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A Master Plan and a Citizen Advisory Committee for Audubon Park is sorely
needed. If these had been in place even two years ago, we would most probably
not be in the controversial mess we find ourselves in now. All of these issues
would have been discussed long before the contracts were signed and the
bulldozers started working. What planning does take place is haphazard and
subject to only fragmented public input. Decisions affecting the park are
unilateral and based on considerations that have more to do with monetary gain
than with the best interests of the park or of its many diverse users who reside
in the adjoining area and city wide.
It is in the Public Interest for the City of New Orleans to know what the Audubon Nature Institute’s
Plans are
The Audubon Commission, the Audubon Nature Institute’s client, was created by state legislative
act and therefore is not a public body directly answerable to the city’s administrative, legislative
or policing powers. But the very existence of the park and its management is inseparable from
the city itself, and therefore its planning and the city’s planning are likewise incapable
of being conducted in a manner discrete from each other.
The actions taken by the
Audubon Commission and its management entity the Audubon Nature Institute in the development
and implementation of its golf course plan go directly to the heart of the central issue
that has informed the entire body of work performed by the Planning Commission and the Master
Plan Citizen Advisory Committee for nearly four years in developing the
Master Plan Blueprint.
The three central imperatives defined by the City Planning Commission and the Advisory Committee are
that planning should be
- Integrated rather than entirely ad-hoc
- Open to maximum feasible citizen participation, rather than taking place behind closed doors
- Based on a rational assessment of needs and publicly
enunciated goals about our city, rather than mainly on the financial imperatives of the developers
Can these goals be achieved if the Planning Commission does not review the golf course
plans to determine their relationship to these three imperatives?
Whatever the Audubon Commission’s legal relationship to the city, there are strong,
compelling arguments for this needed review in the very nature of the strategy for revising
the Comprehensive Zoning Ordinance approved by the City Planning Commission in 1995.
This strategy relied on the development of a land use plan based on public input workshops conducted
in 1998, resulting in the Land Use Plan adopted by the Planning Commission
and the City Council in 1999.
The Land Use Plan makes numerous references to the preservation
of multiple use green space in all parks, including Audubon.
If the Land Use Plan is the cornerstone of both the new Zoning Ordinance draft currently being
developed and of the goals of the Master Plan Blueprint and its elements, then it is
unavoidable to conclude that all planned projects by the Audubon Commission and the
Audubon Nature Institute involving the use of city land for park use are subject to
review by the Planning Commission. Also noteworthy is the clearly stated intent of the City
Council, referenced in the statement of intentions in the Purposes Section of the
Comprehensive Zoning Ordinance currently being drafted, to have the zoning regulations
implement both the Master Plan and the
1999 Land Use Plan.
Because the Planning Commission is not an elective body, it feels that it does not possess
the authority to initiate a review of the plans without a pending zoning change filed by a
party with standing. However, it will undertake such a review if instructed to do so by
the City Administration (mayor) or the City Council. Currently, SaveAudubonPark is attempting to get
Councilman Scott Shea to move such a request through the Council. We ask all of you to
communicate to him the need to ask the Planning Commission to undertake a review of the
renovation plan. Please contact him at 565-6345 (phone), 565-7650 (fax) or
shea@nocitycouncil.com
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