hospital Rebuilding Together Preservation Resource Center
It’s “I Love Louisiana Day” today at the 21st Annual New Orleans Film Festival. Among the new films being screened today is Land of Opportunity (2:30 p.m. at The Theatres at Canal Place). Land of Opportunity interweaves the stories of a diverse group of people as they struggle to rebuild their lives in post-Katrina New Orleans. The director is Luisa Dantas, who filmed in and around the Lower Ninth Ward and attended many meetings during...
http://www.helpholycross.org/2010/10/land-of-opportunity-at-the-2010-new-orleans-film-festival.html
Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy
http://www.helpholycross.org/2010/09/from-nbc-new-orleans-an-american-story.html
Hope to see you at our regular Holy Cross Neighborhood Association Community Meeting tomorrow, Thursday, September 9 @ 5:30 p.m. The agenda will include a Political Forum for the State Senate District 2 Candidates. State Senate Candidates Michael "Mike" Darnell Ira Thomas Edward R. Washington III Cynthia Williard-Lewis
http://www.helpholycross.org/2010/09/hcna-community-meeting-tomorrow-meet-the-candidates.html
In a long-anticipated final step for a winding process that began shortly after Hurricane Katrina, the City Council unanimously approved a new citywide master plan Thursday City officials hope the new plan will reduce conflict over development in neighborhoods and help attract new investment by setting clear and consistent rules for building. “It tells investors that they can come back, that the rules won’t change in the middle of the game,” City Councilwoman-at-large Jackie Clarkson...
http://www.helpholycross.org/2010/08/city-begins-new-era-with-approval-of-master-plan.html
Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, is a fitting place to observe Memorial Day, since the holiday can be traced to the practice of decorating the graves of soldiers who died in the Civil War. And there are few places more significant in the history of that war than Gettysburg, which witnessed tens of thousands of casualties, and was the bloodiest battle ever on American soil.
Sunday of Memorial Day weekend I traveled to Gettysburg to participate in a program organized by No Casino Gettysburg. It was a combination of musical concert, political rally and old-fashioned small-town get-together as part of the continuing campaign to oppose the development of a casino a half-mile from the boundary of the Gettysburg National Military Park.
On a shady lawn of the Lutheran Theological Seminary, some three hundred people gathered to listen to the 2nd South Carolina String Band playing Civil War-era tunes, and to hear speeches from the National Trust for Historic Preservation, the Civil War Preservation Trust, the National Parks Conservation Association, Preservation Pennsylvania, and No Casino Gettysburg. Included in the crowds were scores of men, women, and children in 19th century attire, who looked like they had stepped out of the 1860s.
I told the audience, “We have the opportunity—yet again—to say that we want Gettysburg and all that it represents to retain its authenticity, its sense of place, its power of place. This little town is linked forever in the popular memory with what happened here in the summer of 1863. We owe it to those who suffered and died here, and to succeeding generations, never to forget—and never to trivialize—this powerful place.”
As a closing, candles were distributed and hundreds of lights began to show through the evening as we listened to a recitation of the Gettysburg Address.
Walter W. Gallas, AICP is the director of the Northeast Field Office at the National Trust for Historic Preservation.
http://blogs.nationaltrust.org/preservationnation/?p=10389
via www.cnn.com
http://www.helpholycross.org/2010/05/cnn-tracking-the-gulf-oil-spill.html
At the Awards Ceremony (l to r): Darryl Durham (Backyard Gardener's Network board member), Pam Bryan (Preservation Resource Center), Daphne Derven (New Orleans Food and Farm Network), Charles Allen (Center for Sustainable Engagement and Development), Jenga Mwendo, Jenga's daugher, Azana Olusola, and Jacqui Vines (Cox Communications)
http://www.helpholycross.org/2010/05/sunday-photo-jenga-mwendo-our-cox-conserves-hero.html
Join us Saturday to rally to support Gulf Coast communities and get the BP Oil Disaster cleaned up! WHAT: Rally to ensure the Gulf Coast region gets the resources it needs to address the BP Oil Disaster, and call on BP and the federal government to Clean It Up! WHEN: Saturday, May 8th, Noon – 2:00 P.M. WHERE: Lafayette Square Park, 550 Saint Charles Avenue, New Orleans, LA Click here for a map! WHO: Allison...
http://www.helpholycross.org/2010/05/clean-it-up-rally-this-saturday.html
http://www.helpholycross.org/2010/05/from-cnn-oil-moves-in-on-gulf-coast.html
I returned to New Orleans recently, for only the second time since leaving my post as the director of the National Trust’s New Orleans Field Office, to participate in the National Planning Conference. I was on the local host committee when the American Planning Association last held its annual conference in New Orleans in 2001. When they told us back then that the conference would return again in 2010, it seemed so far away, and everyone I worked with figured they didn’t even know where they would be in ten years.
It turns out that many of my colleagues are still working hard in New Orleans and were able to help pull together an important meeting. The timing—which no one could have foreseen—couldn’t have been better for the city, because New Orleans is poised to move ahead under a new mayor beginning May 3; the new administration in Washington seems eager to show that New Orleans is still on its radar screen; and the topics of climate change, sustainable development, housing and good planning practice are hot topics around the country. Just as important, it also happened to be the weekend of the premiere of Treme, the new HBO series about post-Katrina New Orleans. More about that later.
It was good to be able to participate at the conference on a panel on historic preservation, disaster preparedness, and recovery in New Orleans and helping our audience look at the situation in each of their communities. I brought up the challenges we had in convincing FEMA to allow demolition materials to be recycled. While we didn’t achieve full deconstruction of FEMA-funded demolition of residential properties in New Orleans, we at least got selective salvage. At this workshop, we might have made a break-through in the area of federal policy regarding deconstruction or salvage. One of the audience participants told us he would take this matter to the federal inter-agency disaster working group on which he sits. They are looking at inter-agency and public policy changes related to disaster response.
The federal government was highly visible at the conference. HUD secretary Shaun Donovan, who delivered the opening remarks, spoke admiringly about the beauty of the Iberville housing development in New Orleans—the last remaining complete development built in the low-rise style of the late 1930s and early 1940s. He also spoke about the failures of past urban renewal models.
It looks like Iberville might actually be rehabilitated and continue to be used. What a contrast, I thought, with the position of President Bush’s HUD secretary Alphonso Jackson who ordered the complete demolition of the four largest developments and new construction. No one at HUD was talking then about the beauty of the buildings’ design. Nevertheless, Donovan subsequently appeared at the ribbon-cutting for Columbia Parc at the Bayou District, the new mixed-income housing development which is rising on the site of the former St. Bernard housing development. It’s too late to save the former St. Bernard, Lafitte, and C.J. Peete developments. But at least 300 units of B.W. Cooper are still standing and in use, and finally we will get to see what redevelopment of existing public housing buildings can look like at Iberville.
Lisa Jackson, head of the EPA, was also at the conference, urging New Orleans to re-grow green, to include the citizens in the planning process, and to look at innovation. As someone who grew up in New Orleans’ Upper Ninth Ward, Jackson has a good sense of the city, I think. During the question-answer portion of the session, I jumped to the microphone to point out that any discussion of growing green had to take into account old buildings and their continued use. She loved the phrase “Old is the new green,” when I used it.
I mentioned Secretary Donavan’s remarks about the end of urban renewal, and asked her to explain this in light of the proposed demolition of Lower Mid-City for the construction of the new LSU and VA hospitals. Jackson replied that hospitals need to be state-of-the-art. She didn’t seem to believe or understand that state-of-the-art can happen in a historic shell.
At the conclusion of this session Paul Farmer, APA’s leader, recognized the organization’s partnership with the National Trust and our work on the hospital planning. Farmer said that APA endorses good planning practices, and that you cannot have a sound planning process in New Orleans, if you rule major issues like the hospital plans off-limits for discussion. He called for inclusion of all development projects in the city’s master planning process. This is a big deal for Farmer to publicly reiterate this position. APA has supported our contention that the master planning process which attorney Bill Borah fought so hard to achieve in New Orleans, was undermined by the determination of city planners and the Nagin administration to keep the LSU-VA hospital planning away from the public.
It was totally fitting that Bill Borah received the National Planning Leadership Award at the conference. The award focused chiefly on his successful efforts to amend the New Orleans City Charter to give the city’s master plan the force of law, but it also gave a nod to his on-going work on the LSU-VA hospital planning. Borah is also credited with helping defeat the plans forty years ago to build a federal expressway along the French Quarter riverfront.
The hospitals came up again in a planning law session looking at the U. S. Supreme Court Kelo case challenging eminent domain. A presenter seemed to think that in New Orleans, the chief local opposition to the hospitals was based on eminent domain challenges. We do think the seizure of the property of Mid-City owners is unfair and highly suspect, but our particular legal challenge was based on the contention that the environmental reviews for the proposed hospitals violated the National Environmental Policy Act. The Federal District Court didn’t agree with us, but it wasn’t for our lack of trying. The struggles continue, and it’s really not over yet, in my view.
In talking about New Orleans at the conference, no one was looking back. No one mentioned the out-going Nagin administration. Everyone was focused on the future. All the public officials who spoke promised new days ahead, new visions, pages turning, and all the usual expressions of hope. In fact, mayor-elect Mitch Landrieu, in closing the APA conference, said “New Orleans is the place where hope will hit the street.”
I joined a group of friends at an apartment on Esplanade Avenue just across the street from the French Quarter to watch the opening episode of Treme, a highly anticipated event in the city. All over town groups of all sizes gathered in various places. Some of my friends watched the program at the Charbonnet Funeral Home in Treme with about a hundred others—watching Treme in Treme, indeed. Art imitating life imitating art.
That’s a pretty good way to look at the program—and to look at New Orleans sometimes. It’s a place of the imagination for many people, those who have visited and those who may never have even been there. For many of those who live there, living is an art in itself. The show had all kinds of positive buzz before even the first episode was aired. That Sunday it seemed to draw a respectable viewership, and it already has a guaranteed second season. I, along with my fellow viewers, hung on every word of dialogue and every local reference. And there was no shortage of admiration for the beauty of the production, the loving use of local music, and the life-like edginess of the characterizations. Kermit Ruffins’ set in Vaughan’s took me back to the times I was there on some hot and humid nights in Bywater.
It was a good visit. With the mayor-elect saying, “We like ourselves; we don’t want to be like other cities,” maybe hope is indeed ready to hit New Orleans’ streets once again.
Walter W. Gallas, AICP, is the director of the National Trust for Historic Preservation’s Northeast Field Office.
http://blogs.nationaltrust.org/preservationnation/?p=9566
The U.S. government and Gulf Coast states have consistently violated the human rights of hurricane victims since Hurricane Katrina killed about 1,800 people and caused widespread devastation after striking in August 2005, Amnesty International said Friday. The report, entitled "Un-Natural Disaster," said the treatment of hurricane victims and government actions in housing, health care and policing have prevented poor minority communities from rebuilding and returning to their homes on the Gulf Coast. In sum, government...
http://www.helpholycross.org/2010/04/amnesty-international-us-guilty-of-katrina-related-abuses.html
Since the storms of 2005, New Orleanians have engaged in more planning activities than any other jurisdiction in the country. The City is poised to adopt its first Master Plan in years, this one with the force of law. A process to develop a new ComprehensiveZoning Ordinance is underway. Does this herald a new time in the planning of New Orleans, where residents, businesses, institutions and neighborhoods will be more directly engaged in the land...
http://www.helpholycross.org/2010/03/join-us-april-13---planning-matters-promise-or-peril-for-the-new-new-orleans-1.html
http://www.helpholycross.org/2010/03/this-is-holy-cross-6.html
http://www.helpholycross.org/2010/03/this-is-holy-cross-1.html
Saturday night's film screening and benefit for Historic Green – held in Silver Spring, Maryland – raised $2,000 to support efforts to sustainably rebuild New Orleans' Lower Ninth Ward. Attendees enjoyed New Orleans cuisine, music by J.P. McDermott and a Silent Auction, plus a screening of the new film MINE at the AFI Silver Theatre. Thanks to Amy King of USGBC/Historic Green for making all this happen! And to Brian Akpa of Citizen Communications who...
http://www.helpholycross.org/2010/02/dcarea-fundraiser-supports-historic-green-and-sustainable-rebuilding-for-lower-9.html
"Andy Baker, Firedancer at the Village". Photo by Darryl Malek-Wiley One of the many talented acts during the 2nd Anniversary Celebration at the Lower 9th Ward Village!
http://www.helpholycross.org/2010/02/sunday-photo-firedancer-at-the-village.html
Rebuilding, green efforts noticed By Joe Halm Holy Cross neighborhood resident Calvin Alexander didn't need a magazine to tell him his neighborhood is coming back. Still, he admits, it was a pleasant surprise. In the January issue of Southern Living Magazine, the Holy Cross neighborhood in the Lower 9th Ward was highlighted as one of the 10 "Best Comeback Neighborhoods in the South" – an honor that is deserved and well illustrated, Alexander said. "On...
http://www.helpholycross.org/2010/02/magazine-features-holy-cross-neighborhood.html
Pennsylvania lawmakers are no different from their counterparts in other states, who see gambling and casinos as a solution to their economic woes. Earlier this month in Pennsylvania, casinos became an even more attractive business to be in, when Governor Rendell signed into law a bill which added table games to the mix of what an establishment could offer its customers.
Now, a developer is proposing to introduce a casino not more than a half mile from the boundary of the Gettysburg National Military Park, a place for somber remembrance of the American Civil War. More soldiers died here than in any other battle fought in North America before or since. About four years ago, a casino proposal by the same developer at another Gettysburg location was rejected by the state Gaming and Control Board.
This week, a coalition of organizations including the National Trust for Historic Preservation; the Civil War Preservation Trust; the National Parks Conservation Association; and statewide partner, Preservation Pennsylvania announced its opposition to this latest plan.
Development plans must respect the Gettysburg battlefield and all that it represents to our national memory. Heritage tourism can thrive when a destination offers authenticity of place and experience. Communities are enhanced when land uses are appropriately planned. This proposal fails on any of those dimensions.
Walter W. Gallas, AICP, is the director of the National Trust for Historic Preservation’s Northeast Field Office.
http://blogs.nationaltrust.org/preservationnation/?p=8168
"Even if I knew that tomorrow the world would go to pieces, I would still plant my apple tree." ~ Martin Luther King Jr.
http://www.helpholycross.org/2010/01/happy-martin-luther-king-day-from-holy-cross.html
Below is a copy of Resolution R-10-25 honoring activist and leader Pam Dashiell for her life and work on behalf of the Lower Ninth Ward - read before New Orleans' City Council on Thursday morning, Jan. 7.
http://www.helpholycross.org/2010/01/nolas-city-council-honors-pam-dashiell.html
As you probably already know, the Holy Cross Neighborhood Association's current president, Bill Waiters, had his house ravaged by fire on Friday December 4th. Since then, many people have contacted me (Sarah DeBacher) to ask how they can help. Here's what you can do: Bill and several volunteers from the Preservation Resource Center and out-of-town colleges will gather at Bill's house on December 28th through the 31st to help Bill clean the damage. If you...
http://www.helpholycross.org/2009/12/help-clean-up-hcna-president-bill-waiters-home.html
Please join the HCNA and CSED for our annual holiday potluck and party. This year we will not only celebrate another year of "SUSTAINING THE NINE," we will also celebrate the life our fearless leader, Pam Dashiell. How? By simply being together and enjoying ourselves, as Pam would have. Location: The PRC's "Tree House", 4804 Dauphine Street, Holy Cross When: Thursday, December 10, 5:30PM Phone: 504-945-8133 Please join the HCNA and CSED for our annual...
http://www.helpholycross.org/2009/12/holy-cross-holiday-party-this-thursday.html
Scenes from Pam Dashiell's Memorial Service and Funeral, Friday and Saturday, December 4 and 5, 2009 ALL PHOTOS: Darryl Malek-Wiley
http://www.helpholycross.org/2009/12/pam-dashiell-in-memoriam.html
The Governor’s Advisory Commission on Coastal Protection, Restoration and Conservation got a whirlwind tour of possibilities for creating sustainable communities during its meeting Tuesday in the lower 9th Ward. From discussions about energy efficient homes being built by Global Green and the Make It Right Project to looking at how the Mississippi River can be harnessed to generate electricity, the meeting went beyond talking about wetland restoration projects. That’s something the commission wouldn’t have done...
http://www.helpholycross.org/2009/12/lower-9th-ward-offers-plan-for-restoration.html
"Another Meeting (!!!) Moment". Photo by Kathy Muse
http://www.helpholycross.org/2009/11/sunday-photo-another-meeting-moment.html
ALL PHOTOS: Marna David I want to give a shout-out today to the gang that mows our levees. That's right...the Levee Board mowing crew. There are only 21 of them to tend all the city's levee green spaces. They are underfunded, undermanned and over-worked. Today these tractor-cowboys (and one cowgirl) whipped our pride and joy into shape and even mowed a savage lot (that I don't even think is theirs), just because I asked them...
http://www.helpholycross.org/2009/11/shoutout-to-the-levee-crews.html
Maybe. That’s the word from Nancy Sutley, chair of the White House Council on Environmental Quality, who visited the Bayou as part of President Obama’s visit to New Orleans yesterday. A panel focused on coastal restoration will soon choose its priorities for wetlands and barrier-island rebuilding. As reported in today’s Times-Picayune: “White House Council on Environmental Quality chairwoman Nancy Sutley promised Thursday to complete a review of Louisiana coastal restoration projects "within months" to determine...
http://www.helpholycross.org/2009/10/will-the-white-house-protect-bayou-bienvenue.html
Saturday’s benefit concert to raise money and awareness for the movement to save Charity Hospital was pure New Orleans.
Held at the Howlin’ Wolf in the Warehouse District (just steps away from the Preservation Resource Center’s headquarters), the concert attracted special out-of-town guests, plus many of the city’s top-flight talents, who offered rhythm and blues, funk, rock, jazz, old school, and Mardi Gras Indian chants. Hundreds packed the hall.
Dr. John, center, on guitar with "Right Place, Wrong Time."
It was Dr. John with “Right Place, Wrong Time,” Al “Carnival Time” Johnson, the Lowrider Band (which includes four of the five original members of WAR) with “Slippin’ into Darkness” and “Cisco Kid,” along with many more: Tony Hall, Raymond Weber, Ivan and Ian Neville, and Nick Daniels of Dumpstaphunk; Sunpie Barnes; DJ Captain Charles; and several sparkling, befeathered Mardi Gras Indian chiefs.
Building on the momentum from the highly successful Charity Hospital second line parade last month, the concert seemed to take things to the next level for our undaunted movement to open up the planning process for returning health care facilities to New Orleans’ downtown.
Last week, in a letter to the editor of the Times-Picayune, Downtown Development Director Kurt Weigle trotted out his usual arguments against the reuse of the Charity Hospital building as a 21st century medical facility saying, “It does not work for this use, and those who claim it does need to stop.”
Mardi Gras Indians
In response, George Skarmeas, principal director of preservation architecture for RMJM, the authors of the Charity Hospital building assessment commissioned by the Foundation for Historical Louisiana, wrote in Sunday’s paper: “The RMJM study resulted in a clear and compelling vision for the reuse of Charity, integrating the most stringent contemporary health care design principles with sound preservation techniques and sustainable technology.”
We await the moment when the light will dawn on the cheerleaders of the misbegotten plans for the new LSU and VA medical facilities, allowing them to finally see the error of their ways. In the meantime, we return from our night of celebration and friendship and go back to work.
Walter W. Gallas, AICP, is the director of the New Orleans Field Office of the National Trust for Historic Preservation. Learn more about our ongoing efforts to save Charity Hospital and Mid-City New Orleans.
http://blogs.nationaltrust.org/preservationnation/?p=6163
Tonight (Monday, August 31) at six, folks are going to be second lining in support of Charity Hospital. For the uninitiated, a “second line” is a street parade led by one or more brass bands, in which the spectators are encouraged to join in to form the second line behind the band and follow the band through the streets in a spontaneous demonstration of celebration and solidarity. We are assured that the second line will also include a number of the city’s “social aid and pleasure clubs,” some of the newest members of the coalition calling on leadership to open up the process of hospital planning and give the Charity Hospital option real consideration.
The parade will kick off from Charity – 1532 Tulane Street — and will feature the Rebirth Brass Band and the Hot 8 Brass Band. Learn more at savecharityhospital.com or via this press release.
Own Jonah Evans introduces New Orleans singer John Boutte, and shares a bit of Boutte singing about Charity Hospital, in the YouTube clip below.
Walter W. Gallas, AICP, is the director of the New Orleans Field Office of the National Trust for Historic Preservation. Learn more about our ongoing efforts to save Charity Hospital and Mid-City New Orleans.
http://blogs.nationaltrust.org/preservationnation/?p=5807
Over the past four years since Hurricane Katrina visited its destruction upon New Orleans and the Gulf Coast, journalists have come from everywhere to interpret to the rest of the world what was going on here as the city came back from the brink of total disaster. The results in the various outside media have been a mixed bag, but overall writers and reporters have—if nothing else—kept the story of New Orleans in the public eye.
The impending closure of the New Orleans Field Office offers us the opportunity to look back at this unique effort of the National Trust for Historic Preservation, but also to look ahead at how the work of the National Trust will continue to affect the recovery of this special city.
In May, reporter Robert Bevan of Australian Financial Review Magazine came to town. Kevin Mercadel showed him our work in Holy Cross and gave him the big picture story. I spoke with him at length about the frustrations and challenges we face daily here due to a serious disconnect between what the political leadership wants, and what the citizens of this city want.
Bevan’s piece, entitled “Bayou Tapestry,” was recently published and is a fitting piece for where we are right now four years after Katrina. See what you think.
One quick note to readers: In the Bevan article, credit for the restoration of the second house shown in the before and after photos rightfully goes to our partner, Operation Comeback of the Preservation Resource Center. We couldn’t have done our HOME AGAIN! work without their full support.
Walter W. Gallas, AICP, is the director of the New Orleans Field Office of the National Trust for Historic Preservation.
http://blogs.nationaltrust.org/preservationnation/?p=5742
Thanks to Partners in Preservation, five important projects have been completed on “community anchors” in historic New Orleans.
Last Friday, at St. James AME Church, we announced the completion of the five New Orleans Partners in Preservation projects, whose grants were announced in May of last year.
Each of the grant recipients was facing different challenges with their historic property. Through the assistance of these grants, they were able to achieve things that they wouldn’t have otherwise been able to do – or at least wouldn’t have been able to do so quickly
This is a program which consciously shines a light on “community anchors,” important places in the community that serve as gathering places, help define their neighborhoods, and also help all of New Orleans take further steps to recovery and revitalization. There is plenty more to do, but thanks to Partners in Preservation, our grantees were able to complete their intended work, and we are thrilled we could be a part of that.
At St. James AME Church in Mid-City, a $100,000 grant was used for the repair and replacement of the pressed tin ceiling and plaster walls of the sanctuary. At St. Alphonsus Art and Cultural Center in the Lower Garden District, an $80,000 grant was used for the restoration of the 1891 front portico of the church building, which included replacing the roof and repairing stucco, millwork, and columns. At St. Augustine Church in Treme, a $75,000 grant was used for the parish hall to replace the shingle roofing and repair rotten and termite-damaged wood to the second level balcony floor and ceiling. At Odyssey House, a $75,000 grant was used for window and shutter replacement in order to improve the building’s appearance and also protect this important Esplanade Ridge-Treme institution from future storms. At Lafayette Cemetery No. 1 in the Garden District, a $70,000 grant was used for the stabilization of the perimeter wall and wall vaults, as well as the installation of a drainage system to prevent future deterioration of the wall vaults.
You can find more information online at the Partners in Preservation’s website, including updates on all five sites.
Joining me at the announcement (from left to right in the photo above) was Linda Ibert of St. Alphonsus Art and Cultural Center; Rachel Witwer, executive director of Save Our Cemeteries, Inc.; Rev. Otto Duncan, our host at St. James AME Church; Linda Harris of Augustine Church; Billy Groome, president of Odyssey House; and Tina Pearson of American Express. We also owe a special thanks to Meg Lousteau for all of her assistance as project manager, liaison, and grants manager on the ground.
Walter W. Gallas, AICP, is the director of the New Orleans Field Office of the National Trust for Historic Preservation.
http://blogs.nationaltrust.org/preservationnation/?p=5651
Many of us have been saying it for a long time, but now it has been verified through a recent public opinion poll—the citizens of New Orleans and political leadership are in two completely different places (literally and figuratively) when it comes to where to build a new LSU hospital. And it could have implications for the next round of municipal elections.
While city officials have been pushing the plan to build a new LSU hospital in Lower Mid-City, the citizens of New Orleans aren’t buying it. Sixty percent of registered voters polled said that they favored building a new modern hospital within the shell of old Charity Hospital instead, with only 30 percent favoring LSU’s and the politicians’ plan. (The remainder didn’t know or didn’t respond to this question.)
Dr. Edward Renwick, a highly respected political scientist in New Orleans who is frequently sought-after for his analysis of the local electorate, surveyed 504 registered voters in Orleans Parish recently on, among other things, their attitudes about the LSU hospital plans, their views of elected officials, and how politicians’ stances on the hospital plans might affect the voters’ choice of the next mayor of New Orleans. The survey’s margin of error is plus or minus 4.5 points.
The voters of New Orleans are an engaged group of people—likely more engaged now than ever before. Ninety percent of those surveyed had heard a lot or a little about LSU’s plans. Eighty percent had heard about the alternative to rebuild within Charity’s shell. And given the choice, they favored a return to Charity two-to-one.
Further distancing themselves from the stance of the city’s current leadership, 64 percent of the voters surveyed said they would prefer a mayoral candidate in the next election who would consider alternatives to the LSU hospital plans, and not continue Mayor Nagin’s approach to push the LSU hospital plan into Lower Mid-City.
Two-to-one, registered voters said they believe that the Charity-rebuild option would cause faster recovery and economic development in the city’s Central Business District.
This is an important wake-up call for the city’s political leadership, the business community, state legislators, the governor, LSU, and federal officials. The citizens of New Orleans know what they want, and they don’t want what the chosen few are telling them they need to have.
The disparity between the citizens’ views and the positions of our leadership should be taken seriously. If the position of the current leadership doesn’t change, the voters will see to it that they get the representation they expect and deserve.
The poll was commissioned by Smart Growth for Louisiana, a non-profit New Orleans-based organization that supports citizen participation and transparency in planning. It was conducted July 20-27, 2009.
Learn more about our efforts to save Mid-City New Orleans.
Walter W. Gallas, AICP, is the director of the New Orleans Field Office of the National Trust for Historic Preservation.
http://blogs.nationaltrust.org/preservationnation/?p=5603
We learned Tuesday that the federal court has ruled that the case the National Trust for Historic Preservation filed against FEMA and the Department of Veterans Affairs in DC federal court in May will be transferred to New Orleans federal district court. Our suit maintains that the two federal agencies violated the National Environmental Policy Act when they OK’d the development of hospitals for Louisiana State University and Veterans Affairs in the Lower Mid-City neighborhood of New Orleans.
The suit was filed in DC because the decisions were made by agency officials in DC, and the case has broader implications about the application of environmental law to historic properties. Nevertheless, we understand the court’s ruling for the venue and accept it. Local citizens and local media will have a greater opportunity to follow the case, which was a key part of the court’s reasoning, and this could be a very good thing.
The City and the State had asked the court to intervene in the case, but this decision hasn’t been made.
Read the full statement from the National Trust on this decision.
Learn more about our efforts to save Mid-City New Orleans.
Walter W. Gallas, AICP, is the director of the New Orleans Field Office of the National Trust for Historic Preservation.
http://blogs.nationaltrust.org/preservationnation/?p=5481
The VA Medical Center in New Orleans.
Saying that it’s the only way to add closer-in laboratory facilities, a dental clinic, and sterile processing and distribution services, the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs is proposing to demolish the five- story VA Building #2, which sits next to the VA Medical Center (VAMC) in New Orleans Central Business District. On the vacant land created by the demolition, VA would install two “mobile support units,” which would remain in place “for no more than five years while the replacement VAMC is built.”
As part of the review process, VA posted a “Site-Specific Environmental Assessment,” and Betsy Merritt and I, on behalf of the National Trust for Historic Preservation, submitted a comment letter as well as supplemental comments. Among other things, we observed that the area around the current VA Medical Center contains numerous vacant lots already that could be used for the mobile units. In the vicinity, the state is adding to the inventory of vacant downtown land by completing the demolition of the State Office Building and former State Supreme Court building across from City Hall. A new state office building will not be built on the site.
VA Building #2, which they plan to demolish.
VA Building #2, constructed in 1952, is one of fifteen buildings making up the New Orleans Medical Historic District. VA’s assessment minimized the impact on the district of the loss of this building. We observed that the loss was hardly insignificant, in a district of that size.
VA published responses to our comments this past week. In the response, VA supplied new information, saying that nationwide, the VA is under serious pressure to provide sterile instruments and sterile environments to its patients—and that the only way to do this would be to demolish Building #2 to create the space on which to place its sterile processing and distribution functions. Currently, these functions are served out of a suburban warehouse and within the existing VA clinic. Demolition, though, seems a radical solution to a systems problem.
VA also minimized the impact upon the medical historic district of this building’s demolition, saying it is not a “lynchpin element” in the district—a new standard never used before, and one I think someone just decided to create.
VA’s determination to demolish this building is striking. We will be responding to VA with further comments.
Walter W. Gallas, AICP, is the director of the New Orleans Field Office of the National Trust for Historic Preservation.
http://blogs.nationaltrust.org/preservationnation/?p=5409
This week, four New Orleans residents, representing the many citizens who have been frustrated by the city administration’s lack of responsiveness to their concerns about the plans for a new VA hospital in the Lower Mid City neighborhood, took their grievances into the local civil district court.
In their suit, the residents contend that Mayor Nagin disregarded multiple provisions of the City Charter as well as applicable state law, when he entered into an agreement with the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs in November 2007. This is the agreement which Lower Mid City residents awoke to that fall, when they opened their newspapers and learned the mayor had committed the city to seizing and clearing 34 acres of the Mid City National Register District, closing the city streets, ripping out old infrastructure and installing new, and presenting VA with a “construction ready” site for a new medical center. In addition, the Mayor agreed to bind the city to paying as much as $5 million in damages if there is any breach in the city’s obligations—again, all of this committed without benefit of public notice, City Council or City Planning Commission action, appropriation of funds, or certification by the city’s director of finance.
In a series of fourteen counts, the plaintiffs’ attorneys lay out a string of violations which, they say, “transcend the facts of this case and raise significant issues of great importance to all residents, homeowners and business owners of the City of New Orleans regarding the Charter and whether the Mayor has the legal authority under the Charter to unilaterally authorize the taking of private property of homeowners and business owners without public hearings and without prior approval of the City Council and the City Planning Commission.” Two of the attorneys in the case served in previous New Orleans administrations as city attorneys.
So many of us have been pleading for the last two years to bring the planning of the LSU and VA hospitals into the light of day. We have asked the City Council and City Planning Commission to hold public hearings. We have asked that the plans be made a part of the master planning process currently underway. Nevertheless, the go-it-alone style of this administration has prevailed. The City Charter is the city’s legally binding operating manual on how things are supposed to be done in city government. It’s easy to follow, and not difficult at all to understand. Fundamentally, this case is saying the mayor chose not to follow the rules. Perhaps a date in court will provide a long-overdue course for this mayor in how to properly operate city government.
The National Trust for Historic Preservation is not a party to this suit, but clearly the case supports points we have been making for quite some time.
Walter W. Gallas, AICP, is the director of the New Orleans Field Office of the National Trust for Historic Preservation.
http://blogs.nationaltrust.org/preservationnation/?p=5306
Workin' the Barbeque: Simon, Bill & John Three Presidents of the HCNA ALL PHOTOS: Darryl Malek-Wiley
http://www.helpholycross.org/2009/07/holy-cross-celebrates-the-fourth.html
Governor Bobby Jindal’s commissioner of administration, Angele Davis, announced last week that land acquisition on the LSU portion of the proposed hospital site in Lower Mid-City New Orleans would be halted. The announcement appears to be an attempt to pressure LSU to adopt a compromise regarding the governance of the state hospital. The compromise was rejected by the LSU Board of Supervisors after a negotiated arrangement steered by the State Secretary of Health and Hospitals had been settled on by both LSU and Tulane leadership.
This development came as both the state legislature was winding down and hope of reviving House Bill 780 faded. This bill, which we had succeeding in passing through the House, stalled in a Senate committee. It would have done something similar to what the governor ordered – halted land acquisition for the new LSU hospital until a financing plan was approved by the Joint Legislative Committee on the Budget.
Governor Jindal’s people opposed HB 780, yet they decided to use this leverage to get LSU’s attention. It is noteworthy that in Davis’s statement below, she recognizes the challenges of raising the funds for this project, which is pegged at $1.2 billion. Here’s the full statement:
There remains no agreement on the proposed governing structure and it is critical that we make an intensified effort to reach an agreement before the state acts to purchase the property. The proposed agreement called for a non-profit corporation to operate the hospital, with the corporation being responsible for obtaining debt financing. Without this corporation, or an agreement by the stakeholders to form the corporation, financing the project becomes a bigger challenge.
This will have no impact on the VA Hospital and the on-going land acquisition activities for the new VA Hospital in New Orleans. Today, we are suspending land acquisition activities and efforts for the MCLNO / Charity replacement hospital pending a resolution of the governance issue.
In other developments out of Baton Rouge, we were happy to see that Senate Bill 75 was put to death – at least for this session – after two last-minute efforts to attach it to other bills. The bill would have required that the New Orleans master plan be put to a vote of the citizens again, despite the fact that they already voted to amend the city charter last fall to include a master plan with the force of law, an accompanying zoning ordinance, and a citizen participation process. However, the issue may not really be dead and could come back to life as part of the mayoral or city council campaigns that will begin this fall.
New Orleans’ master planning process continues to go forward, but there remain questions about whether the City Planning Commission and City Council will ever really weigh in on the plans for the LSU and VA hospitals in Mid-City. Up until now, these bodies have stood back and said they have no authority over the planning of these two massive public projects.
> Learn More About Our Efforts to Save Lower Mid-City New Orleans
Walter Gallas is the director of the National Trust for Historic Preservation’s New Orleans Field Office.
http://blogs.nationaltrust.org/preservationnation/?p=5135
The Senate Education Committee of the Louisiana Legislature likely killed House Bill 780 yesterday by deferring it, after a vote to report it favorably out of the committee failed. It’s doubtful that the bill can be resuscitated.
This bill would prohibit the LSU Board of Supervisors from purchasing or expropriating land for the development of their proposed new academic medical center in New Orleans without approval by the Joint Legislative Committee on the Budget of its financing plan.
Representative Rick Nowlin of Natchitoches, author of the bill, took some heat from New Orleans Senator Ann Duplessis, who said she was surprised that the New Orleans delegation wasn’t consulted about this bill. He stood his ground, explaining that this was a statewide matter, and that he filed the bill only after repeated unsuccessful efforts to get financial information from LSU. Joining Rep. Nowlin was State Treasurer John Kennedy who stressed that this was a bill to prevent taking property for a public purpose without having financing in place to carry it out.
Those arguments didn’t seem to connect with the vast majority of the committee which seemed, rather, to buy the argument that this bill could delay the LSU project and cost more money. The head of state facilities planning, Jerry Jones, claimed delays would cost $160,000 a day. No one questioned this figure or how he’d arrived at it.
I testified in support of the bill along with Sandra Stokes of the Foundation for Historical Louisiana, New Orleans land-use attorney William Borah, business owner Mickey Weiser, and Committee to Save Charity Hospital’s Brad Ott.
Earlier that morning, some of us attended a rather unusual press conference at which Governor Bobby Jindal appeared along with four of the state’s past governors. It was an awkward moment for Jindal, as former governor Buddy Roemer, joined by Kathleen Blanco, Mike Foster and Dave Treen exhorted the Jindal to show some leadership and not slash state higher education funding to intolerable and destructive levels.
The moment seemed an appropriate complement to our own calls for the Governor to demonstrate leadership in the LSU hospital matter, and order a comparative cost-benefit analysis of LSU’s plans versus the alternative which would incorporate the re-use of Charity Hospital.
It is remarkable that so many in leadership positions aren’t questioning LSU’s ability to assemble a financing package of over $1 billion. In the meantime, the process of appraising and then buying out and seizing properties in Lower Mid-City can continue unhindered.
Learn more:
Save Mid-City on PreservationNation.org
http://blogs.nationaltrust.org/preservationnation/?p=4809
By a vote of 94 to 2, the Louisiana House on Wednesday passed House Bill 780, which would require LSU to have the financing plan for its proposed new hospital approved by the Joint Legislative Committee on the Budget before it could purchase or seize property on the proposed Lower Mid-City site.
We spent two days in Baton Rouge again talking to lawmakers. On Tuesday, we managed to speak to about one-fifth of the 105-member body, and our tallies showed a decided lean toward passing what essentially is a simple bill calling for good fiscal practices.
With the exception of Representative Juan Lafonta, the New Orleans legislators didn’t seem strongly inclined to pass the bill when we spoke to them—remaining non-committal, vague in their support, or somewhat hostile to it. Nevertheless, seven of the eleven New Orleans legislators voted for the bill, with three absent, and one voting no. The no vote from New Orleans was from Rep. Karen Carter Peterson, Speaker Pro Tem of the House, who presided over the vote. The Charity Hospital building is in her district.
Rep. Lafonta rose to speak to his colleagues before the vote, saying without this bill there were no checks and balances on LSU. He talked about the possible demolition of a neighborhood and referred to the billboard on the interstate approach to Baton Rouge which states “Want to save $283 million? Reopen Charity Hospital.”
This was another great effort in the beautiful halls of the Art Deco State Capital which included myself; Sandra Stokes of the Foundation for Historical Louisiana; Mickey Weiser, owner of Weiser Security located in Lower Mid-City on the proposed LSU site; Brad Ott of the Committee to Re-Open Charity Hospital; Michelle Kimball of the Preservation Resource Center; Jack Davis, NTHP trustee; and Jonah Evans of SaveCharityHospital.com.
We appreciate everyone’s support of this latest effort, another chapter in the unfolding drama that could decide the fate of an ill-conceived plan for medical facilities in New Orleans.
The bill moves to the Senate next week, where it first needs to pass out of committee.
Learn more:
House passes bill to block hospital land acquisition (New Orleans Times-Picayune)
LSU president pushes plan of medical center (New Orleans Advocate)
Save Mid City on PreservationNation.org
http://blogs.nationaltrust.org/preservationnation/?p=4615
This past Thursday evening, seven members of the New Orleans City Planning Commission–for the first time before this body in a public setting–heard about the plans for the state and VA hospitals in New Orleans. The commission also got an earful of opposition from the public about those plans, and heard–again, for the first time as a body–that there could be an alternative to those plans, an alternative based on the return of Charity Hospital as a state-of-the-art 21st century anchor of the medical district in New Orleans’ Central Business District.
I was one of scores of citizens who testified during the nearly four-and-a-half hour meeting after extended presentations by the city’s out-going director of recovery, Ed Blakely; the state; and RMJM Hillier. Dr. Blakely made a point of saying the plans were those of the state and the VA, not the city. The state’s representative argued that Charity was in danger of losing its accreditation before Katrina, and therefore no longer suitable for use as a hospital. That argument is immaterial. The RMJM Hillier proposal for the rebuilding of Charity is based on gutting of the entire building to its limestone exterior and floor plates. This structural skeleton would then support entirely new systems inside. None of the existing interior walls or systems would be retained.
The citizen comment was strictly limited to three minutes. Outbursts and spontaneous applause from the audience were promptly tamped down by an ever-vigilant commissioner. A number of physicians spoke in favor of the rebuilding of Charity and the dire need for medical care of all kinds in New Orleans. In my comments, I observed that the city seemed to want it both ways–saying it has no role when its planning department is asked to take leadership; and on the other hand, confecting agreements with the state and VA that very much demonstrate its intimate involvement with these controversial plans.
Learn More:
City Planning Commission sets forum on new VA and LSU hospitals (New Orleans Times-Picayune)
Save Mid City on PreservationNation.org
http://blogs.nationaltrust.org/preservationnation/?p=4573
A solid team effort on our part before the Louisiana House Health and Welfare Committee resulted in House Bill 780 passing unanimously out of committee yesterday. The bill would require Louisiana State University to produce a financing plan for its proposed replacement medical center in New Orleans, and that the plan be approved by the Joint Legislative Committee on the Budget before LSU acould seize any property on the proposed hospital site.
Joining Sandra Stokes, of the Foundation for Historical Louisiana, and me in testimony before the committee was Mickey Weiser, owner of a multi-million-dollar security business headquartered in the proposed LSU footprint. Under the current plan, his headquarters could be expropriated and demolished for “future expansion” space for the new hospital. In addition, we had Kevin Krauss, Mid-City homeowner; Mary Howell, an attorney with an office adjacent to the proposed site; Bill Borah, land-use attorney; Richard Exnicios, of Deutsches-Haus; and Brad Ott, of the Committee to Re-Open Charity Hospital.
Next week the bill goes to the House, and we return to Baton Rouge for the next stage.
Learn more:
Hospital land tied to ‘financing plan’ (New Orleans Times-Picayune)
City Planning Commission sets forum on new VA and LSU hospitals (New Orleans Times-Picayune)
Fireworks fly over future of LSU teacher hospital (WWLTV, New Orleans)
Officials make pitch for new hospital in place of Charity (WWLTV, New Orleans)
We did it! HB 780 passed unanimously out of committee! (Save Charity & Mid City)
Save Mid City on PreservationNation.org
http://blogs.nationaltrust.org/preservationnation/?p=4526
This past week we submitted comments on behalf of the National Trust for Historic Preservation on the four latest design schemes for the proposed VA medical center in New Orleans. If plans do not change, this medical center is to be built on 30 acres of land (10 square blocks) cleared of 123 historic houses, within the Mid-City National Register District. Next to this hospital, Louisiana State University plans to build its new academic medical center after clearing even more land — another 39 acres.
We have repeatedly asked early in the historic preservation and environmental review processes why either institution needed so much land. We were told by the VA that the size of its site was mandated by federal setback requirements after the bombing in Oklahoma City and the 9/11 attacks. In the case of the VA designs, we learned this week that it is possible to “harden” a structure as another means of meeting the setback requirement, raising yet another question about why so much unnecessary land is being taken and so many extra homes needlessly bulldozed.
Learn More
NTHP Comments Regarding Design Alternatives for the Proposed VA Medical Center in New Orleans
Save Mid-City
The four proposed designs (PDFs)
Option 1
Option 2
Option 3
Option 4
http://blogs.nationaltrust.org/preservationnation/?p=4348
A new web site launched this week in New Orleans promises to enrich the conversation, broaden the debate, and grow the movement surrounding embattled Charity Hospital and lower Mid-City neighborhood. SaveCharityHospital.com combines an unapologetic point-of-view with a variety of resources, documents, tools and information. It also offers the transparency so seldom seen in the public discussions surrounding one of the—if not the—largest potential redevelopment projects in New Orleans’ history. Visit the site and share your stories, find the schedule of the latest meetings on the city’s master planning and hospital design plans, scour the documents section, send your feedback, and become a part of the campaign to turn back the old way of doing things and achieve real change in New Orleans.
http://blogs.nationaltrust.org/preservationnation/?p=3962
Press Conference 3/25 from Eli Ackerman on Vimeo.
New Orleans is undertaking a $2 million reworking of its master plan and comprehensive zoning ordinance. Led by the Boston-based firm Goody Clancy, the process has now reached the stage at which a draft of the master plan will face the scrutiny of citizens in a series of neighborhood district meetings throughout April. Last Saturday, neighborhood leaders attended somewhat of a preview of the plan, at which very broad concepts or principles were discussed, but clearly many people were chomping at the bit to get down to details.
Jack Davis, a New Orleans resident and member of the National Trust’s board of trustees, fired one of the first questions to Goody Clancy’s David Dixon: Where was the huge LSU/VA hospital plan in the document? It seemed to be missing.
Dixon acknowledged that his firm had not been asked to do a plan for the medical district, yet he insisted that the city needed to involve neighborhoods, needed to look at the impacts of the hospitals on the downtown, needed to be involved in the designs of the hospitals—and that plans for the medical district needed to be in the master plan. Here we had probably the largest economic-development project ever proposed in the city, and the city’s planning consultant was trying mightily to show he knew his client needed to get involved—but the planning department was doing everything it could to distance itself from it.
Following on that, we were able to announce on Wednesday that 41 community, professional, planning and grassroots organizations—local and national—endorsed the call for the hospital plans to be included in the master planning process and for public hearings to be held before the City Planning Commission and City Council. The American Planning Association (APA) was one of our supporting organizations. APA’s executive director, Paul Farmer, said in a written statement: “Planning requires that processes be fair and inclusive, that alternatives be fairly and completely evaluated and that decisions of this magnitude be included in any community plan, whether it is at the neighborhood or city scale.”
Charity Hospital figured in this public statement as well. We called on Governor Jindal to order a comprehensive cost-benefit analysis of the competing LSU hospital plans. LSU proposes to base its plans upon total new construction requiring land acquisition and demolition of property. An alternative plan, based on the findings of RMJM Hillier, concludes that a 21st century hospital can be built within the gutted shell of Charity Hospital. We want the Governor to order a cost-benefit analysis which looks not only at those construction costs, but also measures the impact of these different plans upon timelines for job creation, related economic development, and health care delivery.
Speakers at Wednesday’s event included Jack Davis, who served as host and moderator; Dr. Tlaloc Alferez, M.D.; Dr. Sissy Sartor, M.D.; LaToya Cantrell, president of the Broadmoor Improvement Association; and Charles E. Allen, III, president of the Holy Cross Neighborhood Association.
Press Conference 3/25 from Eli Ackerman on Vimeo.
http://blogs.nationaltrust.org/preservationnation/?p=3786
In November 1952, Mid-City New Orleans pharmacist Nick Persich wrote the following letter to the editor of the New Orleans States in response to a slum clearance order in his neighborhood:
Let any honest-hearted and fair-minded citizen visit this section and then ask this question: Aren’t there hundreds of thousands of square feet of area lying almost unused in the business and industrial districts? Why not use them first and then, when our city’s growth is such that all other space has been used up, then, and only then, the argument that our area is needed for the progress of our city will be sensible, logical, honest, and acceptable to us.
This letter appeared as citizens learned that the City of New Orleans was clearing “slum” housing near Mid-City (from Tulane Avenue to Poydras Street, and from South Claiborne Avenue to South Broad Street) as a part of the “Miracle Mile” redevelopment of Tulane Avenue.
Today, the “Miracle Mile” vision has been replaced by a new vision called the “Greater New Orleans Biosciences Economic Development District.” The LSU Medical School sits on some of this land, surrounded still by the area made vacant by that order. Yet even today, those lands aren’t sufficient for LSU’s vision for its new medical center, and so the latest city-engineered land grab continues across Tulane Avenue to Canal Street and up to South Rocheblave, threatening once again to displace more people and destroy more property.
M. L. Eichhorn, who grew up in the lower Mid-City neighborhood that is now ground-zero for the new hospitals, has been a tireless researcher of this area, digging up the names, personalities and professions of those who made this part of the city home over the last 100+ years. In a piece entitled “Sacrificial Land” that appears in the latest issue of Louisiana Cultural Vistas, Eichhorn weaves that research into a narrative that not only brings this area alive, but that very fittingly concludes with Mr. Persich’s important observations above.
Read “Sacrificial Land” in Louisiana Cultural Vistas
http://blogs.nationaltrust.org/preservationnation/?p=3644
If there ever was a time when the city of New Orleans needed the City Planning Commission to show some leadership, it is now. One could point to the exercises being led by the consulting firm Goody Clancy for the development of the city’s new master plan and comprehensive zoning ordinance as evidence of such leadership. The problem though, is that there’s an elephant in the room—the plan by Louisiana State University and the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs to build two new medical centers from the ground up—and neither Goody Clancy nor the City Planning Commission is dealing with it.
It is all well and good to call on the city’s tireless citizens to participate in crafting what could ultimately be the city’s first master plan with the force of law. But as long as the huge hospital plans are not examined as part of the master planning process, the whole citywide process is under a cloud. If the hospitals’ plan—which is a classic straight from the days of urban renewal—proceeds as it has until now with the City Planning Commission taking a hands-off attitude, what is to prevent this from happening again with another project in another part of town?
Some City Planning staff have said that they can have no involvement in this plan, because it is the work of state and federal agencies. The plan involves wholesale clearance of portions of a National Register District, covers 70 acres and would require the demolition of as many as 263 structures, 165 of them considered historic. What the city doesn’t acknowledge is that it has been intimately involved in these destructive plans all along, as evidenced by a number of agreements forged with the state and with the VA. Further, it was the city which engineered an offer to the VA of cleared construction-ready land. This was made possible by the expenditure of $74 million in Community Development Block Grant funds for demolition–money that could have been used for housing rehabilitation. This offer apparently was too good for the VA to refuse. So, the city is deeply involved in setting these plans into motion.
Will the LSU-VA hospital plan be marked with an asterisk in the city’s master plan? Will a note say, “We did this one the old-fashioned way, by having special interests push it through, but we won’t do it this way again”?
Today’s Times-Picayune makes it clear that the two hospitals will be proceeding independently of one another, and that the arguments for co-location and shared services were false. Instead of waiting for the continued drip-drip-drip of revelations emerging about these ill-conceived plans, New Orleans’ planning leadership should show some spine and actively engage its citizens in participating in planning what is conceivably the largest economic development project ever proposed in this town.
***
Support Walter’s work in the New Orleans Field Office by visiting the Facebook Marketplace, where you can buy and sell items to support the National Trust for Historic Preservation’s work on the Gulf Coast. Learn more »
http://blogs.nationaltrust.org/preservationnation/?p=3508
Historic Green volunteers were seen throughout the Holy Cross Neighborhood yesterday – from the Delery Street Playground to Dauphine, St. Maurice and Tupelo. The annual event started March 10 and runs through the 20th. Resident John Koeferl gets a hand from DCL Mooring & Rigging. Marquette University students work at 5516 Dauphine Street. Volunteer crews at 5515 Dauphine. Redeemer Church worked at 632 Tupelo Street. Volunteers at 429-31 St. Maurice. ALL PHOTOS: Darryl Malek-Wiley.
http://www.helpholycross.org/2009/03/historic-green-throughout-the-neighborhood.html
There is a public meeting next Tuesday on March 3, 2009 regarding IERs 4 (Lake Pontchartrain and Vicinity Hurricane Protection Project, Orleans East Bank, New Orleans Lakefront Levee, West of Inner Harbor Navigational Canal to East bank of 17th Street Canal, Orleans Parish, Louisiana) and 11 Tier 2 Pontchartrain (Improved Protection on the Inner Harbor Navigational Canal, Orleans and St. Bernard Parishes, Louisiana). The meeting will be held at the Lindy Boggs International Conference Center,...
http://www.helpholycross.org/2009/02/attend-the-corps-hearing.html
Preservation-friendly site plan for Charity Hospital. (RMJM Hillier)
It was really remarkable that the Louisiana House Committee on Appropriations devoted an entire day this past week to a hearing about Charity Hospital and LSU’s and VA’s plans for new medical centers in New Orleans. We had an attentive and polite group of lawmakers, whom we thanked repeatedly for holding essentially the first real public hearing on these major plans. I presented the National Trust for Historic Preservation’s email petition signed by more than 650 people to the committee chairman, Representative James Fannin.
The presentation by RJMJ Hillier’s Colin Mosher and Steve McDaniel on their feasibility study for the building’s reuse; resident Bobbi Rogers’ passionate statement about the neighborhood; attorney Laura Tuggle’s cautions about the costs and challenges of expropriation and relocation; National Trust Community Investment Corporation’s Kirk Carrison’s tax credit work sheet; Sandra Stokes’ overview; my observations on the plan and preservation’s role — all of these pieces came together to paint a picture designed to show legislators what was at stake and what was possible in New Orleans. It was at this meeting that we presented an alternative to the over-powering and destructive LSU-VA scheme. The image at the top of this post, created by RMJM Hillier shows our proposal, in which Charity is back in play, thereby enabling the new VA medical center to be built on a portion of what would have been the LSU site, saving the majority of Lower Mid-City’s historic homes and cultural landmarks.
What was also remarkable was how little information LSU officials could provide in response to repeated questions about the financing of the proposed $1.2 billion plan. The state is already beginning the process of acquiring the properties on the preferred LSU site — yet no more than about $300 million dollars is committed so far by the legislature for the new hospital. State officials are pinning their hopes on an appeal to President Obama’s FEMA and receiving an award of nearly $500 million for the damages to the Charity Hospital building. Without this sum, the financing plan falls apart.
The night before the committee hearing, we spoke about these issues before a packed meeting hosted by Vieux Carre Property Owners, Residents and Associates, the French Quarter’s oldest neighborhood group. The meeting attracted a variety of people from all over town — not just French Quarter types, and it showed that all neighborhoods need to be worried when bad planning like this happens. Here we presented a new flyer summing up the situation.
We are up against some serious opposition. As is so common in these cases, we are accused of delaying progress when we start raising questions or presenting alternatives. But the week was full of good press — print and TV.
On Friday, I was the guest on (yet another) call-in radio show. It was clear that my point of view on good planning and re-use of existing buildings fell flat with my host. He focused on the bad condition of the Mid-City neighborhood, and the need to build something new. A caller said that I was being inflexible, that before Katrina the neighborhood was dangerous, that the houses on the site could be moved to one of the former public housing sites. Another caller, the leader of the movement to create the biosciences district, once again disparaged the Hillier report, and said it was time to move on and plan for the new hospitals.
I took a look at the preliminary designs for the new hospitals for the proposed sites which were released on Thursday. How depressing that was. The massing schemes didn’t even begin to deal with any of the measures we suggested in our December 31 comments as consulting parties to the Programmatic Agreement. Furthermore, there was no evidence that any elements of the two hospital plans had any relationship to one another—putting the lie to the oft-stated argument that the LSU and VA facilities would achieve certain efficiencies through shared facilities.
The designs portend the future of Mid-City if these plans are realized. The rest of the historic district is clearly at risk of further obliteration.
See for yourself what may be on the horizon (click images to enlarge):
http://blogs.nationaltrust.org/preservationnation/?p=2683
http://www.helpholycross.org/2009/01/join-us-for-the-obama-inauguration-celebration.html
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