Inspired by the possibilities of a New Urbanist approach to planning, Cordell Haymon helped spearhead Plan Baton Rouge in 1998 and found the Center for Planning Excellence in 2006. He has served as the chair of CPEX’s board of directors for thirteen years, and he created CPEX’s membership program in 2011 alongside CPEX’s founding CEO, Elizabeth “Boo” Thomas. Cordell has supported CPEX as a Vision Level member for nine years–as long as the membership program has been around. At the end of this year, Cordell is stepping down from his position as board chair, so this seems like the perfect time to reflect on the more than twenty years he has dedicated to advancing the practice of planning in Baton Rouge and Louisiana.
Cordell is a Louisiana native who has made his home in Baton Rouge. He practiced law for many years while also helping to grow the business his father started–Petroleum Service Corporation–from a three-person operation to a business that now employs more than 3,500. He and his wife, Ava, are recognized for their community spirit, service, and philanthropy directed to causes ranging from education and the arts to legal services and, of course, community planning.
As 2019 draws to a close and many of us are thinking about end-of-year giving, we asked Cordell to chat with us about why he supports CPEX and what being a member has meant to him.
Let’s start at the beginning. How did you get involved with Plan Baton Rouge and CPEX?
A speaker series established by the Baton Rouge Area Foundation (BRAF) in memory of the late Marsha Kaplan Kantrow featured a speaker from California who was a New Urbanist architect – Stefanos Polyzoides. His talk illuminated for me a lot of things that had been hiding in plain sight all my life. He talked about the way cities are developed, and in particular, the dysfunction created by our methods of development. He also talked about how, through intentional planning processes, we could create places that people want to live. For me, this was a revelation and the beginning of my journey.
Soon after, I was in discussion with the leadership at BRAF and the planning and development committee I was chairing about how we could pursue these ideas. The next question was, where would we start? That answer came fairly easily in identifying our downtown. It is the one place that belongs to everyone–it is the living room of our community.
I remember gathering all of the plans that had been made over the previous 25 years for Baton Rouge. I had the idea that none of these plans had actually accomplished anything, but as I read the documents, I saw that embedded in these plans were things that had actually come to pass, such as the creation of the Downtown Development District and the idea to consolidate state government offices into a central government complex. I began to see that even a planning process that isn’t fully actualized could nevertheless be very beneficial if it generates ideas that unify people and inspire action.
What were some of the specific issues you wanted to tackle through smart growth planning?
The lack of connectivity of our streets and roads. The fact that so many of our streets do not connect in a grid renders most of them useless for getting anywhere except to the houses along them. I think an overlooked solution to our congestion problem is to connect those streets and create multiple pathways for drivers. Also, the built environment in Baton Rouge is not conducive to walking or biking. The way we’ve developed has resulted in complete dependence on the automobile as the only source of mobility for most people. The way that our zoning laws have separated uses in such a way that to get from your residence to any other place requires the use of a car. And the health implications–humans evolved to a certain level of routine activity in their daily life; the obesity and diabetes epidemics in this country, and especially in Louisiana, are related to the fact that there is no baseline of activity in our daily routines.
Let’s jump to the present. Thinking back on the past ten, twenty years, what are some of the accomplishments that CPEX took part in that you feel have been most significant?
Obviously, downtown, which, when we started, was 2/3 surface parking lots and mostly boarded up buildings with two or three high rise office buildings in the middle of it. The revitalization of downtown, constructing new buildings, remodeling and restoring older buildings, and creating a lot more residential space in the downtown--creating more of an urban environment which is a tremendous attraction to a lot of people.
Certainly the revitalization of Mid City, which was an effort in its infancy when we began Plan Baton Rouge. Boo Thomas had already been leading efforts to revitalize the Mid City area, and then in 2013 CPEX launched the Government Street Better Block, and now we see the Mid City area has taken off and property values have doubled and tripled and quadrupled, and it’s an increasingly desirable area for people to live, work, and visit.
In addition to the physical transformations, I think we’ve seen a growing awareness of the need for planning and the connection between a lack of planning and a lot of the problems we are experiencing. As the population of our city has grown, we’ve seen how the lack of planning for our transportation network has created a great deal of congestion, making us one of the most congested mid-size cities in the country, and how the sprawl phenomenon is separating communities from one another. People are becoming aware of how that impacts us–our education system, our political system. People are becoming aware of food deserts; they’re becoming aware of the need to direct planning activities towards North Baton Rouge, where there has been disinvestment over the past seventy years. The media has come to understand planning issues and seize upon the connections between poor planning and crime, poor planning and education issues, and poor planning and health issues.
So with all this in mind, why was it important for CPEX to create a membership?
CPEX started out very small with just a couple of employees and grants and contracts supported the organization for several years. But as CPEX grew and became a more established organization, there was always important work being done for which no one was paying CPEX. The organization was engaged in so many efforts – whether they were transportation issues, support for transit improvements, Complete Streets, or setting higher standards for the planning function of local government. We realized that we had to have a source of funding that would help cover these activities and the basic operating expenses of the organization, and we decided on a membership model. Along with some other board members, Boo Thomas and I launched that effort. Boo and I met with local donors and friends who we felt would support and understand the value of the work that CPEX was doing. They were generous in providing support, and that is how we got started with the membership model.
From your perspective, what is the role of CPEX members?
To provide that base of financial support that enables the organization to continue to operate and engage in many things that are important, but for which CPEX will not necessarily get compensated. The other function is to keep our members informed about planning issues, to receive ideas from them, input which can be very helpful. We like our members to be engaged in the work as it is happening.
What is special about CPEX members?
They care about improving the place that we call home, and they understand the complexity and interconnectedness of the problems that diminish quality of life here and throughout the state. They have vision and a long view, and they understand that we have to invest in planning now to lay the groundwork needed to realize improvements in the future.
Why is being a member important to you personally?
CPEX is a unique resource across Louisiana. There is no other entity to assist communities that don’t have significant planning expertise or resources. Because I believe in the work CPEX is doing, and I know that there are things CPEX couldn’t do if it didn’t have the base of membership support. I’m happy to be among those who are providing that.
What do you hope to see from CPEX in the next five or ten years?
CPEX has evolved a lot over its history. At the beginning we did not have a lot of planning resources internally. We primarily convened experts in planning and got them together to do planning. CPEX now has a staff with expertise in these planning activities that directly engages in the planning efforts of communities and institutions. I look for that to continue.
The field of planning is evolving because of changes in coastal Louisiana and, particularly, because of climate change. Thinking about how to develop our communities so that they are resilient amidst the changes we see taking place and know are going to take place–that has been such an important component of CPEX, and I expect that to be increasingly important in the coming years. Our current situation with regard to flooding–the increased incidence of significant rainfall events and of course coastal land loss, and the financial precariousness of the National Flood Insurance Program–it is important for CPEX to continue to provide leadership in the area of adaptation to climate change and help shape the thinking and policy directions so that we can manage what could be a very disruptive cycle.