Lafayette Consolidated Government late Tuesday announced that four firms have been selected as finalists to produce a comprehensive master plan for Lafayette Parish. Twelve planning firms from around the country responded to a request for qualifications LCG issued in October; the four finalists, recommended to City-Parish President Joey Durel by a 25-person committee that analyzed the responses to the RFQ, will now submit comprehensive proposals to LCG.
The four firms chosen are Coral Gables, Fla.-based Dover, Kohl & Partners; Fregonese Associates of Portland, Ore.; Goody Clancy of Boston, Mass.; and Philadelphia, Pa.’s Wallace Roberts & Todd. Each of the firms has extensive experience in city planning; some of them have produced comprehensive plans for cities along the Gulf Coast including in Louisiana.
The proposals submitted to LCG will address such issues as transportation, land use, infrastructure, cultural preservation and housing. The firms are tentatively scheduled to make a pitch — in person — to LCG in late February. At the request of Durel, the City-Parish Council has tucked away $400,000 each of the last two years as a down payment on what is anticipated to be a total cost of roughly $1.2 million to pay the winning firm to produce the plan, which will be based in part on a comprehensive plan — Lafayette In the Next Century — already undertaken by LCG in coordination with citizen- and professional committees. (Durel is expected to budget a third $400,000 installment for the comprehensive plan in the next fiscal year budget.)
The Center for Planning Excellence in Baton Rouge has assisted LCG in the issuance of the RFQ and in other aspects of the planning process.
In a press release announcing the finalists, Durel says, “Reading the qualifications and hearing the discussion of the Advisory Committee boosted my enthusiasm about the important work that can be furthered by a Comprehensive Plan. I look forward to having all of our citizens in the Parish participate in picking the firm and helping to develop a plan that guides our growth and gives us a cohesive vision for the future.”
... written by Jason D. Faulk , December 15, 2010 - 08:54 am
My shortest post ever:
"YAY!"
=;)
... written by Plumpy , December 15, 2010 - 04:07 pm
They couldn't find any Louisiana companies ? Just great, more foreigner's..
... written by Jural , December 15, 2010 - 07:48 pm
"Master plans" for cities are a fad. Who can say whether or not the next mayor and council will not simply junk it?
... written by Dumpy , December 16, 2010 - 02:54 pm
1.2 Million federal reserve notes for a fregonese plan that was written 2 years ago? Yeah its called Louisiana speaks.
... written by NORTHSIDIAN SHOTGUN , December 17, 2010 - 11:38 am
"Master plans" for cities are a fad, Yes but its called investing in a return, one for me, one for you, one for them foah for me, one for you, the pie is ready, Lets cut it !
... written by NORTHSIDIAN SHOTGUN , December 17, 2010 - 11:42 am
Aw Plumpy go have you a tacom or a gyro, or better yet, get you some candy-ass suchi rolls.
... written by SM Resident , December 17, 2010 - 02:15 pm
No elevated I-10 through Lafayette. It will make the entrance into Lafayette even uglier than it already is...
... written by andymhebert , December 17, 2010 - 07:39 pm
How much money is being "contributed" by each of the separate taxing entities: a)Parish of Lafayette, b)City of Lafayette, c)City of Broussard, d)City of Carencro, e)City of Scott, f)City of Youngsville and g)the Town of Duson? Will all of the separate taxing entities be obligated to follow the "Parish Plan"?
... written by Calgary , December 20, 2010 - 06:07 pm
$1.2 million dollars to create a Comprehensive Plan that Mike Hollier has been in charge of for the last 38 years! Make him give back his salary and the grant money wasted on all those useless meetings he held and you'll have more than enough to create a comprehensive plan.
... written by Calgary , December 20, 2010 - 06:09 pm
Everyone keeps talking about a comprehensive plan, but refuse to see the main problem - Mike Hollier. He has been employeed by LCG to create a comprehensive plan for 38 years and we still don't have one! Now we are going to pay someone $1.2 million to do just that? make Hollier give back his salary and all the grant money he wasted on meetings and you could pay for 5 comprehensive plans.
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MAY 17 Here's a column from James Gill, this time in the Advocate. Gill, who has jumped ship from the Picayune, writes about the absurdity of dueling polls in this post. The numbers are so wildly different, it is obvious that both sides are "cooking the books," he writes. In particular, he looks at Sen. Mary Landrieu, and how her recent actions in DC have been received by those polled. Gill's acerbic, amusing prose is a welcome addition to a paper so conservative as to be occasionally lacking in personality.
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MAY 17 Blogger Robert Mann writes about the LSU Board's refusal to allow Dr. Fred Cerise to testify before the legislature about Gov. Jindal's plan to close down all the state's charity hospitals and dump the poor on the private system. It's hard to imagine anyone more qualified than Cerise to testify about that, so why would anyone try to prevent him doing so? Mann thinks it is because the powers that be aren't interested in hearing any truth about the plan.
MAY 17 This post on the Louisiana Sinkhole Bugle, a blog that notes developments in the Bayou Corne and Jefferson Island salt domes, talks about a proposed expansion of the salt dome storage under Lake Peigneur in Iberia Parish. Residents are working against it for several reasons, including two biggies: the sinkhole disaster in Bayou Corne and the continuing, unexplained bubbling on the surface of the Lake.
MAY 17 NOLA police arrested more people Thursday accused of either being involved in the Mother's Day shooting or hiding the suspect afterward, this Gambit story reports. The NOLA police chief said he suspects the whole thing was gang-related and throws out a challenge to the gangs: he's got informants now, he says, and he knows a lot more than the gangs want him to know. The people who live in the neighborhoods terrorized by gangs are ready to talk, he says.
Is it a crime for citizens to photograph, video, or take notes of a police officer in the line of duty, or a right protected by the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution? Locally, such activity, as witnessed recently, will at the very least result in a night spent behind bars.
David Calhoun and Elizabeth “EB” Brooks are the first two employees of Lafayette Central Park Inc., the nonprofit charged with turning Lafayette Consolidated Government’s 100-acre Johnston Street Horse Farm property into a passive public park. Calhoun was named executive director, and Brooks is director of planning and design.
At Thursday's State of the Economy luncheon, LEDA President and CEO Gregg Gothreaux said PXP has already quietly hired 180 people for its Broussard expansion.
Episcopal School of Acadiana’s Dr. Joshua Caffery, chair of the school’s English Department, is headed to Washington, D.C., and the Library of Congress as the latest winner of the Alan Lomax Fellowship in Folklife Studies.
This year’s Cool Town issue is all about people who are not native to South Louisiana but made a conscious decision to be here, to be among us, to participate in our culture and contribute to it.
A shelved ordinance transferring $200,000 from a northside drainage project to a south Lafayette development may not break any laws, but it stinks to high heaven.
An effort to restore a shuttered dancehall and document other vacant or razed honky-tonks could serve as a model for saving an endangered species of entertainment.
Lafayette’s gene pool has been host to a long line of eccentric characters who have blurred the lines between crazy, genius, disturbed and curiously entertaining.
"YAY!"
=;)