Many of New Orleans’ devastated neighborhoods won’t fully return to their pre-Katrina character, but some warn against wholesale razing and development of a ‘New Orleans Disneyland.’

On Aug. 29, 2005, Hurricane Katrina devastated the Gulf Coast of Louisiana and Mississippi, killing at least 1,300 people and displacing over 1 million more. As disaster relief and clean-up efforts continue, New Urbanist planning, sustainable development and green building practitioners have converged to create a new "perfect storm" in the region.

In the face of the devastation, some say an unprecedented opportunity exists to demonstrate to the rest of the nation the benefits and advantages of healthy, pedestrian-friendly and energy-efficient design.

New Urbanist vision
While arguments continue about whether to rebuild New Orleans at all, New Urbanists have wasted no time planning compact communities with green buildings and public transit for neighboring Mississippi.

Andres Duany, a Miami-based architect and planner known for his anti-sprawl philosophy, is at the forefront of the reconstruction effort. The Congress for New Urbanism (CNU), a Chicago-based coalition of architects, planners, sociologists and other professionals that Duany helped found, stepped in to assist him with rebuilding 11 Gulf Coast towns and cities.

"Disasters catalyze real clarity with people," says Duany. "It’s very unusual that one can work as fast as we did in this country at this moment."

Five weeks after Hurricane Katrina touched down, CNU organized a one-week planning session in Biloxi, Miss. Duany led a group of approximately 125 New Urbanists from across the nation in a weeklong charrette — a collaborative meeting to sketch out planning solutions — with representatives from the devastated locales. Town meetings were planned to review new designs.

Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour reportedly called in Duany, but some say the real credit for the planner’s involvement goes to Leland Speed, executive director of the Mississippi Development Authority. Speed, a real estate magnate frustrated with sprawl, was familiar with Duany and his work designing the brand-new town of Seaside, Fla. Inspired by the New Urbanists' marriage of economic viability and livability, Speed wanted to see walking communities built in Mississippi. At the same time, he wanted the Magnolia State’s Gulf Coast towns to retain their flavor, individuality and affordable housing options.

"We now have a vision of what we really dream we’d like this place to be like 20 years from now," Speed says.

Duany returned to Biloxi at the end of November, leading a review and discussion of the charrette’s findings. In subsequent days, citizens of the 11 towns receiving redesigns were able to review the reports and contribute their opinions.

Next, Duany met with town officials and planners, developers and area casino operators. The Gulf is the nation’s third-largest casino market, after Las Vegas and Atlantic City, and the operators want to integrate gaming establishments into local plans.

Duany and the other CNU members also worked during the December meetings on plans for affordable housing. Understanding that a lack of energy-efficient homes was due to the reliance on energy-intensive air conditioning, they are resurrecting pre-World War II designs. Similarly, the U.S. Department of Energy has launched a series of seminars promoting energy-efficiency in rebuilding efforts across the Gulf Coast region.

‘Shotgun’ homes aim for affordable and appropriate design. Courtesy Mississippi Renewal Forum.

CNU drew up plans for a $32,000 "shotgun" house — a regionally appropriate design that cools quickly using natural airflow. The coalition also published a free pattern book of affordable home designs.

New Urbanism opposes big highway development in favor of smaller road networks connecting walking communities with green spaces and commercial districts. In Biloxi, Duany had a discussion with the Mississippi Department of Transportation (MSDOT). The agency wants to handle future congestion by building bigger roads and bridges. Its officials appear to think of the New Urbanists as wishful thinkers.

Duany took the position that building bigger is a source of traffic and detrimental to livable communities. After some initial wrangling with MSDOT, Duany appeared optimistic about further negotiations. Both parties were in agreement about a plan drawn up in the meetings to reduce the washed-out beach running highway, U.S. 90, to a slower, more community-friendly boulevard.

The New Urbanists also recommended connecting the region with rail and trolleys. In  fact, trolleys and passenger rail were in use in the area until the 1960s, and the right-of-ways are still available.

During the feedback sessions, the citizens of Mississippi coast townships were concerned about where to locate the means for turning the New Urbanist's plans into reality. "There are so many sources of funding, it’s almost impossible to keep track of it," says Duany.

For his work on the Gulf Coast planning, Duany says he is only charging enough to cover his expenses. Anyone who has seen the devastation first-hand, he says, would do the same.

Green building on the bayou

Following widespread hurricane destruction along the Biloxi, Miss. waterline, planners sketched a New Urbanist master plan with centers of pedestrian-friendly, mixed-use activity. Photo courtesy Mississipi Renewal Forum.

In New Orleans, the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) is promoting its own brand of sustainable development using the community-oriented charrette approach.

Bill Browning, a partner in the Washington, D.C.-based firm Browning + Banning LLC, is the USGBC's point person for the New Orleans rebuild. Browning helped reconstruct communities flooded by the Mississippi River in 1993.

Browning agreed with people who maintain that Louisiana communities that were below sea level or built on barrier islands should not be rebuilt — after all, a request for billions in aid from the federal government to upgrade Louisiana’s levee system has yet to be answered by the Bush administration.

But Browning says inland neighborhoods "need to be rebuilt to a hurricane code."

"And if we’re going to go to the time and expense of rebuilding them," he says, "we ought to do it right."

The USGBC's annual Greenbuild conference and expo was held in Atlanta from Nov. 9-11, 2005. During Greenbuild, the council opened its charrettes to the more than 10,000 conference participants. The emphasis was on plans that could become direct action, as opposed to simple strategizing.

As part of New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin's Bring New Orleans Back Commission, Philadelphia-based design and planning firm Wallace Roberts and Todd LLC won the contract to create a new master plan for New Orleans. The firm participated in the USGBC charrettes, and Browning says it is using the results in its plan.

"The intent right from the outset was not just to do the policy initiative, but to actually do work that would be in partnership with organizations that will be building or funding things in the region," says Browning.

Amid the numerous projects discussed, building affordable housing was one area of paramount concern. The hurricane displaced 600,000 area households. Browning says he has seen federal estimates that as many as 180,000 homes will be needed across the region.

During Greenbuild, the council worked with Habitat for Humanity to address the need to modify its standard home for the New Orleans climate and culture, and for the agency to build more than the typical single-family detached homes because multi-family and high-density housing is desperately needed. The 2005 hurricane season was the busiest on record, and many expect the longer storm season to be a new trend. USGBC planners say design should anticipate future concerns.

"They are also in conversation in the green building council about putting together a mechanism in place to rapidly assemble teams to provide expertise and assistance in the future, because, I hate to say it, but you know we’ll see more of these," says Browning.

No Disneyland, please
Peter Trapolin of New Orleans-based Trapolin Architects, stresses that his city, with its mix of residential and commercial building, embodies a lot of the positive New Urbanist principles already. Trapolin is known for his work on historically sensitive local projects, and he also worked on a hotel design for the New Urbanist community of Rosemary Beach, Fla.

Trapolin would like to see New Orleans' neighborhoods rebuilt rather than razed and redone, but he also seems to oppose a Utopian vision for a city in which Old World randomness was integral to the charm.

"I think some of the fear immediately after the storm is that people would come in and bulldoze entire neighborhoods and then try to create these little Seasides or Rosemary Beaches scattered throughout the city, and we don’t want that," says Trapolin.

The architect reiterated an appreciation for New Urbanism's basic principals, but he said planners must be careful to avoid "anything that looks like Disneyland New Orleans."

Global Green USA

The devestation of Biloxi, Miss., opens opportunities and challenges for those left to rebuild.

One organization trying to bring together the various interested groups for a rejuvenated city that all can agree on is Los Angeles-based Global Green USA, the U.S. arm of Mikhail Gorbachev's Green Cross International.

The organization plans to open a green building resource center in New Orleans. The storefront space will be open to the public and provide homeowners, builders, architects and developers with information about how to obtain and best utilize green building products.

Green affordable housing places emphasis on increasing energy-efficiency, using natural lighting and building with non-toxic materials. Monica Gilchrist, coordinator of the group’s Santa Monica resource center, says Global Green also intends to help people address molds that have affected many of the buildings in the flooded region.

"The problem is that so many different groups are working in parallel, and one of the things this resource center hopes to begin the process of is to connect a lot of these different groups or at least to catalog what folks are doing," says Gilchrist.

For the 70,000 people (out of an original populace numbering 468,000) who have thus far returned to live in New Orleans, basic shelter is the utmost concern. She says inadequate government funding will prompt some citizens to rebuild their own homes, and she wants them to be able to do it green. Gilchrist says she thinks locals will embrace her organization’s vision for lower energy bills and better overall health.

Following successes in Mississippi, Andres Duany and the CNU plans to now join groups rebuilding Louisiana. They’re scheduling meetings with local officials in order to decide which communities will be rebuilt as New Urbanist models for others to follow.

When asked why he thinks New Urbanist and green building philosophies are receiving so much attention in the Gulf Coast region, Duany says no competing viewpoint exists.

"There is no other coherent proposition," he says. "There is no plan B."