The City Planning Commission met on Tuesday, August 26, 2025, at 1:30 PM in Council Chambers. The meeting covered adoption of minutes, a special presentation, several zoning and subdivision dockets, and the 2026–2030 Capital Improvement Plan (CIP). All members were present except Commissioner Whitry who arrived later and Commissioner Steak who left during the CIP discussion. The commission voted on all items with a quorum present.
Good afternoon, everyone, welcome. We're gonna just get started here in a minute. Um if you're here to speak, please go ahead and fill out cards and um bring them up to the desk and we will put them in order. Thank you. Good afternoon. I'd like to go ahead and take roll call. Commissioner uh Josie Gupta. Present. Uh Commissioner Brown here. Uh Commissioner Flick, present, Commissioner Steve. Here. Commissioner Whitry is here. We're gonna go ahead and read the formal public hearing rules. The City Planning Commission has established certain rules governing the procedures to be followed at public hearings. Before speaking, each person shall give their name, address, and state who he or she is representing. Proponents for the proposal will speak for a period of ten minutes. Each speaker will be allowed a maximum of two minutes. Opponents or other interested parties will speak second for a period of fifteen minutes. Each speaker will be allowed a maximum of two minutes. Proponents will be allowed a period of six minutes for rebuttal. Each speaker shall be allowed a two minutes. Opponents will not be allowed to rebut. No material, written matter, photographs, maps, will be accepted by the commission or its staff at any time during this public hearing. This procedure shall be followed except at the time when the presiding officer with approval of the commission members may extend such time. Commissioner Flick will make a motion for adoption of the August twelfth minutes. Thank you. Is there a second? Let's go ahead and vote. The minutes have been adopted. Thank you. Um we're really happy that you're here today um to honor the anniversary of the central area business central area New Orleans growth management plan. Well, thank you uh very much. And uh so that was a little bit of a promotion. I actually had Rivers job uh for at the time. Um but I I I wanted to thank first of all the commission and the staff for helping get the opinion piece uh published. Uh I thought it was an important piece and and uh you guys put it over the top, and so thank you very much. I worked for the planning commission for 17 years from 1971 when I got here from Buffalo, New York. Uh and uh to the last seven years when I was director uh through 1988. And um after that time I went to the Audubon Nature Institute and did planning for them and oper zoo operations and stuff. See planners can become zoo managers too, Bob. Just remember that. Um and uh and then uh I went to City Park and you know, helped them through the uh difficult time that everyone had uh with could Katrina. But uh during all that time from being a zoo manager and uh park manager and all that, I always remembered being the planning director. I loved planning. I was trained as a planner, and uh I loved working for the for the planning commission. I had a just a tremendous time. And the growth management program for the central business district was one of the most important projects I ever worked on during my whole 17 years. Uh, and that included, you know, working on uh the World's Fair and uh, you know, other uh other titanic kinds of events that the city had, but the growth management program to me was always uh a kind of foundation center. And uh when we began to start that, the CBD was in in many ways um a kind of a in a kind of a crisis uh really in the in the 70s in the early 70s. Um there was rampant demolition of historic buildings, proliferation of parking lots all through the central uh business district.