Speakers commended the East Baton Rouge Redevelopment Authority at a news conference Thursday, reviewing the organization’s work from the past three years.
The RDA serves as an entity created to rebuild or refurbish areas of Baton Rouge. John Noland, chairman of the RDA Board of Commissioners, said many of the city’s neighborhoods need to be helped.
“The RDA exists, in no small measure, to level the playing field,” Noland said.
Noland said Baton Rouge residents view the improvement of blighted areas to be RDA’s responsibility.
Smiley Heights, a 198-acre site the RDA acquired this year, will be a mixed-use project including the BRCC automotive training center and EBR parish schools’ workforce development high school, said Walter Monsour, RDA president and CEO.
Monsour said RDA provides financing to help investors fund housing projects like The Elysian and Hooper Springs senior housing.
Conference organizers presented a video in which Lynn Clark, executive director of Habitat for Humanity of Greater Baton Rouge, said replacing empty fields with affordable homes brings the community together.
“By bringing in more families, it seems to have helped with the crime in the area,” Clark said.
In addition to cleaning up neighborhoods and providing safe housing, East Baton Rouge Parish Mayor-President Kip Holden said RDA invests in projects that implement the goals of FutureBR, a development plan to ease traffic congestion, develop walkable communities, enhance green spaces and improve Baton Rouge in other areas of development.
“[The RDA is] proof of what our city-parish does when they work together,” Holden said.
Monsour said the RDA began operating in 2009 and has invested more than $67 million in improving the community. These investments have helped to build 760 new housing units, create and retain 3,350 jobs in Baton Rouge and increase state and local tax collections.
Metro Council members, stakeholders and business leaders came together over an 18-month span to create five community improvement plans, which have continued to be carried out since then, Monsour said.
“The needs of our community remain great, but we’re extremely proud to accomplish what we have in such a short period of time,” he said.
