Watch this WWL-TV news clip on Reinventing the Crescent.
The committee of architects, city employees, and others has begun to outline their plans for the redevelopment of the property downriver from Canal Street as part of a 6.4 mile development from Jackson Avenue into Holy Cross. The New Orleans Building Corporation under the leadership of Mr. Sean Cummings, has established a committee called Reinventing the Crescent to handle the process.
This process is working on an extremely tight time-line, which is surprising considering the magnitude of the undertaking. The first site visit by architects and designers took place on February 22-23 of this year. Subsequent site visits have taken place or will take place on March 16-17, April 12-13, May 24-26 and June 28. This last site visit coincides with the completion and presentation of the plan on the same day.
The team of outside architects and designers has had only the most limited contact with the riverfront—viz. their misconstruction of iconic local place names—and virtually no interaction with members of the affected communities, relying instead on the input of Mr. Eskew and Mr. Cummings and the Steering Committee, which was appointed by Mr. Cummings. Four "Stakeholders Workshops" have been planned—the Stakeholders were chosen by Mr. Cummings. Initially, only two meetings—March 16 and May 26—were scheduled as "Public Presentations."
Under public pressure, the planners decided to make the Stakeholders meetings somewhat more inclusive and to schedule additional meetings with the neighborhoods, to wit: one meeting each with the Downriver Neighborhoods, the Upriver Neighborhoods and the Off-river Neighborhoods. Although these meetings include question-answer sessions, they do not involve meaningful neighborhood input. It is worth noting the planners have announced publicly that they are not constrained by the guidelines established in the UNOP (Unified New Orleans Plan) designs for the affected districts even though these plans were drawn up with significant neighborhood input.
The Alliance is concerned about issues involving developers, architects, and city employees that must be resolved by a process that is open and inclusive. So far, and in spite of the increased presentations, the process has been anything but transparent. We are afraid Reinventing the Crescent will foist a design on us that does not actually benefit our neighborhoods, but instead serves as an economic benefit plan for a small group of developers.
According to newspaper accounts, the neighborhoods between Canal Street and Jackson Avenue have responded positively to the proposed development. The proposals regarding Canal Street-downriver have roused much more controversy because residential areas here are much closer to the river and will be affected much more profoundly by changes on the riverfront.
The Alliance is made up, primarily, of citizens from the neighborhoods downriver from Canal Street: the French Quarter, the Faubourg Marigny and Bywater. In these neighborhoods, we are much concerned about the effect of greatly increased traffic and parking on our narrow nineteenth-century streets, and problems of density, scale and gentrification in the Marigny and Bywater, where the dominant architectural style is the modest one- to two-story shotgun. We are all concerned about questions of safety, involving river traffic, the floodwalls and servitude. The purpose of the Alliance is to insure that those of us who live in the neighborhoods to be affected by the plan will have a place at the planning table.
The French Quarter has suffered from ill-advised riverfront planning schemes for years—from an aborted plan to place an insectarium at the foot of Esplanade Avenue to mooring casino boats on the central riverfront. While some may see the Aquarium as a positive addition to the riverfront, to many in the French Quarter it represents a project that was imposed on the neighborhood in contradiction to alternatives offered by the community. Likewise, the development of Harrah’s casino on the site of the Rivergate convention center proceeded with only a nod to the desires of the communities which would be most affected.
Citizens of the Faubourg Marigny and Bywater come from a wide spectrum of economic and social backgrounds. We do not want our neighborhoods to outprice the elements that give them their spice. We do not want to find Disneyland at the foot of the river. Citizens of the Quarter, which has already suffered from the Disney effect and has lost much of its year-around population to part-timers, do not want to cede any more ground to developers.
Those of us who put great energy into settling into the Faubourg Marigny and Bywater when these areas were much less desirable now fear colonization by interests that will feed off the somewhat off-beat charm of our neighborhoods by destroying what makes them special. Our fragile nineteenth-century houses cannot withstand the traffic that the developers' schemes would generate. We don't want to be Atlanta or Houston. Creating condominiums on the riverfront—six towers are now envisaged just behind Poland Avenue--will not help us, but instead destablize our neighborhoods by attracting buyers in the market for second homes and time-shares, people whose property taxes will make an insignificant contribution to our economy in comparison to the consumer spending of a full-time resident. What we need are affordable homes for our first responders, for our teachers, for our other workers, for the 86% of New Orleanians who cannot afford to plop down $350,000 for a view of the river, but who will live here all year long, patronizing local businesses and paying local and state taxes. We are happy to have visitors, but we also need a solid base of permanent residents who are registered voters committed to their neighborhoods.
Reinventing the Crescent will assure you that they have held open meetings and are listening to the voices they hear. In spite of the list of meetings, no one representing the downriver neighborhoods has been invited to have a seat at the table nor have we had access to any of their back-room conversations.
Because the most significant component – the citizen – has been virtually ignored in the process, the Riverfront Alliance has organized, drafted a mission statement, created a web site, and started a petition demanding to be heard. A copy of these appears at left.