Planners Convene in Biloxi, Miss.

 

Low-lying areas of Biloxi and other south Mississippi cities were flooded by Hurricane Katrina?EUR??,,????'???s storm surge. Architects and planners are meeting to discuss reconstruction plans.

The work facing architects and urban planners who convened in Biloxi, Miss. on Oct. 13 was visible out the window of the battered resort where the group stayed. A beach strewn with uprooted trees and the detritus of ravaged buildings.

The group of some 200 professionals from around the country is struggling to come up with a comprehensive regional plan to rebuild the Mississippi Gulf Coast. It’s a design challenge on a grand scale, covering 11 communities in three Mississippi counties damaged by Hurricane Katrina.

The conference, the Mississippi Renewal Forum, is part of a broader effort on recovery and renewal that Gov. Haley Barbour has commissioned. A report to the governor with broad recommendations is due by Dec. 31.

“People know that this took a wrong turn somewhere,” said Andr????(C)s Duany, the Miami architect and planner leading the forum. “People know this has become honky-tonk, and this is the chance to get it right.”

“This place has lost its neighborhood structure over the last 50 years,” he continued. “This is a chance to rezone it in a much finer grain, so people can walk to the corner store, kids can walk to school.”

The chairman of the commission, Jim Barksdale, a former chief executive of Netscape Communications, said the priority should be low-income housing. “Rich people take care of themselves,” he remarked.

Details matter, the planners say, like parking, setbacks and trees. “There are the kind of trees that support retail,” Mr. Duany said. “You plant the wrong tree, people won’t shop, because it blocks the signage.”

For some architects and planners, talk of new urbanism can raise apprehension that a rigidly prescribed mix of housing, stores and open squares will snuff out the individuality of various communities.

But participants interviewed on Wednesday said they had no interest in obliterating the indigenous aesthetic of the Gulf Coast.

“Our office is deeply interested in architecture that makes places unique,” said Michael G. Imber, an architect from San Antonio. “How can we capture that and carry forward into the future? It’s difficult.”

“The cities now run one into the next,” he said. “You don’t realize when you pass from Gulfport into Biloxi, yet they are distinct cultures.”

Source: New York Times