A business plan to help determine the future of the beleaguered East Baton Rouge Redevelopment Authority will be unveiled in early July, and consultant Christel Slaughter, who is working on the plan, says the document will contain several different options and possible funding sources for the agency. The plan also will make clear that Baton Rouge needs the RDA.
“There is no question in our mind it is a needed resource in the community,” Slaughter says. “There is a gap it fills very nicely, but how fast or slow do we want to go to fill that gap is the question we will have to answer together.”
One option is to allow the 7-year-old agency to grow slowly and organically. Slaughter says the RDA could survive on grants and minimal public funding if it keeps its sights small and evolves gradually over time.
If the RDA wants to become a more robust agency, however, it will have to determine whether it wants to focus on eradicating blight or concentrate on large-scale economic development and then identify a permanent funding source to support that mission.
“If you want to make big things happen in the community, someone is going to have to make the investment,” she says.
The RDA came under fire last year by Mayor Kip Holden, who refused to allocate any funding for the agency. He criticized the RDA for accomplishing little in its six years of operation and failing to identify a permanent funding source. In November of last year, longtime RDA president and CEO Walter Monsour stepped down, saying in his resignation letter that it was to “help extend the financial life of the RDA while it continues its search for a dedicated source of funds or funding.”
Consultants looking for solutions to the RDA’s funding challenges have learned that concentrating solely on blight eradication is not a sustainable business model, Slaughter says.
“Getting rid of blight doesn’t make money under any scenario,” she says. “So if that is one of your main goals you have to find some other way to make money.”
Still, blight eradication can continue to be part of the RDA’s mission, if coupled strategically with other areas of concentration—like large-scale economic development projects.
“It’s definitely possible to do both, and that is how the RDA was sold to people originally,” Slaughter says. “You just need to have a dedicated funding stream.”
The report on the RDA should be completed within two weeks and unveiled shortly thereafter.
—Stephanie Riegel
