According to the most recent progress report, some movement has been made on most of FuturEBR’s objectives as the 20-year city-parish master plan approaches its fifth birthday, Business Reports details in a feature from its current issue.
Of the plan’s 577 action items, only 85 were considered “not initiated” as of May 2015. On the other hand, only 25 were listed as “implemented” or “complete,” while 84 are classified as
“institutional,” meaning they are ongoing by nature as part of the lead agency’s mission.
Not that city-parish Planning Director Frank Duke puts much stock in such measures.
“I don’t think anyone cares about how many action statements we accomplish,” he says. “What people care about is, are we making progress toward achieving the kind of community that FuturEBR envisions?”
Much of Duke’s time and focus has been consumed by an update to the Unified Development Code, seen by some critics as a barrier to more significant progress. He hasn’t made as much headway as he would like, in part because he has lost a few experienced staffers. Of the 20 chapters in the code, three have been rewritten, three are close to being rewritten and five are in progress, Duke says.
John Fregonese, the prominent Portland, Oregon-based planner who led FuturEBR’s creation, has done some of the heavy lifting on parking and landscaping regulation changes and is taking the lead on the new sign ordinance. Those rules for new developments will be different in areas like downtown, which is supposed to be pedestrian-friendly, than in suburban and rural areas.
“A lot of Baton Rouge is going to be more suburban and auto-oriented,” Fregonese says. “But in the places where you’re trying to encourage infill, the current UDC is a real barrier to development, because it’s designed with the assumption that you’re building from scratch on vacant land.”
The adoption of a Complete Streets policy is another major FuturEBR-related policy change that eventually should have a noticeable impact on quality of life. Officials now are supposed to consider all users and all modes of transportation—not just drivers and automobiles—when planning road projects.
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