In 2019 New Orleans’ voters agreed to fund the improvement of public recreation for the city. The selection committee has chosen a consultant to design a master plan for the city’s parks department, the New Orleans Recreation Development Commission, and the Audubon Institute and City Park. The firm is called Design Workshop, a national urban planning firm. 
Design Workshop focuses on park design and is familiar with Lousiana as it is the one that created the master plan for the Lafitte Greenway. The national urban planning firm is going to design a plan that will help park access in neighborhoods that do not have it. Another part of the project is to find a way to use public green spaces to help with flood mitigation efforts. They will start working on gathering data in September and will present it to the City Council in July 2023.
“We have a lot of city-owned land, in New
Orleans East in particular, where the park system was never fully realized,” Parks and Parkways Director Michael Karam said.
To start, they will research where in the city, within a 10-minute walk of parks trails and natural areas need improvements. After this is established, there will be a series of workshops, interviews and talks with the public asking residents what park system they would like to see created.
