Healthy Block Initiative

Through a multi-partner collaboration, an entire city block was transformed into a learning lab to address flooding and demonstrate stormwater management strategies. By leveraging the expertise of four non-profit organizations (Urban Conservancy, Greenlight, Sustaining Our Urban Landscape and Youth Rebuilding New Orleans) with shared goals for water management and education, this project successfully addressed street flooding and showed residents how they can live with water. A wide range of stormwater management interventions on private lots and public right of way were implemented, including 1200 square feet of paving removal, the installation of 500 square feet of True Grid permeable parking, installing 700 square feet of rain gardens, 12 rain barrels and planting 25 trees. Through these interventions, a total of 3,500 gallons of water will be captured per rain event and 20 local youth were educated and paid for green sector training.

Project Leads
John Coyle, Susannah Burley Felice Lavergne, Andreas Hoffman, Maggie Daly

Design+Build
Vivek Shah, Isaiah Williams, Jevone Johnson, Iyana Price, Jericho Gremalion, Danielle Holmes, Earl James