Mayor LaToya Cantrell’s administration is once again promising an imminent start to construction on the Gentilly Resilience District, a cluster of federally funded green infrastructure projects that have been repeatedly delayed since the city received a $141 million grant in 2016.
Officials said at an Oct. 15 community meeting that work on five of six planned projects to relieve pressure on the city’s dilapidated drainage system will begin next year, their latest target after several earlier missed deadlines to start that work.
The projects include restoring 27 acres of wooded wetlands near Dillard University and adding bioswales and other features to neutral grounds, new parks and underground storage areas. Some of that work is phased, and construction is likely to take years.
All of it is part of a broader strategy to install across New Orleans new parks, lagoons and other natural features that absorb and hold stormwater, which has taken on more urgency as the bowl-shaped city continues to be pounded by increasingly heavy rains and flooding, and as its ancient drainage pumps are frequently overwhelmed.
Congress has set a 2029 deadline for spending the grant money. And a federal watchdog, citing repeated missed deadlines, has questioned if New Orleans will hit its target.
Sisters of St. Joseph Sister Pat Bergen CSJ, sprinkles Holy Water during a ground breaking ceremony on the Mirabeau Water Garden, a signature “green infrastructure” project on the grounds of a former convent on Mirabeau Avenue in New Orleans, Monday, Dec. 11, 2023. (Staff photo by David Grunfeld, The Times-Picayune | NOLA.com)
Those realities hung over the room at Joe Bartholomew Golf Course clubhouse this week as city officials gave their latest presentation.
“This has to be done. This city will not exist if this doesn’t happen,” Gentilly resident Aaron Millon said after the meeting. “A lot more rain is falling in shorter lengths of time, and the old pumps can’t keep up with it.”
Series of problems
The Gentilly Resilience District was conceived under former Mayor Mitch Landrieu, whose administration secured a $141 million competitive grant from the Dept. of Housing and Urban Development in 2016.
Things have gone awry since the award.
Environmental and archaeological reviews have been far more complex than expected, designs have been shelved and construction costs have ballooned. Some of the projects overlapped with the citywide, FEMA-funded roads overhaul, and officials say it took about a year to get the feds to certify there wasn’t a duplication of benefits.
Two projects were canceled because the city couldn’t come to terms with utilities and landowners.
Joe Threat Sr., Deputy CAO of Infrastructure, speaks during a 2023 Hurricane Season press conference at City Hall in New Orleans, Wednesday, May 31, 2023. (Photo by Sophia Germer, NOLA.com, The Times-Picayune)
“A lot of those plans were hard to execute,” Deputy Chief Administrative Officer Joe Threat said at a City Council budget hearing on Oct. 15, referring to plans inherited from the Landrieu administration. “I’m not saying it was a bad plan, but the mechanics of the plan were bad.”
Threat acknowledged the Cantrell administration’s decision to break down large projects into smaller contracts have caused delays as well. The idea was to spread around the grant money to smaller businesses, but it has also multiplied the bid packages and created procedural hurdles.
HUD designated New Orleans a “slow spender” in September 2023, when just 15% of the grant money had been spent. Earlier this year, the HUD Office of Inspector General criticized the city for allocating too much of what little it had spent on planning and administration.
Officials said in December they would break ground on the Gentilly Resilience District and a host of other green infrastructure projects this year.
In all, the administration said it planned to start 22 projects worth $269 million in 2024. Only three projects worth about $85 million have gotten underway since then, none of them part of Gentilly Resilience District.
Other projects
The HUD-funded Gentilly Resilience District is just one component of Cantrell’s green infrastructure program. A handful of projects have been completed, including the Pontilly Stormwater Network, which is a series of detention basins, green alleys and other features in Pontchartrain Park and Gentilly Woods.
In December, the administration broke ground on the FEMA-funded Mirabeau Water Garden, which aims to convert a 25-acre vacant plot near the intersection of St. Bernard Avenue and Mirabeau Avenue into a recreational facility that can hold 10 million gallons of stormwater.
A tree has taken root and is splitting a brick wall that surrounds part of the twenty-five acres of open land that is part of the Gentilly Resilience District.
The budget and timeframe for the Mirabeau project appear to be expanding for reasons that are not clear. It started as a $30 million project that would be built over 18 months. But it is only 30% complete 10 months after crews started work, and the budget has increased to $40 million, according to the Cantrell administration.
The administration presented a list of 15 projects – including the Gentilly Resilience District, and some with multiple phases – totaling about $290 million at the budget hearing on Oct. 15. Four are currently under construction, and no timelines were offered for those not in the Gentilly Resilience District.
Council member Oliver Thomas recalled discussions a decade ago about adapting to heavier rainfall that evolved into plans for the Gentilly Resilience District and other green projects.
“We’re still kind of in the same place,” Thomas said.