"No members of the public attended"

Here are the official summaries from the 2nd and 3rd "public" meetings on adaptive reuse of Charity Hospital, held this spring:

March 16, 2011

March 30, 2011

As I said some time ago, nobody attended because nobody knew about the meetings - and neither the state nor its contractor emailed notice to consulting parties (the method by which the first public meeting was announced) despite having all the email addresses.

State of Louisiana, Jacobs Engineering tried to evade programmatic agreement, avoid public input on Charity Hospital adaptive reuse

On October 18, 2010, the State of Louisiana, using Jacobs Engineering as a facilitator, held a public meeting at City Hall regarding the adaptive reuse of Charity Hospital.  Numerous people and parties attended, and emotions ran high against the state's failure to retrofit Charity - or even discuss that option.  The facilitator was visibly shaken by the raucous experience.

Recently, several consulting parties have learned that they were not given actual notice of two public meetings held on March 16 and March 30 regarding the adaptive reuse of Charity Hospital.  Not a single member of the public attended either meeting - and, indeed, it's unclear whether the third meeting was only held because notice wasn't actual run in a timely fashion in the paper...or because not a single person attended the second meeting.  The BioDistrict and LSU had people on hand, but they apparently were not considered public attendees by the organizers, which is strange.  

Talking to several consulting parties, it seems nobody was even emailed by the state or Jacobs regarding these meetings.  The state did tuck at least one notice in the back sections of the Times-Picayune, however.  Here's the only one I can find.

This was very clearly an attempt to evade giving consulting parties and the public notice of the public meetings.  The state will argue that the fine print newspaper notices were sufficient to meet its obligations of notice, and that it has now fulfilled its public meetings requirements.  And perhaps that would or would not fly in a court of law.

But it's downright shady.  It's shady as all hell.  Mr. Bilyeu with Jacobs Engineering definitely has the emails of the consulting parties that are to be provided with notice per a September 2010 mass email he sent out regarding an adaptive reuse workshop (not a public meeting).  From my experience in several Section 106 processes, the federal agency or responsible entity typically emails the consulting parties regarding meetings.  Consulting parties have indicated that they have either a position or an interest that goes even beyond that of the public more generally when it comes to  participating in the process.

Keep in mind, too, that these March public meetings are coming AFTER a January Jacobs-headed meeting to issue an RFP for Charity - a meeting that consulting parties were not told about.

Here's the requirement in the Programmatic Agreement that governs the Charity adaptive reuse process:

FP&C will endeavor to promote adaptive reuse for those nine
historically significant buildings that neither it nor other state
agencies use. During this process, FP&C will give notice to the
SHPO and to those groups and individuals who participated in this
Section 106 process as Consulting Parties. Additionally, public
meetings and/or forums will be held at no less than 2 points in the
process of evaluating the reuse or transfer of these properties from
State control, to solicit input and comments from the interested
parties.

My overarching question: what are they so afraid of...?  Public meetings or forums on adaptive reuse don't even involve binding input.  To diverge from past notice practices to avoid attendance and to have zero attendance subsequently result shows an intentional desire by Facilities Planning and Control to keep the public from having a say as mandated in the programmatic agreement.

Now that the BioDistrict has been shopping around its own proposals for reuse of the building, it's all starting to make a bit more sense.  Mr. Jim McNamara, head of the BioDistrict, was at both March meetings.

"in need of purging": State issues RFP for Charity Hospital Building

Once again, I don't believe the Section 106 consulting parties were specifically notified about this particular endeavor that makes up part of the effort to find an adaptive reuse for Charity Hospital.  The Programmatic Agreement in place requires notice to the consulting parties.

Here's the Request for Proposals:

This Request for Proposals (RFP) is issued by Interim LSU Public Hospital (herein referred to as the State or ILH) for the purpose of selecting a contractor to plan, manage and oversee the removal and disposal of all furniture, furnishings, supplies, equipment, records and rubbish from the Charity Hospital Building at 1532 Tulane Avenue, New Orleans, Louisiana and the Lapeyre & Miltenberg (L&M) Building at 1550 Tulane Avenue, New Orleans, Louisiana. These buildings, destroyed as a result of Hurricane Katrina in 2005, have not been used in their previous capacity since then and are in need of purging for any determined future state use.

I'm also curious as to when the State of Louisiana will hold the second Charity adaptive reuse public meeting mandated by the Programmatic Agreement.  The last one was held in mid-October 2010.

Very Interesting - A New Step in the Charity Adaptive Reuse Process

Did you see this?

Did you know about the January 12, 2011 meeting?  Did you attend?

CHARITY HOSPITAL ADAPTIVE REUSE

MEETING NOTIFICATION :

Jacobs Engineering has been contracted by the State of Louisiana to develop an RFP for the Adaptive Reuse of the former Charity Hospital Building. Jacobs and the State are seeking input from industry professionals at a meeting to be held on January 12th, 2011 at the Regional Planning Commission, 10 Veterans Memorial Boulevard, New Orleans, LA 70124 at 9:00 a.m.

* The goal of the meeting to raise awareness of the project in the development / design / land use / construction community, while soliciting input for improvements.

* The format will be a brief presentation of the process to date, progress on the RFP; and process moving forward.

* At the conclusion of the presentation, Jacobs Engineering will answer questions from the attendees and take input on the RFP.

Ultimately, Jacobs will be looking to solicit proposals from developers who will pull together teams to compete to present the State with the best proposal. Services represented could likely include development, leasing, project management, architecture, civil and structural engineering, M.E.P. engineering, communications, banking/finance, sustainability, etc.

Additionally, if you are a consulting party in the Section 106 process regarding the disposition of Charity Hospital, did you get notice of this particular meeting, an endeavor to promote adaptive reuse?

Here's the programmatic agreement (PA) speaking to the notice requirements for the adaptive reuse process for Charity Hospital:

"FP&C will endeavor to promote adaptive reuse for those nine

historically significant buildings that neither it nor other state

agencies use. During this process, FP&C will give notice to the

SHPO and to those groups and individuals who participated in this

Section 106 process as Consulting Parties. Additionally, public

meetings and/or forums will be held at no less..."

BioDistrict Public Meetings this Week

If you live in the VA or LSU Hospital footprints, you also reside within the much larger footprint of "BioDistrict New Orleans" planned for a 1,500-acre campus in Mid-City and Gert Town.

Several public meetings are scheduled for this later this week:

If you're not familiar with the project, which is overseen by an unelected board, you should attend...if only to see whether your home or business falls within an "opportunity zone" proposed by the project.

"removal of utilities infrastructure will begin on October 18, 2010"

City Council Committee Meeting on Friday

PUBLIC NOTICE
CITY COUNCIL
SPECIAL HOUSING & HUMAN NEEDS
COMMITTEE MEETING
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 8, 2010 @ 10:00 AM

The City Council Housing and Human Needs Committee will hold a “Special” meeting on Friday, October 8, 2010 at 10:00 a.m. in the City Council Chamber on the first floor of City Hall. The items offered for committee meetings are subject to approval by the committee chairperson. Committee meetings held in the Council Chamber are generally accessible to persons with disabilities. People in need of certain accommodations such as a sign language interpreter may be provided service with 24 hours prior notice by calling (504) 658-1095/Voice or (504) 658-4020/TTY.

The agenda item(s) are as follows:

I. Presentation by the Administration regarding the status of the Veterans Administration Medical Center project’s property demolitions, acquisitions, and relocations, as required by Council Motion 10-193:
Ø Number of closings, the scope of agreements reached, disputes, and the funds expended to date.
Presenter: Brenda Breaux, Chief Deputy City Attorney

Inside the Footprint Last Evening #8

"You are in the neighborhood of the planned VA Project."  The Regional Planning Commission/Nola Medzone handout, blown onto the sidewalk, provides contact information.

On the sidewalk itself, the green numbers and letters indicate that the lot to the left has been acquired for the VA Hospital project.  The VA itself is not doing the acquisition - the City of New Orleans is responsible for site preparation, but it has handed some of those duties to LSU and the state.  Properties will later be turned over to the VA.

Interesting

I noticed a hyperlinked ad atop the Nola.com homepage that linked to Canal Housing, a company that owns and rents a number of small properties inside the footprint, all apparently restored after Katrina.

Strangely, the company, in advertising for its various properties, does not once mention the fact that some of its properties will likely face expropriation and destruction within the next six months.  While I feel sorry for the company, it seems unfair to fail to give prospective residents notice.