524 St. Louis Street
New Orleans, LA 70130
Sunday Dates in December, 2015
December 6, 2015
December 13, 2015
December 20, 2015
December 27, 2015
3PM – 6PM
Call 504-620-9464, E-mail specialevents@nosoc.com or Click Here to Book Your Class Now!
Farmer’s Market Located in the Bywater3819 Saint Claude Ave
New Orleans, LA 70117
Saturday Dates in December, 2015
December 5, 2015
December 12, 2015
December 19, 2015
December 26, 2015
10AM – 2PM
Call 504-872-9214 or Click Here for More Information.
129 Terry Pkwy.
Terrytown, LA 70056
Weekly in December, 2015
Monday – Saturday 8AM – 7PM
Call 504-363-0309, Email georgesproduce@bellsouth.net or Click Here for More Information.
Revitalization is everywhere throughout New Orleans and its outlying suburbs. With so many historical places, this area is a unique and quaint place to live. One area that needs currently needs improvement is Gretna’s downtown district. Urban planners from Tulane University want to create a plan for Gretna’s development and beautification efforts in an area located between the West Bank Expressway and the Mississippi River.
The project will take around five to ten years to complete and will cost Gretna approximately $30,000. Many small cities such as Mandeville, Slidell and Kenner’s Rivertown District have also worked with the Tulane’s urban design
center. This keeps design costs down because the University provides a more reasonable rate in exchange for hands-on experience for Tulane students. The students have also been working on another project, Project for Public Spaces, and will use ideas from that project on the current Gretna project.
“I think at the end of the day we’re going to get a bigger bang for our buck with regards to the two programs working in tandem,” Mayor Belinda Constant said. Gretna will also be able to cut cost by using the project to apply to the Louisiana Main Street program that will offer Gretna tax credits and financing opportunities for their revitalization efforts.
The first step in the process is to get motorist that are driving on the West Bank Expressway to stop and explore downtown Gretna. “Some of what we’ve talked about is identifying gateways, with signage and other means, to help draw people to downtown and make them aware of what’s down there,” said Nick Jenisch, project manager for the Tulane Regional Urban Design Center. A Gretna Downtown 2020 logo has been created for signage throughout the area.
Residents have been involved with the planning and Tulane has been receptive to their concerns and suggestions. They want the use of the public outdoor spaces such as the riverfront and the square in front of City Hall. Mayor Belinda Constant says the town wants to attract young professionals through the use of walkable and bikeable routes around town and more small retail space.
Constant stated that, “We are a very small city, so the work that we can do is revitalization work,” she said. “We’re pretty much landlocked, and there aren’t any big lots of property that we can develop to broaden our tax base. … We’re just trying to position the city in the best light possible so people want to live, work and do business here.” Overall residents are excited about the re-gentrification of the small city they call home.
New Orleans’ real estate market is on the rise with home values up 54 percent and rents up 50 percent making the area a thriving market. Although we are seeing a positive impact in the housing market, the median income remains the same at $37,000. New Orleans has one of the higher poverty rates in the country at 28% with 55% of renters spending over a third of their annual income on housing. The HousingNOLA plan will focus on not only creating new housing in the area but will keep the new housing affordable. The goal is to do this by maintaining affordable housing in the area and create new affordable housing in the City of New Orleans. This plan will be executed within the next 10 years. 3,000 affordable new homes will be available for buyers by 2018 and a total of 5,000 affordable
new housing will be completed by 2021.
The focus will be on families that have an annual income of less than $48,000 for a family of four. Reports state that high demand for affordable housing is evident with 33,000 affordable homes needed over the next decade. New Orleans’ families who have a combined annual income of $29,700 to $44,575 are within the most concentrated demand. These statistics encouraged the City Council to change the city’s zoning ordinance, allowing developers to build more multi-family housing on smaller lots, if the developer will dedicate some of the units to affordable housing.
Andreanecia Morris, vice president of Providence Community Housing who heads the Greater New Orleans Housing Alliance, said “HousingNOLA is our chance to make some of those wrongs right.”
HousingNOLA will be funded by arranging local, state and federal dollars, new public policy, private sector developers and nonprofit investment. This will be done by incorporating 75 new affordable houses in upscale neighborhoods such as Uptown, Mid-City, Bywater and Lakeview, obtaining $2.5 million from New Orleans’ Neighborhood Housing Improvement Fund, creating a property tax relief for current homeowners and incentives for developers to build affordable new homes, enforcing fair housing laws by using vouchers, gaining additional funding for the Louisiana Housing Trust Fund, and stimulating sustainable development. In fact, $16 million of New Orleans’ 2016 budget has been dedicated to the affordable housing efforts.
The project will be compromised of 2,000 rentals, 1,500 new houses and 1,500 homes for special needs. Harold Brooks, a 9th Ward resident who served as a community reviewer for the HousingNOLA plan, said everyone agrees that in five years, “this will be a new, New Orleans — it’s going to change.” This will be an exciting huge project but will keep the culture the same.
