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Another distressing aspect of LSU/VA footprint is that the public is generally unaware that a neighborhood is being obliterated to make way for a PROPOSED development.

In 2005, someone convinced the Regional Planning Commission to adopt the currently-considered footprint (S. Claiborne to S. Rocheblanve and from Tulane to Canal). None of the pre-Katrina hospital expansion or replacement plans called for the wholesale destruction of a residential area.

There are acres of blighted commercial property, medical property and parking lots on the South side of Tulane, close to the existing University Hospital and VA. Why disenfranchise an entire neighborhood to provide more space to healthcare providers who have chosen not to utilize the lands and facilities already at their disposal.

The community deserves to know who was the constultant who selected the currently-proposed hospital footprint. It deserves to know if the project consultations involved even the slightest hint of corruption or conflict of interest. If all project planning is found to have been open and honest, that would be wonderful. But is anyone even looking?

Karen Gadbois co-founded The Lens. She now covers New Orleans government issues and writes about land use. With television reporter Lee Zurik she exposed widespread misuse of city recovery funds and led...