Consultants criticize New Orleans hospital plan

Mayor Mitch Landrieu should push for significant changes in the design of a successor to Charity Hospital, says consultant David Dixon in an analysis of a controversial New Orleans hospital plan.

The current plan, which calls for allocating 37 acres to development of a 424-bed, $1.2 billion state teaching hospital complex, demands more land than is necessary for initial construction, says a 25-page analysis submitted by David Dixon of Goody Clancy Associates.  The plan has been sparked intense opposition from historic preservationists and others.

Dixon's report "frames the existing plan as a suburban design that does not integrate the hospital with either downtown or the adjacent residential neighborhoods," The Times-Picayune reported in an August 13 article available here. The plan "rejects principles established in the city's master plan, the Unified New Orleans plan and the Regional Planning Commission's plan for an expanded medical district," the newspaper said.

Dixon urged the city to become more directly involved in a planning process that has thus far been driven from state offices in Baton Rouge. Andy Kopplin, the mayor's chief of staff, agreed that Mayor Landrieu is entitled to pursue the issue actively. "If we're going to make billion-dollar investments in the city," said Kopplin, "we're got to get them right." 

Governor Bobby Jindal agreed to a 45-day "peer review" of the hospital plan, but it is not clear how willing the state is to alter its plan.