I started playing golf in City Park in 1972. I had my first job in "the park" parking golf carts for Henry Thomas on the South Course when I was 13. I picked up range balls at the "new" Driving Range at 18, and became an assistant to Mr. Thomas at age 20. I ran the City Park Junior program from 1983, when we had a couple of dozen kids, to 1987, when we had a couple hundred. I have been an "Authorized Instructor" at the Driving Range since 1984, and I have traveled around the country extensively the last ten years teaching golf.

Question and subsequent discussion about this project that was posted on the GolfClubAtlas Discussion Group.

While the loss of public park land in City Park's version of the revised 2007 Master Plan is disturbing, it pales in comparison to the Bayou District Foundation's "Conceptual Master Plan" for City Park, which is downright chilling. Basically, the entirety of City Park north of I-610 would become an extension of their new housing development across the bayou. The North Course would cease to exist, its land used for the BDF's new softball and soccer complexes, the Police Stables are no more, and the Couturie Forest is shrunken and surrounded by golf courses.

How inconvenient that so many critics, lowly New Orleans residents all, have interfered with their plans to take over all of this "underutilized" public property for their private development concerns.

From their "Highlights of the Bayou District of New Orleans", they claim their plan is to:
-Redevelop approximately 1,300 acres of New Orleans City Park, the country's second-largest urban park;
-Plans include two 18-hole championship golf courses, a nine-hole executive golf course, a First Tee Learning Facility and eight baseball, softball and soccer fields;
-Golf facility will be affordable to New Orleans residents and tourists;
-The revitalized course will be the home of the PGA Tour supported First Tee of New orleans and will be capable of hosting local, regional and national golf and other sports events;
-A portion of the proceeds from the golf operations will be available to support the vocational, pre-school, after school and other programs within the new Bayou District residential community, an estimated $1,500,000 annually;
-The Fore!Kids Foundation will manage the golf operations and New Orleans City Park will manage the recreation.

In these land use maps from the 2005 City Park Master Plan and the revised version from 2007, the deep green areas labeled "M" represent "undeveloped open areas", which includes the grassy strips along roads as well as limited public access areas such as Scout Island; the purple areas labeled "H" represent "natural resource areas" such as Couturie Forest; and the light lime green areas labeled "B" are for golf. It is evident in this map that golf consumed more than 50% of the land in the park previous to 2005, when the south course was closed to make way for a fenced "festival" area whose public access has not been made clear. Despite the distinction between the purple and green areas of Couturie Forest, there is no physical or visual difference between these areas.

Under the 2005 Master Plan, there appeared to be some tiny gains in the purple "natural resource areas" ("H") and the green "undeveloped open areas" ("M"), but the striped green "festival" area remains a wild card since it isn't clear whether the public will have access to it as open green space when it's not being used for revenue-producing events. The light lime green golf areas ("B") had shrunk to approximately 42% of the park. Note the borders of the Couturie Forest's "natural resource area" remain intact in relation to the old golf course footprint.

Unfortunately, open green space and natural resource areas have clearly suffered a setback in this new version of the land use map, as compared to both the existing use and the original planned use from the 2005 Master Plan, shown above. The Softball Complex and police stables have vanished, devoured by the proposed new golf courses, which are back to consuming approximately 48% of the space in City Park. On the south side of I-610 (to the right in these maps), additional development has further reduced the amount of passive open green space available to park users.

The new course supporters are fond of using the number "400 acres" to describe the amount of land the new courses will occupy in the park. Keeping in mind that the entire park is said to be 1300 acres, then using simple math, 400 acres would occupy less than a third of the park.

It didn't take a rocket scientist to look at the map and see that the "400 acres" figure was wrong, and the CPIA finally admitted that they were only counting land mass and not water acreage. Which begs the question: why did they keep using that disingenuous number, and what else are they trying to hide?

However, please take note that the borders of the Couturie Forest's "natural resource area" continue to remain intact in relation to the old golf course footprint.

This "Development and Restoration Plan" from the revised 2007 City Park Master Plan details the major differences from the same rendering in the 2005 Master Plan. In addition to the loss of the softball complex, park land that was supposed to become open green space or be left as undeveloped natural areas in the 2005 plan is sacrificed for development, primarily for the expansion of the proposed new $46 million golf complex. No matter how many times the developers claim the area for golf is not expanding, the maps tell a different story entirely. Note the borders of the Couturie Forest's "natural resource area" continue to remain intact in relation to both the old and new golf course footprint.

This is the plan of the new $46 million golf complex in City Park, prepared for New Orleans City Park Improvement Association and the Office of Facility Planning & Control of the State of Louisiana, submitted February 2009 by Torre Design Consortium, Ltd and Rees Jones, Inc golf course designers. It depicts two 18-hole golf courses separated by the clubhouse, which has been moved closer to the center of the park so the noise from private parties doesn't disturb the nearby residents along Bayou St John, plus a 9-hole short course adjacent to the "Golf Learning Center".

While the project has been downsized to include only Phase 1, no information about changes to the design has been released.

In order to build 2 new golf courses, the new golf plan seems to require not only the land area previously occupied by 3 golf courses, but some extra land as well. One of the reasons may very well be the intention of digging many, many more lagoons than are currently present. More water, less land. Very costly. But maybe when they talk about the mysterious "400 acres" that the new courses supposedly occupy, they're not counting the water areas to come up with that low number?

"Things change, times change, the needs of the community change" Bob Becker, City Park CEO

We couldn't have said it better ourselves. But perhaps the change this community needs is a little more park and a little less golf course in City Park.

In August of 2005, Katrina's floodwaters shut down the golf courses in City Park that had claimed more than half of the available land in the park for generations. Yet the disaster had an unexpected silver lining: areas of the park to which the non-golfing public had been denied access since the 1950's were discovered, welcomed, and enjoyed.

Now, rather than recognize the changing desires of the community for more passive green space, less development, and more affordable recreational options, City Park management is proposing to use $46 million dollars of public and private money to build brand new and expanded "PGA-quality" golf courses and a new clubhouse.

The City Park board of commissioners unveiled a "master plan" Tuesday that would convert hundreds of dormant acreage into a new $46 million golf complex on which construction could begin by the end of 2009.

Phase 1 would cost approximately $24.5 million and include the construction of an 18-hole championship course, clubhouse, access road to the clubhouse and parking, driving range, range clubhouse and maintenance facility, all encompassed between I-610 and Filmore Avenue and bounded east by Marconi Boulevard and west by Wisner Boulevard.