Environment

The Water Institute of the Gulf has hired a renowned Mississippi River expert to join their staff to help advance the group’s Gulf Coast restoration and protection efforts.

Mitchell J. Silver opened the Louisiana Smart Growth Summit last night with constructive criticism of the capital city and its leaders. Silver serves in the Department of City Planning in Raleigh, North Carolina.

Vice President of the East Baton Rouge Redevelopment Authority Mark Goodson is part of panel discussion at the Smart Growth summit downtown Tuesday that will delve into the issue of redeveloping neglected and abandoned properties.

The Redevelopment Authority says in 2009, East Baton Rouge Parish had some 6,500 adjudicated parcels of land. That’s somewhere between 2 and 3 percent of all the parcels in the parish. The Authority is currently conducting a study in tandem with the Center for Community Progress to bring that information up-to-date. The numbers, however, are projected to be similar.   

Goodson says Baton Rouge should take a more robust approach to code enforcement to reduce blight like Atlanta, Portland, and even New Orleans already have.

Louisiana homeowners, renters and business owners who sustained damage after Hurricane Isaac have only three days left to register with FEMA for disaster assistance. Thursday is also the day the state’s two remaining Disaster Recovery Centers will close.

Ideas for making transportation infrastructure more bike-friendly are up for discussion at the annual Louisiana Smart Growth Summit downtown this week.

Wednesday, Nov. 28, Baton Rouge Advocates for Safe Streets will give some officials, planning experts, and citizens at the summit a taste of what it’s like to get around the capitol city by bike now.

Mark Martin, who founded the bike advocacy group in 2006, navigates his daily routine here with only two wheels.