NEW ORLEANS — Mayor LaToya Cantrell today issued the following statement on the recent approval by the Downtown Development District's (DDD) Board of Commissioners to roll forward the DDD's millage that will be dedicated to the City’s Infrastructure and Maintenance Fund to address flooding challenges downtown, a critical part of the Fair Share Agreement:

"The DDD’s vote ratifies the efforts we’ve made toward getting more of the city’s Fair Share to improve our infrastructure and drainage,” said Mayor Cantrell. "We have to make sure that our residents and businesses can rely on our drainage system to do its job, and this is an important step forward. On Nov. 16, New Orleans has the opportunity to rededicate three mills toward infrastructure maintenance and to allow the city to sell $500 million in bonds, which will help the City maintain and sustain our infrastructure. We have never had dedicated funding for maintenance, but we share the responsibility to maintain and improve upon what we have. I thank the DDD Board for their support and for doing their part to improve the infrastructure downtown.”

The City’s Department of Public Works developed a plan, supported by the DDD’s third-party engineering firm, to fight flooding in downtown New Orleans by improving the existing gray infrastructure and simultaneously investing in green infrastructure to hold stormwater. The plan includes an increase in the millage currently applied to downtown property owners. The proceeds from the DDD levy, along with the diversion of $1 million in funding from other projects, will provide a total of $2.5 million annually for use within the DDD.

The City’s plan includes installing pervious pavement in parking lanes on 45 blocks over a five-year period, adding approximately 3 million gallons of stormwater storage capacity, as well as upgrading undersized main drain lines to 15 inches or greater. It will also provide funding to design underground water retention in Duncan Plaza, which has a storage capacity of more than 7.8 million gallons of stormwater.

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