October 30, 2005

Sustainability Subcommittee Approach and Issues:

As a committee, we recognize that we will have to address issues that deal with both issues of objective sustainability based on scientific knowledge as well as the subjective issues of safety, security, and therefore, sustainability, of the community. In terms of how we see our subcommittee interacting with others within our committee, we see that sustainability is the how regarding outcomes of the other committees (landuse, urban design, infrastructure, historic preservation, etc.). In other words, anything this committee should recommend should be either deemed sustainable or disposable.

We will seek to provide recommendations on the following three primary categories and subcategories:

I. Ecosystem Sustainability (i.e., coastal wetland restoration) which provides:

• Hurricane Protection for the City of New Orleans
• Economic Values including Fisheries, recreation, oil & gas, and waterborne commerce

II. Urban Sustainability

• Levee protection and other engineering recommendations in coastal Louisiana to protect the city of New Orleans from storm surge
• Levee Protection surrounding Orleans parish for flood protection
• Protection and construction of structures that can withstand the catastrophic conditions related to hurricane and flooding disasters
• Smart Growth issues focusing on strategic redevelopment on a city-wide level
• Green Architecture recommendations that focus on sustainable and environmentally friendly architecture

III. Social Sustainability

• Neighborhood Resilience and initiatives on establishing trust and confidence that lead to safety and security
• Racial and economic equity in this process

Outputs we suggest, so far, can include:

Legislative Agendas relating to issues above

Economic Feasibility

As part of process we seek additional expertise (which may be within our own commission) that was not present at our first meeting:

Expertise and processes on demystifying urban myths related to risks related to sustainability and equity

Expertise on flood mitigation methodologies as they relate to architecture