Build Anywhere?

That's the plan being put forth by New Orleans Mayor Whiplash Nagin. Of course there's a few caveats to that plan. You can build anywhere, but don't expect to receive city services including sewer, water, police, or fire protection. And flood protection isn't a given either.

Great plan. And it took six months to come up with this.

On Monday, he offered to let residents rebuild anywhere, but warned that homeowners in flood-prone areas would do so at their own risk. “I’m confident that the citizens can decide intelligently for themselves,” the mayor said.

Extensive wish list
The report also recommended a host of other ideas, from revamping schools to consolidating some city offices. The wish list of projects included new light-rail systems, new riverfront development and better flood protection.

“We have worked tirelessly,” Nagin told hundreds of residents who gathered to hear about the plan. “It has been controversial in some respects, but I am pleased by the results.”

Residents vented their frustrations during the public comment period, with one black man calling the group “a rotten, racist committee.”

But the commission’s plan has been warmly received in many circles. Ron Forman, a strong mayoral candidate and prominent businessman, applauded the commission’s work and the breadth of the report. But he said it is still short on specifics.

“The only problem I see with the plan is that I don’t see an implementation plan, an action plan, based on dates on when we can expect to be done,” Forman said.

The Times Picayune has far more detail:

Hundreds of people, including at least four City Council members, crowded into a Canal Street hotel ballroom to listen to the speech, which was partly a State of the Union-style laundry list of ideas and initiatives, partly a campaign document for a mayor in the midst of a re-election race.

Applause was infrequent, but Nagin drew laughter when he announced at the start, "I am going to do something I normally hate to do: I am going to read from a script."

Remembering the trouble Nagin sometimes has gotten into with impromptu remarks, notably his "chocolate city" speech on Martin Luther King Day this year, many in the audience chuckled, and one commission member uttered an audible, "Thank you."

Nagin began with the most controversial area of his commission's recommendations: land use.

As he has often done before, he rejected the call by the commission's Urban Planning Committee for a moratorium on building permits in the city's hardest-hit and most flood-prone neighborhoods.

Of course, flood control and prevention cuts to the core of New Orleans' plight. Solve the flood control issue and you'll get businesses coming back quicker and more land will be considered safe enough to rebuild upon.