[This is a special bonus edition of Recovery Pen, reporting on the issue brought up in Monday's column.]
Sitting next to a former neighbor at Monday's Mid-City Neighborhood Association meeting, I agreed with him when he said that if he lived in any other city, he'd never attend such an event. But hey, that's part of the New Orleans magic: the government ain't gonna do it, so citizens have to get involved, or else sink into the swamp.
Easily, two hundred people were at the standing-room only meeting, with concerned residents sitting on the altar steps at Grace Episcopal Church. WWL cameras were there, as was our city council rep. Shelley Midura. The MCNO started the meeting with good news: the new community center at Comiskey Park is breaking ground in early June, a library will indeed be opening in Mid-City sometime this summer, and a local purse-snatcher was arrested. The authorities think that this particular snatcher was responsible for some 22 incidents. Thank God he's locked up in time for Easter, which is prime purse season.
And more good news: the Friends of Lafitte Corridor (charmingly known as FOLC) reported that they got three grants totalling $400,000 as well as pro-bono work on a master skematic from a Baton Rouge design firm. The FOLC folks (sorry--it's just too easy) are working to turn the dead railroad tracks of Lafitte Corridor -- which runs from Armstrong Park to Lakeview, between St. Louis and Conti -- into a vibrant bike trail with grass and benches and everything. With the City Council behind this project, and with money and a plan, it seems like a go.
On to the meat of the meeting: Victory Real Estate Investments LLC's retail development plan for Mid-City. Jennifer Weishaupt, MCNO Vice-President and Chairperson of the Economic Development committee, gave a presentation, showing herself to be an organized, professional, and passionate leader. Frankly, seeing her at the helm of the Big Box Resistance Front was a giant relief.
First, she went over MCNO's goals for developing the area in question (Jeff Davis Parkway to Carrollton Ave, from Bienville to Toulouse Streets.) These goals: to incorporate a green space for walking and biking; to build mixed-use buildings to house locally-owned businesses; and to preserve the historic character of the area while expanding modern amenities. Ms. Weishaupt then asked us if we agreed with those goals, and got a resounding "Yes" in response.
She then went on to fill us in on the history of their meetings with Victory. The MCNO had to track them down, of course, and when Weishaupt finally got on the phone with Victory's president, he told her, "Young lady, I've never had a neighborhood organization find me before." A valuable clue to Victory's community relationships, no? At their first meeting back in November 2006, Victory had proposed a "lifestyle center" (develop-speak for "outdoor mall") with a residential component and a main-street feel. Not too scary. But at their second meeting in early March, Victory unveiled their "Plan B," with "B" standing for Beware Big Box Business Balderdash. This proposal was the one reported in Saturday's Times-Picayune which drew such outrage. At the meeting, we got some of the grim square-footage statistics as well as the galling news that Plan B also called for over 2500 parking spaces over two full city blocks. Hardly the Main Street that most of us remember. You can imagine the noise in the room when Weishaupt asked us if we agreed with this plan.
Still, the meeting was heartening. As my former neighbor observed, the MCNO is much more organized than many neighborhood groups, the Faubourg St. John N'hood Ass'n in particular. Weishaupt ticked off some concrete strategies for dealing with Victory, such as preventing them from getting any tax incentives and preventing them from putting in turn lanes, which helps to keep building size down. (I guess this is why there aren't any big buildings in New Orleans except for the Superdome -- because we have no turn lanes?) The Times-Pic already quoted Weishaupt as refusing to even hear about a Wal-Mart; she also told them, "if I can get it in Metairie or the Westbank, I don't want it here."
As well, the MCNO has enlisted the Urban Conservancy, the Preservation Resource Center, the National Trust for Historic Preservation, and Professor of Urban Studies Dr. Jake Wagner, along with the FOLC folks to fight for our cause. Despite the involvement of the historic preservationists, the area in question is not historic, but is surrounded by historic areas. And because the Lafitte Corridor runs through the proposed development area, city council members have made it clear to Victory that they will either need to work with it or go somewhere else.
City Councilperson Shelley Midura spoke briefly, reminding us that we voted for her, not Victory, and that she doesn't make secret deals. "My job would be easier if I did," she said, a little wistfully. She informed us that there's a city ordinance requiring large-scale developers to come to the table with the relevant neighborhood association. In short, "nothing's set in stone," as she told us. She also sees the fact that big box stores want to invest in our community as a positive thing, a bit of logic akin to the happy news that pretty girls are more likely to get date-raped.
So far, the only land that's about to change hands is the Lindy Boggs Hospital property, which Victory is about to close on this month. When an audience member asked about any plans for medical care in Mid-City, which has had no services since Katrina, Weishaupt let us in on a dirty little secret. When Oschner turned down the offer to buy Lindy Boggs, they put a covenant on that property stating that it could NOT be used for medical purposes for the next five years. Now I have no idea how one makes rules for property that they don't own, but I do know that no one at that meeting will be setting foot inside Oschner anytime soon. Myself, I'm a Touro gal.
Victory did ask MCNO for a list of must-haves, must-not-haves, and like-to-haves, which I'm sure will fuel MCNO meetings for months to come. The audience at Monday's meeting already got some good practice voicing their opinions, which ranged from wanting no development to wanting to support biomedical industries. One astute citizen pointed out the difference between convenience retail, which focuses on residential walkability, and destination retail, which turns neighborhoods into Metairie. Near the meeting's end, Dana Eness, the director of Stay Local! -- a group whose name should speak for itself -- urged us to get involved by visiting a website with tips for dealing with big developers: www.bigboxtoolkit.com. Soon the MCNO will be putting a survey up on their website to collect more citizen input.
A final note: during this pivotal meeting, our newly-elected state representative Nick Lorusso was called out for NOT being in attendance. However, I did see him walking up the sidewalk as I was leaving. He lumbered up to local political gadfly Jimmy Fahrenholtz to shoot the shit, and I approached them. "People noticed you weren't there," I told Mr. Lorusso, curious as to his response. He rolled his eyes at me as if to say, why should I care? I'm in, baby! Jimmy then turned to me and bragged that his buddy was out "putting in a traffic sign."
"By himself," Jimmy added, as if our rep. was doing the digging with his own baby-soft hands. Now we've gotten along so far with minimal traffic signs -- was it so urgent that it had to be installed on the one night of the whole month when the MCNO meets? Or is "putting in a traffic sign" a euphemism for something else, maybe something dirty that politicians used to do at that house on Canal Street, another part of Mid-City's history?
1. Jennifer was misquoted in the Times-Picayune. What she really said was “If we can get it in Metairie or the West Bank, we don’t need it here” and the context of the discussion was chain restaurants, NOT shopping.
Posted at 5:00PM on Apr 4th 2007 by Editor B