NEW ORLEANS – City Park Conservancy has postponed its fourth park master plan meeting.
“While we have made great strides in the current planning process and talked to so many individuals and stakeholders, we are continuing to listen to public feedback and further deepening our outreach to the community at large. This extension will help us do that,” said City Park Conservancy President and CEO Cara Lambright in a press release.
CPC said its master planning design team is still receiving feedback from park partners and stakeholders.
“We are open to hearing ideas, and we are flexible to making adjustments,” said City Park Chief Planning Officer Randy Odinet. “This is what a planning process is, and we are fulfilling our promise to listen to the park, the public and experts in the field to help inform this long-term plan for the park’s continued preservation and evolution.”
During the extension period, CPC and the master planning design team have arranged several meetings with neighborhood and community representatives and active user groups within the park. CPC also is launching an Ideas Youth Committee, inspired by conversations with teens who said they felt there wasn’t a space for them in the park. The park is currently in the process of recruiting for this group, which is scheduled to meet this summer and fall.
“We also want to take more time developing the concepts that have resonated with the public,” said Lambright. “These include more playgrounds, especially at the entrances and nearer to neighborhood access points; improving health of the lagoons and increasing stormwater storage; telling the park’s history, more trails; redesigning roadways to make them safer and fewer in number; rehabilitating the assets we currently have – such as Tad Gormley and our sport fields – and restoring the ecological health of the Park.”
The City Park master plan is funded by a lead gift from the Greg Keller Foundation.