New Urbanists Selected to Help Plan the Reconstruction Efforts Following Hurricane Katrina

From New Urban news
This article has been reprinted courtesy of NewUrbanism.org.

"The devastation that Hurricane Katrina inflicted on Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama in late August has prompted the largest community planning effort ever undertaken by new urbanists. Some 100 architects, planners, transportation specialists, and other professionals from new urbanist firms across the US met in Mississippi Oct. 11-18 to help lead a massive planning effort aimed at rebuilding at least nine of that state’s stricken coastal communities, including Gulfport, Biloxi, and Pascagoula.

The firms involved are working for a fraction of their usual fees and will team up with local architects and planners, said Miami architect-planner Andres Duany, who is coordinating the program on behalf of the Congress for the New Urbanism.

Gov. Haley Barbour met with Duany Sept. 12 and authorized him Sept. 20 to bring in teams to collaborate with some of the worst-hit communities along 120 miles of Mississippi’s Gulf Coast. “It is important to emphasize that these tools and designs will be made available to the local stakeholders, but not forced upon them,” CNU President John Norquist said in a letter to the governor. “It is for each community to decide what to do.” Norquist joined Duany in leading the CNU initiative.

Recommendations for reconstruction:
The planners have come up with about 90 recommendations on transportation, affordable housing, zoning, building codes, and environmental issues such as where to build, solid waste, and wastewater. Their recommendations include adopting a form-based code throughout the cities and counties of the coast, moving a Conrail rail line inland and using the current rail ROW for a coastal light rail system, and converting Route 90, the coastal highway that runs the entire length of the coast, into a coastal parkway and "main street" with trolley transit.

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