Claiborne Avenue Opportunities and Challenges

Reasons for Decline.

HANO mis-management

The primary cause of the economic decline of Claiborne Ave, north and south, is the same primary cause of many of the distressed neighborhoods in the city: Proximity to or being located between large scale, HANO run housing projects. Decades of HANO mismanagement, coupled with the City’s lack of interest in economic development that leads to jobs for its citizens that would move them out of subsidized housing and into the housing market has lead to precipitous decline in neighborhoods adjacent to HANO housing projects. This has played itself out on Jackson Ave, St. Bernard Ave, Orleans Ave, Basin Street and is the primary cause of the decline on both N. Claiborne, flanked as it is by the Lafitte and Iberville projects and S. Claiborne, sandwiched between the Magnolia and Calliope. Simply put, concentrating poverty and putting large communities of people without resources together has a tendency to suck the economic life out of an area.

Failure to incorporate interstate into land use plans.

Another missed opportunity was the failure to incorporate I-10 into longer term land use plans. We should have encouraged larger, private commercial development near the on and off ramps, using those exits as destinations and thereby encouraging much needed commercial development in the city, thereby capturing the jobs and tax revenue we’ve let escape to neighboring parishes.

Ways to enhance N. Claiborne

Markets

One of the ways we can bring economic life into the community adjacent to N. Claiborne is by using the shade and shelter provided by the elevated I-10 as an open air market from Orleans to St. Bernard, along the lines of the Portabello Road Market in London which sits under the freeway. Using the space under the bridge, lighting it attractively, providing  some soft material overhang to dampen highway traffic noise and setting up a system of market stalls along with a couple of permanent performance stages for local musicians. This area can be a focus of community activity, providing as it does, ample parking and a large swath of land for expansion.

Bus Transfer Station

The area under I-10 at Canal should be used for a Bus Transfer station. Move all of the current bus route termination points from their current locations at Canal & Rampart, Canal & Basin and Tulane & Loyola and centralize them to a Bus transfer station at Canal & Claiborne. Light it attractively, use soft awnings to minimize highway noise, fence the area to provide security, provide security, a driver break room & a small kiosk for the sale of magazines and cold drinks.

Larger commercial development

Rewrite zoning code to provide for opportunities for larger commercial development. Encourage retailers to locate there and make it easier to remove blighted buildings. Also make it easier to combine lots on adjacent streets so that larger parcels can be developed.

Ways to enhance S. Claiborne

Larger commercial development

Rewrite zoning code to provide for opportunities for larger commercial development. Encourage retailers to locate there and make it easier to remove blighted buildings. Also make it easier to combine lots on adjacent streets so that larger parcels can be developed.

Provide turning lanes

One of the major issues with S. Claiborne is traffic flow. Some of this could be mitigated by providing turning lanes, cut from the neutral ground that takes folks making left hand turns out of the flow of traffic. Also, reworking the overpass from the Northeast so that there are ramps to Earhart.

What removal of elevated I-10 means to the City at large.

Endless Gridlock on the Pontchartrain Expressway

The Pontchartrain Expressway to and from the west already carries close to 200,000 cars a day. At peak rush hours traffic will stack up back across the Crescent City Connection. Adding Eastbound I-10 traffic to that will likely increase it to a breaking point. And the Pontchartrain Expressway is prone to flooding at the railroad underpass.

Massive new interchange in Lakeview

As there isn’t currently a way to get from Westbound I-10 off the Pontchartrain Expressway to Eastbound 610 a massive new interchange will have to be built. Any discussion of removal of I-10 over Claiborne should include stakeholders in Lakeview.

Removing access to downtown hospitals.

We are in the process of building two brand new hospitals downtown, one of which will likely house our city’s trauma center. Currently they will sit next to the interstate which will provide speedy access from most parts of the city. Much of the city will be cut off from easy access to the new hospitals if we remove the interstate.

Endymion Saturday, Crescent City Classic, Rock And Roll Marathon.

I-10 provides a flyover of Canal Street and joins Uptown with Downtown when Endymion rolls on Saturday or any time Canal or Esplanade is blocked by a special event, such as parade or race.

Increased ground level traffic on Claiborne, Broad & Elysian Fields

With the I-10 handling over 100,000 cars a day, if a significant number of those are folks from points east looking to access downtown they will likely take Claiborne, Broad (Hwy 90) and Elysian Fields. Broad is currently very congested. Elysian Fields also is very busy at rush hours. And any extra traffic on surface level N. Claiborne is likely to make that street difficult to cross without a street light.

Increased congestion on Rampart and Canal and the CCC approaches.

As more traffic would be shifted to ground level more congestion would likely accumulate on Canal and Rampart. Also more congestion and traffic would be seen on Loyola, Carondelet and Tchoupitoulas exits of the CCC approach (Hwy 90) and these are exits that currently back up on to bridge approach most mornings.

Our transportation legacy and capacity

Given that a major part of our legacy, and hopefully our future, is with the transportation sector it seems hostile to our capacity and legacy and future to look to reduce our transportation links. We should look for ways to increase our capacity so that we can promote growth in the transportation sector, a key sector of our economy.

The future I-49

Hopefully, when I-49 is completed and can meet up with I-10 at the Superdome, it will provide a signature crossroads that we can all be proud of.

Unbuilding New Orleans East

Considering that the main effect of removal of I-10 would be to cut off New Orleans East from convenient downtown access, any and all discussions should involve New Orleans East. Actually, given that this road is used by the entire city, this discussion should be brought to the entire city.

Removal of roadway above flooding in a city where street flooding is an issue

Having gone through a host of planning where “storm-proofing” infrastructure was a major topic, it seems particularly foolish to consider removing a roadway always above base flood elevation and that provides a “dry” way out of a city that frequently floods from rain storms. The I-10 to the CCC (Hwy 90 ) provided a way out for many in downtown neighborhoods during Katrina. And this is particularly important as both I-10 West is prone to flooding at the railroad underpass, 610 isn’t raised along its entire length and I-10 East is prone to flooding by offshore winds from the East pushing water in the Bayou Sauvage area.

A personal tale

On May 8^th 1995, I was living in the Bayou St. John area, but when the skies opened up I was downtown rehearsing a production of Richard III. As the water rose in the Warehouse district and flooded the arts space, I had moved my truck to the sidewalk. After considering all routes I eventually found my way to the interstate. As I knew many of the low lying areas that stood in my path to home and receiving reports about flooding on Canal, Broad, parts of the French Quarter and other surface streets, and knowing that Esplanade was a ridge, I made my way up the elevated expressway and exited at Esplanade, encountering water at the bottom of the ramp but dry street once I got to the intersection with Esplanade. I drove up Esplanade to the Bayou, turned left, drove along the bayou until I got near my street. I waded home the block and a half, which was a lot closer than the miles I would have had to wade if the elevated I-10 hadn’t been there. It seems foolish to remove an elevated expressway that could be a conduit for first responders and a lifeline to the residents in a city that is prone to flooding during a strong spring rainstorm.

Suspicious Minds

Folks who have followed the “planning” attempts and processes have watched as certain ideas seem to gain currency, regardless of how unpopular they are, things like the “green dots” and other ideas for reducing our city’s capacity and population, while common sense ideas about growth have been ignored,  have made most folks suspicious of “planning” and “planners”

“New Urbanist” fashion.

Given that much of this mania to tear down the elevated expressway seems to be part and parcel of the “New Urbanist” fashion that is au currant in city planning it seems inadvisable to take a major step in reducing the capacity of our road system just because it falls in line with these “new urbanist” ideas that consistently ignore the actual urban reality of the city.

The Chief proponent.

Anyone who has followed the history of building roads in New Orleans, or almost any new project in New Orleans, finds that the chief opponent of moving the city towards a modern, robust, repopulated city is the chief proponent of removing the elevated I-10.

The preservationist mythology.

Much of the discussion surrounding this project has centered around the notion that if we make it difficult to access downtown then people will want to move downtown. This ignores the fact that much of the housing stock that makes up the area surrounding N. Claiborne and the elevated roadway is antiquated and of the type that modern New Orleans families have rejected for decades. Many of the preservationist proponents are dismissive of the needs of middle class families and hold out hope that those families are miraculously going to give up suburban living and bedroom doors that close to return to shotgun house living if we can just keep them from getting to their jobs. This attitude and the plans to remove the expressway impact significantly the middle class families of New Orleans East, families we should be working diligently to keep and whose lives we should be making more convenient.

Dave Dixon’s appearance does nothing to quell unease that “fix is in” on this study.

Since removal of the expressway ended up remaining in the city’s “Master Plan” despite vigourous protest, and given that Dave Dixon, who worked on the “master plan” for GoodyClancy seems to be involved in this effort, it give the appearance that “the fix is in” and that anything that comes out of this process is going to recommend removal regardless of what the real findings and concerns are. Many of us are remaining engaged despite this because these plans that continuously reduce our city’s capacity and undercut its ability to grow to the future are disturbing to those of us who feel that we need a strong city with increased capacity and focused primarily on growth.

And finally….

There are no magic oak trees. If oak trees made a street magic, Louisiana Ave would be a showplace, Washington Ave wouldn’t be depressed. We can’t make decisions about the future of New Orleans and whether it can be strong and grow based upon nostalgia for long-gone oak trees.

The full extent of the disastrous ‘Master Plan’ vote from 2008 is finally coming into focus. The latest poison pill to growth in New Orleans is the ‘Neighborhood Participation Plan’, which was inserted into the authorizing ‘Master Plan’ amendment. This will come as little surprise to anyone who has followed land use and planning issues, as the chief proponent and architect of the dubious notion of a ‘master plan with the force of law’ has been against EVERY new development and any change in this city for decades.

But now we are faced with a so-called “Neighborhood Participation Plan” which threatens to derail any and every new development requiring any sort of variance or zoning change. It adds time and expense and more uncertainty to almost every application to the City Planning Commission.

You can check it out here (this should pop open a PDF)

The draft of the “Neighborhood Participation Plan” includes:

- A “pre-application” process which extends the timeline for consideration indefinitely.

- A requirement that most zoning changes and some basic variances go through their own specific ill-defined “Neighborhood Participation Plan” that the applicant is expected to pay for and administrate.

- A requirement that the applicant must present, as part of their application, once it finally gets out of the ‘pre-application period, all of opposition and concerns to their application.

- Once the  application  is submitted it can be subject to endless public hearing requirements.

- It writes in special treatment for neighborhood associations which, traditionally, have been more opposed to new development and zoning changes than the public at large.

What it excludes is any protections against groups or individuals attempting to extort concessions that don’t touch specifically on the parcel in the application.

This new method of delaying zoning change requests indefinitely  will politicize to an even greater extent an already opaque, convoluted and onerous process. It will lead to needing your neighbor’s permission to use your property as you see fit. It will add an infinite amount of new rings to kiss. Watch for established businesses to manipulate the process to keep out competition.

All of this is against a background of a wholly inadequate zoning code that doesn’t provide flexibility for property owners and makes conditional uses and zoning changes necessary by failing to plan for the obvious notion that narrowly written criteria will exclude the great bulk of what people actually want to do with their property. But it is naturally New Orleans that the rules are put in place so that we can have the privilege of paying to have them relaxed.

So how we fix this, short of doing the smart thing and throwing the whole thing out and starting all over again?

- Remove the pre-application process and requirement.

- If there is a Project Neighborhood Participation Plan to be required, and why would there be, but if there is, it should be paid for and administered by the Planning Commission Office, using the District Planners. And it should be done within the application timetable.

-There should be no increase in fees associated with this Plan, instead it should come from the city’s general fund. It is not the fault of the applicant that the code didn’t take into account their plans.

- If neighborhood associations want special access to the process there should be fees for that special access.

- Remove the provision in the flow chart where an application can be subject to endless public hearings.

We have done enough in New Orleans to empower the endless opposition to growth and development. We are struggling as a city because of it. If we can’t remove this “Neighborhood Participation Plan” at least we can find ways to make it less destructive to the future of New Orleans.

The New Orleans “Master Plan” http://nolamasterplan.com/ was passed by a slim margin of voters to much ballyhoo by its supporters and a good deal of suspicion and skepticism by those of us who questioned the wisdom of giving a plan the force of law prior to any plan being drafted. When proponents trumpeted its ability to ensure “neighborhood input” in stopping development many of us just saw it has a way to empower the perpetual opposition that crops up with EVERY proposal. The bone they threw to people who want much needed development to come to New Orleans is that, for a project that met all the myriad of criteria, it would add more “certainty” to being able to develop.

That was a lie.

We were told it was going to bring a set of rules “unaffected by politics”. What we got was the empowerment of NIMBYs to stop everything anybody wants to build.

The latest case is Tulane’s new proposed stadium. You can read about it here.

The short story is: Tulane wants to build a stadium they can build under the current zoning rules. A dozen NIMBYs get up in arms. They appeal to a councilwoman, who made her ‘bona fides’ as a NIMBY, who is convinced that issues that can be handled simply with municipal code enforcement need to be handled with land use regulation. The councilwoman proposes an “interim Zoning District”(IZD) to throw sand in the works of Tulane developing a stadium despite overwhelming support for the stadium, protesting all the time that she doesn’t want to “impede progress”. Three other pandering councilwomen join in and the IZD passes.

And they use the “master plan”, which they tell us is supposed to add “certainty” to the land use process, to justify it.

What is clear is that the only way the “master plan” will be used is to guarantee the “certainty” that nothing can ever be built without either kissing the rings of self appointed neighborhood poo-bahs or paying off council people to ignore the perpetual opposition to change.

The post “master plan” world is one in which a project that wasn’t envisioned by the people putting together the plan, who made no secret they were under the influence of preservationists and other anti-development groups, will require a year of meetings, hearings and thousands of dollars in fees. But a handful of NIMBYs can stop a project that is ALLOWED by the plan just by whining to a sympathetic pandering councilwoman. A post “master plan” New Orleans is one in which NOTHING ever gets built again unless there is NO ONE who objects.  This is an impossible standard in a city where a debate on an issue between 3 people can bring 5 different opinions.

What we have now is a system where the opposition, the forces of NO, are always given deference and that will lead to a New Orleans where nothing can ever grow again.

One of the most beloved aspects of the “New Orleans Culture” is its embrace of music. Unfortunately for decades New Orleans zoning code was hostile to live music in the city. The only place that live music was a “Permitted” use under the zoning code was Bourbon Street, initially, and then Frenchman Street additionally. Outside of these two entertainment zones, live music was either “conditional” or not allowed.

The City of New Orleans is now rewriting its zoning code and we have the opportunity to expand & protect live music and the venues that host it.

Well, this a moment of opportunity. If you want to see Live Music thrive and grow in New Orleans you need to send in a note to the City Planning Commission.

A couple of key points to hit in your comments would be.

- A desire that live music be a “permitted” use in Commercial, Mixed Use & Neighborhood Business zoning categories provided the venue can operate within the municipal code’s sound ordinance.

- That live music is an integral part of the New Orleans economy as expressed through the “cultural economy” sections of the Master Plan.  And that not allowing live music to play a larger role in neighborhood economies is contrary to  the ‘spirit’ of the City’s master plan.

Public comments may be emailed to the CPC office at cpcinfo@nola.gov. Please type “CZO Draft” into the subject line.

The folks looking to shut down live music venues are already organized. New Orleans if full of NIMBYs looking to shut down anything they can’t specifically control or doesn’t specifically meet their needs. We have an opportunity to get live music as a permitted use enshrined in the zoning code if we act now.

We could have used this whole experience to fundamentally remake the city into one that provides opportunity for its citizens and perhaps create a new prosperous city. We could have used this to create a new New Orleans based upon economic opportunity but instead we are continuing to pursue the same methods that have led to our stagnation and decline.

Economic development sections put low wage tourism first and follows it with the dubious concept of the “cultural economy”. The rest of the chapter seems to be focused almost exclusively on the ‘public private” partnership. It almost ignores our place in the global economy and the benefits that has brought us over the course of our existence.

And all of this is premised upon a dubious new theory that contradicts millennia of observation on the growth and prosperity of cities. The planners brought to the table the idea that a diverse and cosmopolitan population will drive economic development instead of what has actually been the case since the dawn of civilization, that economic development will bring a diverse and cosmopolitan population. We didn’t get built on this swamp because our forefathers came for the culture, they were the culture, they came for the economic opportunity and that’s how real, vibrant cities maintain themselves.  We can’t pretend we can pay people to BE the culture, we have to recognize that we have a culture because people got paid doing other, more productive things.

The one thing this master plan desperately needed to do was to sweep away the 70s CZO that zoned our neighborhood businesses out of existence. The empty storefronts that dot our city are the legacy of a previous plan, more suited to Slidell, that painted on zoning with a paint roller rather than recognizing the diverse land-use mosaic that is our streetscape. This plan pays lip service to opening up these locations to encourage the entrepreneurial spirit of the city but it should be boldly declaring that these storefronts can be a force in our economic renaissance.

But of course they are being cautious, lest they upset the forces of NO, that are holding this city back economically because it may, possibly, make their lives the slightest bit less comfortable or not cater exclusively to their needs. Well, we have a whole passel of city ordinances to deal with any disturbances and better we use them than foreswearing commercial uses and leaving our city filled with vacant buildings.

In a city that is going broke, the Planning Commission gave themselves another 14 or so district planners. Instead of eliminating the need to “kiss rings”, the so-called Citizen Participation Plan adds another layer of rings to kiss as they empower the most obstructionist elements of our city to stand in the way of new development or request kickbacks from projects.

We have already seen this play out as a neighborhood association already requested a cut of the operating funds of the ill-conceived “Re-inventing the crescent”. Not only unhappy with getting a park that will further erode New Orleans’ raison d’etre they wanted to be paid. And this is a public project. How many developers looking to bring jobs and sales tax revenue will be similarly held up?

The plan is overly protective of the housing for 650,000 plus people that we don’t need and hostile towards the commercial property that we desperately need for the jobs and the sales tax revenue they produce. It has removed most commercial zoning west of the industrial canal unless it is adjacent to a housing project.

There seems to be notion in this town that we can complain about section 8 housing and property taxes and in the same breath stop the businesses that bring jobs and sales tax revenue as if these two aren’t linked. That we can call for more police and better schools without understanding how more and better employment opportunities help both these situations.

At a time when we are struggling to maintain and grow our population we should be making it EASIER for people to rebuild and businesses to open. But instead of a growth plan, this thing focuses on a preservation plan.  But here is the bottom line, without a robust economy there are no resources to preserve anything and without a prosperous population there is no reason to preserve anything.

Throughout the process there have been calls for “input” but when it comes to the actual plan it seems to stick pretty closely to the desire of special interest groups with their obstructionist agenda. So much so, that the Fairgrounds Racetrack isn’t mapped to be commercial, like it should be, but is mapped for doubles, like we need

yet more housing without jobs.

Additionally, have we told the people of Lakeview that a new massive interstate interchange is coming to their

neighborhood or the people of New Orleans East that we don’t really care if they can get to work downtown or the people of the Treme that Claiborne is probably going to be 8 lanes of traffic at highway speeds, if we keep the destruction of I-10 in the plan. The only thing that works in the plan is the new hospitals, which it gives rather tepid support to.

My wish? Send it back to the City Planning Commission with the notation to make the entire plan advisory only. Take the destruction of the I-10 out of the plan. Open up the “Citizens Participation” Groups to all comers and not just members of unelected neighborhood associations. Short of going back to the drawing board to build a plan that embraces progress and puts economic development first, without the fantasy that either preservation or culture is economic development, a plan that opens up the city for development and redevelopment rather than giving into the forces of NO and their desire to hold the city back. We needed to start with the idea that everything not explicitly forbidden is allowed,

rather than the other way around. We need to find ways to say YES. It is the only way for New Orleans to survive and thrive.  Thank you.

Like everyone in New Orleans, Hurricane Katrina and the subsequent flooding affected my thinking about my city and my relationship with it.

Prior to the storm I had very little interest in local politics and the policies and personalities which ran the city. I was more focused on national issues.

But you can’t see your city in ruins, your fellow citizens either suffering or running wild in the streets, on national television for a couple of weeks without thinking that we must have been doing something seriously wrong to get us to this point. So, while the levee failures were the engineering failure that wrecked havoc on the physical infrastructure, we had economic and social failures that stretched for years and decades prior that had wrecked havoc on the lives of the citizens..

I started to look at Katrina through the lens of our economic decline and how that played into the problems before, during and after the storm. How lack of economic opportunity left folks vulnerable because they lacked the resources to choose their own path, how the lack of good jobs slowed the recovery and still continues to slow the recovery.

It is a big change for a self-identified “art guy”. I’ve gone from writing screenplays to thinking about zoning policy. The drive towards making up stories has been supplanted by the need to attempt to do the things needed to ensure New Orleans’ economic sustainability. If you had told me 10 years ago I’d be this “pro-development” I would have laughed. But things change and it changes you.

Central to this is the idea that people need jobs, in general, and good jobs, in particular in order to put their lives back together. They need economic opportunity and a good shot at career advancement to meet their obligations to their families and have the resources to enhance their lives and their community. And if they don’t find it in New Orleans they will leave to find it somewhere else.

As a result of this I have become extraordinarily sensitive to anyone who stands in the way of our city’s economic development. It is a “jobs first” outlook. It has made me very sympathetic to those who are bringing jobs to the city and fairly hostile to those attempting to obstruct those who are bringing business and jobs to the city.

Put simply- I will generally support those who are doing something and oppose those who look to stop them. To borrow a baseball rule, the tie goes to the runner.

New Orleans can only survive in a meaningful way if we work diligently to make its economy strong. Not just for its own purpose but because it allows its the city to retain and attract its population, it allows it to access the resources from the nation it needs to protect itself from hazards when it can demonstrate it is economically important to the nation. It allows the citizens to maintain themselves and be in a position to make their own choices.

And this is why I am working towards a future for New Orleans. Not just one that is a whisper or pale reflection of the past, but one that finds us, once again a world economic center.