A recipe for failure

Call it the “proposed development” litany.

Mixed-use at Westmoreland Shopping Center? Traffic snarls and too many condos.

The Rouzan traditional neighborhood plan? Too much traffic, density and drainage problems.

Pinnacle’s new casino? Stresses to transportation and infrastructure systems and plenty of “evidence” piled on and spun to stop the development.

These recurrent themes of congestion, density and drainage are mere symptoms of a larger, more critical problem: the lack of an adequate planning process to map a path to a vibrant and dynamic future.

Raised as arguments against development, these issues aren’t accompanied by hard data and technical analysis. Residents and governmental decision-makers aren’t presented with information allowing for rational evaluations of the choices. Lacking any analytical approach to planning, parochial concerns get pushed up against allegations of real estate greed. Consequently, we have a degraded form of civic engagement and poor stewardship of the public good.

Is Rouzan right for Baton Rouge? There can be little doubt that the Ford pasture is an important piece of land lying near the traditional core of Baton Rouge. A simple Google map reveals the texture of streets and development and illustrates why the Ford property is so important.

The property falls at the edge of what was a transitional point in Baton Rouge’s development. It reflects of a time when we searched to find an appropriate urban form for automobile ubiquity while holding on to the vestiges of traditional city blocks. Southdowns and Ogden Park represent this transitional development pattern.

Move outward from these neighborhoods and you find cul-de-sac developments and a widely spaced street grid of arterials roads—an urban form that defined the last century’s search for unencumbered and free-flowing automobile access.

The Ford property lies on the seam between these two urban forms, which is why its development will define our future.

If we envision transitional neighborhoods becoming denser, more urban and pedestrian-oriented, then Rouzan is a harbinger of things to come.

However, for such a future to find purchase, significant changes need to occur in the surrounding areas. What can we learn from the Pinnacle proposal? Its potential for economic development, job opportunities and spin-off development is both perplexing and frustrating because apparently it’s not part of any foresight. The Pinnacle proposal is debated without any agreed upon understanding on how it fits into a comprehensive plan for Baton Rouge’s future. It’s like Rouzan: no rational forethought to guide decisions. Investment in our community by a major entertainment industry may not be a bad thing. It certainly will provide jobs and tax revenue. Permitting this investment to occur in a location that does not create synergies with other similar uses the community wants (like the proposed downtown entertainment and arts district) is not consistent with good planning practice.

The emotional debate over this development visits us through the television without an accompanying vision for our city and the supporting technical analysis to show how we might achieve this dream. One gets the impression that a decision will be made only after one side of the debate emotionally exhausts themselves.

Traffic congestion, housing density and drainage are not our root problems. They are symptoms of something larger: a lack of leadership with passion for a planning process that envisions a more sustainable city.

We deserve land-use patterns that mutually reinforce transportation systems and infrastructure, open space and development in a manner that solves problems and improves the quality of life. This is accomplished using technical expertise in concert with a robust participatory planning process that encourages civic agreement. This process requires leaders, not mere observers of an emotional debate.

The recent history of a fragmentary, laissez-faire approach toward growth has fueled concern in neighborhoods. And our neighbors express it in the only way they can, given the lack of a vision for Baton Rouge’s future.

If we do not make a new city plan for Baton Rouge, we simply protect a system that ensures traffic congestion, random density and poorly drained streets far into the future.