The New Orleans Citizen Participation Project

The NOLA CPP team has finished pilot project reports, one on the Gentilly Civic Improvement Association and one on the Greater New Orleans Housing Alliance. We hope both of these reports will inform the process to adopt a participation system for the city of New Orleans. Additionally, the NOLA CPP team is currently working with the Greater New Orleans Fair Housing Action Center on a series of focus groups  to gather community impressions regarding affordable housing in the city. These focus groups are part of our Housing Community of Interest Pilot Project which we hope will demonstrate the value of non-geographically based, shared-interest coalitions within a Citizen Participation System. 

On June 23, 2011, the Mayor of New Orleans sent an alternative Scope of Work for the NPP/CPP process to the City Planning Commission (CPC). On June 30, the NOLA CPP got a copy of this alternative Scope of Work and found it to be a primarily government driven approach with a vague and limited role for community involvement. There was no recognition given in the report to the extensive research and outreach already completed by citizen volunteers on Citizen Participation programs. We are currently collecting community feedback and preparing a response to this document. 

Links:

• NOLA CPP team member Keith Twitchell on Neighborhood Boundaries
• GNOHA membership report
• The Latest from NOLA CPP