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City Park Conservancy hosts final public planning meetings [1]
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Date: 2025-06-26
City Park Conservancy hosted hundreds of people at the Pavilion of the Two Sisters on Wednesday (June 25) to review a proposed park redevelopment plan near the end of a two-year planning process that, at times, has drawn public scrutiny.
Over the course of two sessions, attendees viewed a presentation with renderings of how spaces across the park will be revitalized through restoration and new construction, and collectively brainstormed ideas for ways that people could use the new spaces.
Major changes include native plant restoration across the park, creating a central point where all park trails converge, increasing sports facilities, and adding an artistic light feature under Interstate 610 at Henry Thomas Drive and Zachary Taylor Drive.
Originally, the Conservancy — the nonprofit organization that manages City Park’s 1,300 acres — had a significantly shorter timeline slated for the plan’s completion. An initial proposed version of the plan had threatened to disrupt the operation of Grow Dat Youth Farm, a local youth program located inside the park.
This sparked months of public backlash — a new advocacy group named Friends of Grow Dat pushed back, members of the public wrote opinion pieces and Grow Dat held community planning meetings.
The Conservancy paused its public planning meetings for several months as a result and, in July 2024, the City Park Improvement Association approved an agreement allowing the farm to stay put until at least 2030. The Conservancy now plans to build a parking area near Grow Dat to improve transportation for the organization and allow for school buses to access the farm.
“We’d rather get it right than go fast,” Rebecca Dietz, CEO and president of the Conservancy, told Verite News. “I hope that we have garnered trust with the public over the past two years. This is a park for everyone in our community; it should reflect the commonalities of our community.”
In December 2024, the Conservancy resumed public meetings with an extended plan to gather community input on what an ideal version of City Park could be. According to the Conservancy, 1,550 people attended six meetings, in addition to the park’s initial efforts, which included a survey of over 5,000 people.
“What we show to the public this week is 99% final,” Dietz said. “Because this has been an iterative process, where every meeting has built on the one before, we feel like the community has had a really good opportunity to provide feedback at every stage, so what they see should be what’s reflected in the final plan.”
August (left) and Evelyne Berner look at Scout Island on the City Park master plan map. As children, both camped on the island with their scouting troops. Credit: Aliana Mediratta / Verite News
During the presentation portion of the meeting, the Conservancy showed images of current areas of the park alongside renderings of future projects — a skate park, a shallow fountain by the park entrance and a treehouse-like structure to overlook fields.
These renderings incorporated feedback from previous public meetings, with a focus on increasing sustainability, accessibility, park education and programming.
As part of its aim to include more community voices, the Conservancy launched two avenues for direct community engagement — the Ideas Youth Committee and the Community Fellows program.
For Naomi Hart, who just graduated from The Willow School, participating in the Ideas Youth Committee was a way to learn more about how people in her community use the park space.
Hart is among the roughly 80 New Orleans youth, ages 15 to 25, who attended brainstorming meetings and helped facilitate conversations with members of the public at meetings like the one on Wednesday.
“As the future stewards of this space, I feel like it’s important for us to come together and give our ideas,” Hart said. “It’s been nice to meet other like-minded people who want to be involved in the community.”
Evelyne Berner, 80, was one of many attendees who encouraged the Conservancy to bring back programming that she had enjoyed while growing up in the city.
Both Berner and her husband, August Berner Jr., grew up camping on Scout Island with their scout troops — an activity that is no longer allowed in the park.
“My mother brought me [to City Park] growing up,” Berner said. “I have 20 grandchildren and three great-grandchildren and when they come in for the summer, this is a big part of them being here, we do City Park nights.”
Berner brought up her idea to bring camping back to the park during the sharing section of the meeting and was met by applause from the room, with a few other attendees adding that they also camped on the island as children.
Though the planning meetings have come to a close, the plan still must be approved by the City Park Improvement Association and the Conservancy’s board before being put into effect. From there, the Conservancy will move into the design phase to create timelines for completing the redevelopment.
It will take an estimated 20 to 25 years to complete the redevelopment, with different parts of the park undergoing construction at different times to allow residents continued park access. However, some changes, such as maintenance fixes to bathrooms and increased signage, will start within the next year.
Dietz added that the Conservancy plans to continue soliciting input and opinions from the public, even as it moves into the next stage of redevelopment.
Lauren Rouatt, one of the park’s community fellows who has lived in New Orleans since 2008, hopes that the big ideas dreamt up throughout the planning process come to fruition. Over the past year, she has felt invigorated by the turnout and engagement at meetings.
“I feel glad that all of that community energy from standing up for Grow Dat turned into this community engagement that maybe wouldn’t have otherwise happened,” she said. “That was a silver lining of that fight.”
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