Last night, the State House voted to kill Senate Bill 75, which would have put the New Orleans Master Plan and Comprehensive Zoning Ordinance to a popular vote. SB 75, proposed by Senator Ed Murray (D - New Orleans), would have essentially overruled a referendum held in New Orleans last November in which citizens voted to empower the City Planning Commission and the City Council to adopt a master plan that would then have the force of law. Since it was voted down by the House, it has been attached as an amendment to another bill but it is unclear whether it has a realistic shot at passage. It is likely that debate will continue until the session closes later this evening.

However it turns out, it is clear that support for Murray's efforts gained some degree of traction because of a lack of confidence in the current Master Plan under development by the firm Goody Clancy. This much was clear at the District 4 meeting and at a subsequent public forum in front of the City Planning Commission.

It has become increasingly clear to us that the Master Plan has been partially undermined by the failure to include the city's major development projects in its scope. Without a substantive evaluation of the impacts of the two competing hospital plans  - the LSU-preferred $1.2 billion medical campus or the less expensive and faster alternative to renovate Charity Hospital - the Goody Clancy Master Plan remains insufficiently comprehensive. The failure to critically analyze other large development projects such as the potential abandonment of City Hall in the wake of the proposed purchase of the Chevron building, the Reinventing the Crescent Waterfront riverfront project, and the proposed sports entertainment district around the Superdome.

Taken individually, none of these are necessarily catastrophic proposals. On balance, however, they represent an enormous commitment of recovery dollars to projects not subject to the skeptical analysis of the Goody Clancy planning process.

The failure of City Council and the City Planning Commission to acknowledge and deal with these deficiencies has created a climate that has invited such bold moves which undermine the master plan concept, such as those attempted by Senator Murray and his allies.

Should attempts to undermine the Master Plan ultimately fail, the City Planning Commission and the City Council will be charged with approving or rejecting the version being crafted by Goody Clancy. Yet, the deficiencies in the scope of the plan will still remain and so too will public queries to the CPC and Council about the strength of the document.