Plan to concentrate Mid-City with low-income HUD properties- attention residents and property owners! (New Orleans: low income)

[alittlenerdy]

I received this email today:Draft Land Use for Master Plan

"March 29th, 2009 by Jennifer Farwell
WE NEED YOUR INPUT!!!
April Neighborhood Meeting (April 6; 6:30pm at Grace Episcopal, 3700 Canal Street) will focus on the Master Plan. Come and Share Your Opinion!!!
The official District 4 Planning Meeting is Wednesday, April 22, from 6-9pm at Jesuit High School.
On Friday, March 20, planning firm Goody Clancy posted the Draft Master Plan. The proposed land use map for District 4, which includes Mid-City, is here.
The Draft Master Plan is a goldmine of information on the city and its historic and current physical environment. However, MCNO needs your input to determine whether the proposed land uses are appropriate for our neighborhood. They do not match up completely with the land uses proposed by the citizen-guided Lambert Plan.
Specifically, Goody Clancy proposes ?low-density multi-family? for all the residential areas of Mid-City other than a small area on the City Park side of Bienville and Carrollton. ?Urban Mixed-Use? is proposed for the Tulane Corridor and the Lindy Boggs site. For Canal, ?Neighborhood Mixed-Use? is proposed.
After speaking with planners from Goody Clancy at length on Friday, March 27th, and examining the Land Use document posted with the Draft Plan, we have determined the following:
1. ?Low-density multi-family? allows up to 36 residential units per acre;
2. Neighborhood mixed-use allows a mix of uses (e.g. residential and commercial), with a FAR (floor to area ratio) of 2.0. FAR is a measurement of the number of floors allowed compared to the amount of space the building takes up on the lot. For example, a two-story property that takes up half of a lot would have a FAR of 1.0. A FAR of 2.0 allows a two-story building that occupies the entire lot, or a four-story building that occupies half of the lot.
3. Urban mixed-use allows a mix of residential and commercial, with a FAR of up to 8.0. That allows a building of up to 8 stories if it consumes the entire lot, or 16 stories if it consumes half the lot.
If we do not provide sufficient input to Goody Clancy, the final land use and zoning will not reflect our desires!!!
Please attend the Neighborhood Meeting on April 6 and provide your input, then plan to attend the District 4 meeting on April 22!!!!!
Jennifer Farwell
Vice President
MCNO"


"Here's some math:

Our city blocks are 320 x 320 = 102,400 sq ft = 2.6 acres.

The "Low-Density Multi-Family" category, which most of Mid-City falls into right now calls for up to 36 dwelling units per acre. Therefore you could have up to 92 units on one city block.

I wanted to compare this density to the current density of my block.

I count the following number of units:
10 (S Scott)+ 3 (Palmyra)+ 6 (Cleveland) + 16 (S Pierce) = 37 units.

So, Multi-Family low density is 2.5 times as dense as what exists."









This is terrible! Mid-City does not have room for more "units". We do not have the means to support low-income housing, because we can hardly support the community as it is. We have 1 grocery store, 1 hardware store, and a few restaurants and small businesses where they "propose" to put up low income housing. The streets are narrow and tiny, and the traffic would be horrific.

Since living here for 3 years, the most devastating news that I have ever heard concerning Mid-City.

[rcp11889]

Low-density does not mean low-income. It simply means creating a more walkable, urban evnironment. As for the fact that mid-city does not have enough amenities, the private sector will step up and create new stores and whatnot when the demand is there.

[Prytania]

I think that should mean high density. And for New Orleans to thrive it is going to have to be high density (and if you wanted low density, Livingston Parish on the other side of the lake is your place)

[alittlenerdy]

Originally Posted by Prytania

I think that should mean high density. And for New Orleans to thrive it is going to have to be high density (and if you wanted low density, Livingston Parish on the other side of the lake is your place)

Mid-City is not a high density area- think several stories high complexes back to back, block after block. Mid-City is really just a suburb of the business district and downtown, and it's mostly filled with singles and doubles, not high-rises.


Update: The meetings were relatively successful. Mid-City residents were able to voice their opinions about how their existing neighborhoods should be zoned, and thankfully, all of the grossly inaccurate zoning configurations were fixed. The first meeting had 350 residents in attendance, and tonight's meeting had about 500.

There are no longer "high density" areas which were really "low density", and the garbage about Lindy Boggs being zoned as "high density", yet surrounded by a fundamentally low density area, was somewhat resolved.