Element: Community Design and Neighborhoods

OLOL Childrens Hospital

The new Our Lady of the Lake Children’s Hospital is within the boundaries of the Baton Rouge Health District. The Health District Small Area Plan promotes the area as a regional hub for health services.

River Road street trees

Various streetscape improvements in the downtown area, including street trees and ADA-compliant sidewalks, have contributed to a higher quality of life.

Green Trails at Shenandoah

The Green Trails at Shenandoah neighborhood is within the Suburban Character Area. The character area calls for sidewalks to connect residential areas to schools, public facilities and commercial areas.

LEARN MORE ABOUT COMMUNITY DESIGN AND NEIGHBORHOODS ELEMENT


COMMUNITY DESIGN AND NEIGHBORHOODS

Baton Rouge’s neighborhoods are among the community’s greatest assets. The City’s earliest neighborhoods grew as extensions of downtown and were built within a network of well-connected streets linking areas of town to each other and to the Port where goods and services were exchanged. Today, Baton Rouge is fortunate to have a significant amount of remaining historic housing stock from the early 1900s, and the City-Parish is committed to maintaining and rebuilding older neighborhoods in cooperation with owners and the community.

As new communities grow and reinvestment in existing neighborhoods continues, the City-Parish should be guided by a vision for strong interconnected neighborhoods and districts which are healthy, and comfortable environments.

Community Design and Neighborhoods Goals

  1. Enhance community character by upgrading components of the built environment.
  2. Support a distinctive community identity; an enriched sense of place, and high quality of life.
  3. Promote development patterns that encourage connectivity and pedestrian orientation.


CHARACTER AREA MAP

Character Area MapCLICK THE PHOTO TO OPEN

The FUTUREBR Character Areas map represents the vision for improved design quality across the City-Parish. To develop this map, planners took into consideration the adopted FUTUREBR Land Use Map; the street type and context of an area; the existing land use and development character; and citizen input.

  • Downtown
  • Urban/Walkable
  • Suburban
  • Rural


SMALL AREA PLANS

The pressures of growth and public investment create tremendous demand for undertaking small area plans. Small area planning is a partnership between the City-Parish and the area’s stakeholders. Small area plans may be initiated by the neighborhood associations, business associations, private developers, the City-Parish Planning Commission, or any other relevant entity.