City Planning staff reviewed this proposed Amendment, and not only accepted all of NEO’s proposed changes, but also expanded the changes to Volume 2, Chapter 15 of the Master Plan. For a complete look at the proposed changes and staff’s recommendations, please see pages 52 to 55 of the City Planning Commission Staff Report. Now that the City Planning Commission has voted unanimously to accept City Planning staff’s recommendation, City Council will take up the issue (as well as every other Master Plan Amendment). City Planning is expected to send its recommendations to City Council next week, and City Council will have 90 days to accept, reject, or modify CPC’s recommended amendments. If Council chooses to modified the amendments, it will go back to City Planning Commission.

There was no real media coverage of the Master Plan Amendment vote. The only coverage of this meeting comes from NolaStat’s Brian Denzer. He wrote a summary of City Planning Commission’s approval of Text Amendment #19 and published a letter to the media and City Council opposing CPC’s recommendation. Video of the meeting can be found on City Planning’s website video page.

In addition, City Planning has put a revised scope of work for the NPP process on their website. Here are some of the highlights from this revised scope of work. The core focus of CPC’s NPP will address:

• Amendment to the Master Plan
• Zoning Changes, Conditional Uses, Planned Developments and Variances
• Capital Budget Program

The revised scope of work includes a new timeline. Here are some important dates for CPC’s NPP:

• December 2012 – Hold first NPP public meeting
  
• April 2012 – Review and Discuss First NPP Draft – hold second public meeting
• May 2012 – Release Public Hearing Draft (2nd Draft) and begin written comment period
• June 2012 – Written comment period ends – CPC to hold formal public hearing on NPP
• July 31, 2012 – Deadline to submit CPC’s formal recommendation for NPP to City Council

• Broadmoor – $4.8 million
• Lakeshore/Lake Vista – $7.5 million
• Lakeview – $16.7 million
• Milneburg - $1.3 million
• St. Claude - $21.8 million
• Lower Ninth Ward – $45 million

• Pontchartrain Park – $6.9 million

• St. Roch – $3.6 million

• Plum Orchard – $3.4 million

The City has reassessed 56 neighborhoods and will complete the remaining 14 neighborhoods by this spring. The City and FEMA will then negotiate the funding for each neighborhood and then make the announcement after FEMA obligates the funds. Don’t expect to know the details anytime soon. The City first announced $45 million to repair roads in the Lower Ninth Ward last summer, but they will not announce the roads to be repaired or the timeline of those repairs until this summer at the earliest.

The City also said that there will not be much opportunity for neighborhoods to have input in the process. Based on FEMA rules, the Federal Government tells the City which streets will be repaired. So the City, and much less the neighborhoods, do not have a say in the process. The City said that they will work with the Congressional delegation to change these rule, but the need not seem optimistic that this would happen anytime soon.

Here is some more information on this meeting. Here is the powerpoint presentation on the FEMA fund neighborhood road repair program which includes information on when all of the neighborhoods were reassessed (thank you to Stacy Head’s office for this information). Here is a link to a story that Fox 8 News did on this meeting.

It is not ideal to come to a meeting on Friday morning, the NOLA CPP will continue to work to create a system where the City will come to your neighborhood. Still, this provides a good opportunity to influence the system. Please go here to view the entire agenda, and see below for an excerpt of the agenda:

Presentation on the FEMA funded neighborhood street repairs. Specifically, for the below neighborhoods, 1) the status of funding; 2) when to expect a map of planned improvements (i.e. – have the exact locations/streets within these neighborhoods been determined, and if so, are they subject to changes); 3) the complete cost of the improvements/repairs, & if there are outstanding funds needed to complete the projects; & 4) a timeline.

• Broadmoor – $4.8 million
• Lakeshore/Lake Vista – $7.5 million
• Lakeview – $16.7 million
• Milneburg - $1.3 million
• St. Claude - $21.8 million
• Lower Ninth Ward – $45 million

To Present: Member(s) of the Administration

The Sewerage and Water Board of New Orleans will hold three citywide public hearings on rate and fee increases (the first one was held this past Monday, January 23.) The Board of Directors at its Dec. 21, 2011 meeting approved the measure.  This increase has the potential to DOUBLE current water bills.

Details on the rate increases and the need for funds to repair and upgrade the three systems will be presented at the hearings, along with information about the state of funds available for major projects throughout the City.

Public input is welcomed. PLEASE MAKE YOUR VOICE HEARD- this issue affects every one of us!

Customer service representatives will be available for questions about individual accounts.

The remaining two meetings are scheduled as follows:

Thursday, January 26, 2012

City Council Chambers

1300 Perdido Street

6 p.m.

Monday, January 30, 2012

Lindy Boggs Conference Center

(next to UNO’s Campus)

2043 Lakeshore Drive

6 p.m.

For more information contact the Community and Intergovernmental Department at 585-2169.

For a summary of the first community meeting held on Monday, January 23, please see this article from the Times-Picayune.

Tim G has also clipped the video on the Tuesday, January 10 Master Plan Amendment meeting for the relevant part on citizen participation, which can be found on the NolaHoods website.

Tim G also transcribed the response from Lucas Diaz, the Director of the Office of Neighborhood Engagement, to the opposition to the Master Plan Amendment, which can be found here.

The City Planning Commission will accept written comments on this Amendment until February 1. You can email your comments to cpcinfo@nola.gov, be sure to reference Master Plan Text Amendment #19.

http://thelensnola.org/2012/01/13/sparring-over-citizen-participation-program-in-new-orleans/

Given the critical nature of District Councils, eight NOLA CPP supporters showed up and spoke out against this proposed Amendment. After the testimony of the opponents, Lucas Diaz, the Director of the NEO, was asked to respond to the criticism. Mr. Diaz responsed saying that he agrees with the community concerns, is aware of District Councils, just wants to clarify the process in the Master Plan, and wants to leave his process open and not mandate District Councils (please see this link for his entire response).

Craig Mitchell, the Chair of the Planning Commission, asked if his office is autonomous from the Mayor. Mr. Diaz said that his office is an additional resource to improve public participation from withing City Government. Mr. Mitchell then asked if it was essential to pass this amendment, and Mr. Diaz said it was not essential, but would help to clarify.

Next Councilmember Clarkson got up to clarify the intent of the Neighborhood Participation Plan. She gave a brief history of the Master Plan with the force of law. Then she said the point of the Neighborhood Participation Program (NPP) was to make the Councilmembers’ land use decisions less political and to give the neighborhoods more of a voice in the decision making. She stressed the need for a community component of the NPP, but said that it was up to the Mayor to implement it.

Our supporters did a good job of demonstrating the backing of the NOLA CPP Model to the Planning Commission and the need for District Councils and an external (community) component of the NPP. Thanks to Tim G for processing a video clip of this portion of the meeting which can be found at the NolaHoods website.

The City Planning Commission will accept written comments on this Amendment until February 1. You can email your comments to cpcinfo@nola.gov, be sure to reference Master Plan Text Amendment #19.

On the evening of Wednesday, December 14, CBNO and NOCOG hosted a Participatory Budgeting Information Session with the PBP experts at Grace Episcopal Church in Mid-City. The public got to learn about how Participatory Budgeting works in places like New York and Chicago and other cities around the world. This was a very informative session. Here are some links with more information about the PBP and information they shared at the Wednesday evening information session…

PBP Website: http://participatorybudgeting.org/

PB Powerpoint Presentation: NOLA PB presentation

PB New York Video: http://vimeo.com/31453138

PB Chicago Video: http://vimeo.com/33216489

Video from Wed, Dec 14 Meeting: http://youtu.be/nagI64vbjDo

To contact the PBP email info@participatorybudgeting.org or call (347) 554-7357. If you are interested in learning more about Participatory Budgeting in New Orleans, please contact Nick Kindel at nolacpp@gmail.com or (504) 267-4665.

2011 Year-End Report

By Keith Twitchell – President, Commmittee for a Better New Orleans

The end of 2011 finds the New Orleans Citizen Participation Project (CPP) experiencing a mix of frustration and optimism.  The frustration comes because the indications at the beginning of the year were that New Orleans city government was going to adopt the CPP sometime this past summer and we could move into full implementation; unfortunately, a difference of viewpoints among several key city government entities pushed this timetable far back.  This apparently is the nature of systemic change, much of which by defnition has to include government and therefore politics, and requires so many different actors to get on to the same stage (and page!).

The optimism comes because the final quarter of the year saw considerable activity on parts of the CPP within city government and growing support in new communities and sectors within New Orleans.

Specifically, the city’s Neighborhood Engagement Office, which was created in spring 2011 and whose inception was a major factor in the CPP delays, conducted an initial process for developing policies and procedures for city government agencies and departments to use citizen input in their decision-making.  While this does nothing to empower the community to provide this input, it is nonetheless a very important step.  For one, it demonstrates strong recognition on the part of city government that it should pay far more attention to community voices; for two, it begins creating a culture within the individual segments of government of valuing, using, and being accountable to citizen input.

On the heels of this, the City Planning Commission CPC) has just launched a similar process specific to its own operations.  This agency probably interacts more with citizens, and therefore needs more citizen input, than any other within the administrative branch.  Further, CPC staff is very aware of CBNO’s work on the external CPP, and has supported and indeed contributed to the work.  At the public kickoff meeting for this process, dozens of citizens came out and advocated for including the external CPP with the internal procedure design work.  Both the Chair of the Planning Commission and the Executive Director have agreed to meet after the first of the year to discuss possible collaboration on these issues.  It helps greatly that the New Orleans City Council, in the city budget it adopted December 1, included funding in the Planning Commission budget specifically for a “community participation program”, which Council members have confirmed to us is intended for the external component.

While all of this went on within City Hall, CBNO worked with various community groups to continue pilot program projects to refine the New Orleans CPP model and demonstrate to city government the value of the CPP.  Specifically, partners included the Gentilly Civic Improvement Association, a collection of neighborhood associations within the city’s sixth planning district, demonstrating the District Council component of the CPP.  CBNO also worked with the Greater New Orleans Housing Alliance on the Housing Community of Interest pilot and with Puentes New Orleans on the Latino Community of Interest pilot.  The Communities of Interest are a groundbreaking new approach to expanding citizen participation programs to include residents who do not typically participate in their neighborhood groups, and the work this year amply demonstrated both the need to be more inclusive and the potential of this approach to achieve this critical objective.

While the overall results this year fell short of hopes, we always prefer to aim high, push hard and see how far we get.  With an initial draft of internal city hall policies and procedures for working with citizen input in the mayor’s hands for review, tangible progress was made on the government side.  The pilot projects provided both valuable insights on how to continue refining the New Orleans CPP model and great demonstrations of why each of the pilot components is integral to this model.  In the year ahead, we hope to maximize the opportunity to work with the City Planning Commission to meld the internal and external components, and ideally to bring the final, full-fledged model to the City Council for adoption.  As always, we appreciate greatly the support of those who stick with us as this highly challenging, exceptionally powerful work of creating systemic change and empowering community residents inches forward.

The Neighborhood Engagement Office (NEO) is working with City Planning Commission (CPC) on their Neighborhood Participation Plan (NPP). CPC will kick off their process with a public meeting on Thursday, December 15 from 6 to 8pm at Grace Episcopal Church located at 3700 Canal Street. This is a very important meeting that will guide City Planning’s work on the NPP. It is important that you let City Planning know how they should improve the structure by which they engage the community. City Planning is wants to improve notification and input on the following:

a.   Amendments to the Master Plan;

b.  Zoning Changes, Conditional Uses, Planned Developments, and Variances; and,

Please share the information about the Kick Off meeting, and try to attend on Thursday evening. Thanks!

What: City Planning NPP Kick Off Meeting
When: Thursday, December 15, 6 – 8pm
Where: Grace Episcopal Church, 3700 Canal Street

For more information about this meeting, please go to this link for the announcement from CPC.

On a related note, when the City Council passed the 2012 budget on December 1, they allocated to the City Planning Commission $80,000 in funding to implement a community participation program. This money will give City Planning the resources that they need to facilitate an expansive and inclusive process to create a community participation program.