Master Plan Community Input

Home » Master Plan Community Input

We want to hear your vision for the future of City Park

Community engagement is at the center of the Master Planning process, which was launched in July 2023. Throughout the process, we will offer various opportunities for you to learn about design ideas and provide feedback to inform design, including six public meetings.

Three public meetings have been held to date, in addition to an online survey, where we have received tremendous feedback from the community. Due to the response that we have received on two design ideas, the Wooded Island and the Park Promenade, where these ideas have not resonated, we will be postponing Public Meeting #4, which was scheduled for May 20, 2024.

We are extending our planning timeline to deepen our engagement with more Park users and members of the Greater New Orleans region and to incorporate more of your feedback and ideas into the Master Planning process. We want more time to listen.

We want to take more time developing the concept ideas that have seemed to resonate – more playgrounds, especially at the entrances and at neighborhood access points, safer and more direct access from adjacent neighborhoods, telling the Park’s history, more trails, reducing the amount of roads (when and where it makes sense to) and making those roads safer, rehabilitating what we currently have, such as Tad Gormley, and restoring the ecological health of the Park.

We are also excited about the opportunities for the Park in terms of stormwater management and alleviating some of the burden on the drainage system and adjacent neighborhoods. Maximizing this potential is complex and we need more time to explore these opportunities.

We are currently meeting with a vast number of user and neighborhood groups and are launching our Ideas Youth Committee. The purpose of these meetings is to continue to gain comprehensive insight into their needs and desires and to hear about existing Park conditions that may be adversely affecting them.

If the planning process is done right — and we intend to do it right — it will involve a lot of openness to criticism, it will have resets, and, when needed, it will adapt. That’s where we are now – needing to add more time to our process to get it right.

Community members may send feedback and input via email at any time to masterplan@nocp.org. 

Below you will find a recap of the first three public meetings:

The first public meeting was held on September 27 at City Park. During this meeting, the design team introduced themselves and some of their previous work, presented results from the online survey to date, and shared initial insights for City Park. Public questions and design team answers can be found here.

The second public meeting was held on December 6 at Warren Easton High School. At this meeting, the results from the first survey were shared and the Project Team garnered input from the public on potential improvements to how visitors get to City Park (Access) and how they move through the Park safely (Circulation), as well as introduced the concept of The Wooded Island, enabling multiple opportunities for discussion and feedback. Materials presented at the meeting may be found here, along with key findings here.

The third public meeting was held on March 21 at Dillard University.  At this meeting, the focus was on understanding existing conditions and identifying necessary interventions to improve the Park’s lagoons, lakes, and water systems. Essential to the history of New Orleans City Park, these areas contribute to the experience and richness of the landscape’s diverse ecosystem. Materials and key findings will be posted here soon.

Subsequent meetings will continue to elicit input from the public and focus on:

September 27, 2023 @ City Park’s Pavilion of the Two Sisters – Kick-Off Meeting – Complete
December 06, 2023 @ Warren Easton High School – Circulation & Access – Complete
March 21, 2024 @ Dillard University – Lagoons, Lakes, and Water Systems – Complete

Postponed: 

May 20, 2024 | 5:30-7:30pm @ Franklin Avenue Baptist Church – Landscape Types
September 2024 – Destinations, Traditions, and Programming
December 2024 – Final Master Plan Presentation