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Did you know that a portion of the CRNA area is a Cultural District?

Posted on June 26, 2009 by Jim S

A large part of our geography is contained within the “Oak Street Music and Gallery Corridor Cultural District”.

Oak-Cultural-District

In 2007, the Louisiana Legislature passed Act 298, creating the state’s Cultural Districts program. It provides tax incentives to spark community revitalization based on cultural activity. As a result of this legislation, within designated Cultural Districts, sales of original, one-of-a-kind works of art are exempt from both state and local sales and use taxes. Also income and corporate franchise tax credits are allowed for eligible expenses for rehabilitation of owner-occupied or revenue generating structures in a Cultural District.

There are more than a dozen Cultural Districts across New Orleans and more across the state.

Filed under: commercial dev, Oak Street, quality of life | Leave a comment »

Levee Park update

Posted on March 3, 2009 by Jim S

As you probably know, a two-mile stretch of the levee along Leake Avenue, between the Jefferson line and Audubon Park was rezoned to green space in 2007.

Dr. Sheldon Hersh of the Uptown Triangle Association tells us that the next step is about to begin, with the Regional Planning Commission (RPC) about to begin a feasibility study called the Riverbend Pedestrian Access/Transit Feasibility Project.

There is still time for citizen input.   At this time no planning meeting dates have been announced. Visit the RPC website here.   

To learn about the Levee Park, click here.   Links on that page show a vision and a map of the LeveePark

Here is a list of topics for the RPC planning meetings.  Send email to Sheldon Hersh at Smhersh@aol.com if you have additional suggestions. 

Park mission: Using our waterfront to

  • improve recreational opportunities for our area
  • connect Carrollton to the French Quarter – increasing neighborhood business, tourism, and property values.
  • increase tourism for New Orleans by creating a unique tourism attraction – a riverboat-streetcar loop – without cars, pollution, or infrastructure changes.

 

The Park – physical realties

  • Access
  • Signage
  • Benches
  • Lighting
  • Security
  • Landscaping
  • Parking
  • Educational kiosks, monuments
  • Maintenance

 

Leake Avenue

  • Crossing Leake Avenue and railroad tracks
  • Traffic controls
  • Moving Leake Avenue
  • Magazine Street and Jefferson Parish entrance markers

 

Incorporating the Park into the neighborhood

  • Coordinate with CARI plan
  • Neighborhood zoning, height, amenities
  • Neighborhood walking tours

 

Oak Street

  • Promoting Oak Street and the Oak Street-Main Street Project
  • Walking tour down Oak Street

 

Regional river use

  • Connecting Carrollton to the French Quarter
  • Riverboat landing at the Riverbend, near St. Charles and Carrollton
  • Riverboat landing at Oak Street
  • Regional water taxis

 

Institutional relationships

  • Maritime traffic and uses
  • Corps of Engineers, levee raising project
  • New Orleans Public Belt Railroad

 

Park use

  • School use, bands, athletics
  • Recreation, walking, jogging, cycling, horseback riding, etc.
  • Status of the batture (riverside of the levee)
  • Neighborhood festivals

 

Dog Park

 

Transportation issues

  • Incorporating into regional transportation grid
  • Evacuation route
  • Bicycle path and regional bicycle tourism
  • Light rail

Filed under: announcements, quality of life | 1 Comment »

Excessive noise

Posted on December 19, 2008 by Jim S

I just called the police to report an extremely noisy street party on Dante, next to the streetcar barn.  I am 3 blocks away and I find it to be extremely irritating, to say the least.  I find that I cannot concentrate on anything, except my irritation.  It sounds like a live shouting dj and a metallic drum machine.  There are people all over the street.  I frankly felt afraid to confront the people in person about the noise.  Sad.

This is the first time I have reported excessive noise in the neighborhood–but it is hardly the first time it has occurred.  Many Sunday afternoons, for some reason, I can hear similar extremely loud rap or hip-hop noise coming from many blocks away, for hours.  I am amazed people living closer don’t complain.  Having loud music in a club is one thing–there is an appropriate time and place for this–but this isn’t it.

I realize that there is a cultural element to my irritation.  I’m white and in my 50s.  I don’t like rap.  I don’t like excessive noise in my neighborhood of any kind.  But I would also be irritated by rock or R&B that was this loud.   I find it rude and totally disrespectful.   Much as I find the idiots (white and black) who drive around with usually filthy rap music blaring so loud it shakes other cars and buildings.

So, am I too thin-skinned?  Should I “respect” the others’ need for this kind of “music”?  Or do you agree?  If you do, call the police when you are as iritated as I am.  Maybe if enough people call they will actually respond.  I doubt if they will tonight.

Filed under: quality of life | 2 Comments »

Tulane wants to be a good neighbor

Posted on November 14, 2008 by Jim S

Karen Celestan from Tulane U attended last night’s board meeting.  As Manager of Community Relations, she explained that Tulane is stepping up its efforts to be a good neighbor to University area citizens.

She notes that anyone who has complaints about student behavior (loud parties, trash, other bad behavior, etc.) can call Student Affairs, at 865-NABR (6227) to register their complaint.

She also hopes to act as a neighborhood advocate and liason between neighborhoods and the university and even between citizens and the City.  So if you feel you are not being heard at City Hall try calling Karen to see if she can open some doors.

Office: 504-988-3394        Cell: 504-214-9640
email:  kcelesta@tulane.edu

Filed under: announcements, quality of life | Leave a comment »

Keeping track of neighbors, friends, in an evacuation

Posted on September 9, 2008 by Jim S

Here is a link to a form you might use to gather contact information for your neighbors and friends in case of another evacuation.  Although it looks like Ike will miss us, the season is still young and this might come in handy.  Thanks to Pax, and a little tweeking by Gary.

neighbor-info-form

I might add that it would be good to have a contact on your block or nearby who is staying to ride out the storm.  That way you can get some on-the-ground information about post-storm conditions on your street and at your house.

Filed under: announcements, quality of life | Leave a comment »

Carrollton Shopping Center Town Hall Meeting

Posted on April 17, 2008 by Jim S

The following just came to my attention via a forwarded email:

A Carrollton Shopping Center Town Hall Meeting has been scheduled for
May 8th@ 6PM in the City Council Chambers. An agenda will soon follow
this email.
It is not known whether the meeting will be broadcasted at this time.

I will be in touch with you once the agenda is finalized.

On another note, are there small tasks in your community that may be
addressed with a quick fix that the city may not be aware of? If so, please
provide a list. It would be wise of our office to look to see if some small
scale projects, unlike the timeframe attached to a shopping center
development, may be implemented in the near term.

Regards,

*K. Lavon Wright*

Target Area Manager

City of New Orleans

Office of Recovery & Development
Administration

Phone: (504) 658/8411

Fax:: (504) 658/8435

Filed under: announcements, quality of life | Leave a comment »

City recycling survey

Posted on March 17, 2008 by Jim S

The City says it wants to know if citizens want recycling. They published a survey in the paper sometime last week. See it? Probably not. Click this link to download a copy to print out and mail in.

recycling survey

Yes, mail it in. (Like they really want to make it hard for you to give your opinion.) Maybe you could stuff your and your neighbors’ in a single envelope.

They claim to have a way to take the survey on the city’s website but I could not find it. You might also try to call 311 to express your opinion. Not sure that works, though. Aparently it does–see comments.

Filed under: announcements, quality of life | 1 Comment »

Earhart improvements

Posted on March 4, 2008 by Jim S

The readers of this blog should find the following open letter from the president of the NW Carrollton Associaiton to be of interest. It affects all of us who travel the Carrollton and Earhart corridors. Click here for a link to the source.

——-

Urban Conservancy, City Council, Senator Grey:

NorthWest Carrolltion would like to talk with someone in your organization regarding work that will soon begin on Earhart.

Wednesday February 20th, Robert Mendoza came to our neighborhood meeting and gave us the low down on the Earhart “repairs”. While we are glad to see these much needed repairs move forward we were not happy with what we heard regarding the plan.

Currently Earhart is 3 lanes (each way for a total of 6) in Jefferson Parish and then merges to 2 (each way for a total of 4) as it enters Orleans at the overpass. The “repairs” will cause Earhart to be 3 lanes in Jefferson Parish, drop to 2 at the overpass, EXPAND to 3 at the base of the overpass in Orleans, grow a total of 5 lanes (8 lanes both ways!) at Carrollton & Earhart and then drop back to 2 on the Orleans side of Carrollton. Nothing in anything we have read regarding Earhart improvements mentioned increasing the number of lanes. What we naively assumed was that the street would be repaired and proper curbs and sidewalks installed.

While we can appreciate that modifications may be necessary to help traffic flow at Carrollton and Earhart and we completely support a marked and dedicated turning right turning lane (to the river) at Carrollton, we are concerned about the total lost of green space in the center of this intersection to allow for 2 turning lanes onto Carrollton toward the lake. We are also disappointed that NO effort has been made to provide a marked and dedicated turning lane off of Carrollton and onto Earhart toward Jefferson Parish. Anyone who has used this intersection knows that this is a traffic issue in the evenings.

In the process of creating the plan for Earhart there has been no discussion of bike racks and very little thought given to green space and tree cover. There is a requirement to put in sidewalks and ADA crosswalks because of the associated federal dollars. But we see very little in the plan that looks at the whole picture or the long haul. Will people really use the sidewalks if they are right on top of the 3 lane “highway”? This is one of the last opportunities that we will have to improve Earhart for a long time. With all the planning that has been done in the city of New Orleans it would be nice to see some broader thinking. Many of the planning sessions that New Orleanians participated in discussed a need for better integrated streets, sidewalks and bikepaths, some of them specifically referred to Earhart.

Why are we making what should be an “Urban Corridor” into a 6 lane highway? 8 lanes at Carrollton Avenue?

Does anyone remember that Earhart was part of the horrible idea of a Vieux Carre INTERSTATE?

What sense does it make to have Earhart be come 3 lanes on each side only to drop to 2 (on each side) as it crosses Carrollton?

What sense does it make to have the overpass at the Jefferson/Orleans line drop to 2 lanes only to widen to 3 lanes in Orleans Parish. Won’t this only encourage speeding on what should be an Urban Corridor and partially residential street? Once traffic is slowed down from the 3 lane Jefferson part of Earhart by the overpass and narrows to 2 lanes in Orleans WHY allow it to spread out and speed up again?

We hope that there are opportunities to tweak the plan to provide for more green space and to reassure residential and business owners that the intent is not to create a Veterans highway like environment in New Orleans. We CHOOSE to live in New Orleans and it is the character of New Orleans streets that we wish to retain. Please see that attached article written by a graduate student at UNO.

We look forward to hearing from you regarding the concerns expressed by the neighbors of NorthWest Carrollton.

Jenel Hazlett – President, NorthWest Carrollton Civic Association

Filed under: quality of life | Leave a comment »

8537-39 Sycamore Demo

Posted on January 14, 2008 by Jim S

8537-39 Sycamore

Originally uploaded by Karen Apricot New Orleans.

This home located at Leonidas & Sycamore is on today’s agenda at the HCDRC meeting. Owner-requested demolition.

It could be saved, temporarily, by a request for a 30 day deferral.

The house is in need of repair, but does not appear to have structural problems. An important house in the sense that it anchors this end of Sycamore and it is one of the few attractive buildings on Leonidas. If it is demolished, something worse–or a vacant lot–will take its place.

Filed under: demolition, quality of life | Leave a comment »

Greenlight New Orleans

Posted on September 27, 2007 by Jim S

Greenlight New Orleans is a non-profit with the mission to help reduce global warming by helping local residents replace their traditional incandescent light bulbs with compact fluorescent light bulbs (CFLs). If enough people around the globe do this it will be a little speedbump on the road to more intense global warming. You can be a part of this movement–for free. And you’ll see some reduction in your Entergy bill.

The founder and moving force of Greenlight, Andi Hoffmann, lives in our neighborhood. He also leads a roots-rockband call the B-goes.

Monday is the kick-off for “Change a Light Week” and the first event is right here in zip code 70118.

If you’d like to know more go on over to the Greenlight website. You can sign up there to have your bulbs changed and/or to be a volunteer in the effort.

Filed under: announcements, quality of life | 1 Comment »

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