Apr 2026

Dear friends,

In 2015, the Urban Conservancy developed the Front Yard Initiative (FYI) as a resource to counter excessive residential paving. We secured philanthropic support to incentivize homeowners to remove paving to reduce their flood risk and that of their neighbors. Since its inception, FYI has provided financial support to 168 homeowners, resulting in the removal of 96,000 square feet of paving resulting in 4 million gallons of water annually diverted from our overburdened pumping and drainage system.

After over a decade, we have made the difficult decision to sunset the financial incentive portion of the Front Yard Initiative. One of the most important aims was to build an incentive model  that was functional, sustainable, and scalable – to develop a residential depaving program on a small scale that a large entity with a dedicated funding source could take citywide. We are very proud to have accomplished this goal.  With every project, we improved New Orleans’ safety through stormwater management while empowering residents to reduce their exposure to flood risk, extreme heat, and other climate impacts.

Rest assured that despite these changes the Front Yard Initiative is alive and well. With your help, we’ll continue to advocate for citywide financial incentives and credits for residents who want to ease pressure on our drainage system by reducing runoff from their property.  We will continue to provide technical assistance at no cost to assist homeowners looking for ways to take action. Finally, we will continue to implement, educate and advocate for neighborhood-level nature-based solutions to address our greatest climate challenges, including extreme heat and flood risk. Feel free to reach out any time with questions, comments, or ideas.

Sincerely,
Dana Eness, Executive Director
dana@urbanconservancy.org
(504) 717-6187 (office)
(504) 232-7821 (cell)

 

Aug 2024

Last February, BBC’s Rare Earth radio program came to visit. The result is the episode “How to Floodproof a City.”

The hosts talked to homeowners, green infrastructure contractors, city staff, and our executive director about steps we’re all taking to mitigate flood risk. Thanks to everyone who shared their expertise and inspired Brits to do the same!

Nov 2023

More than 80% of the FYI homeowners who qualified for the survey (finished their FYI project >1 year ago) responded, giving us 102 total responses. Topics ranged from the effectiveness of green infrastructure in reducing flooding on the property, to the FYI program’s cross-pollination with other gardening nonprofit and volunteer groups over time.

View the report below. The table of contents can be used for quicker navigation.

If the embed below is giving you trouble, you can find the attachment page here.

This version of the report is interactive. You can also download a print version here. 

Sep 2022

Our 2020 FYIer Al Duvernay recently got a write-up in NOLA.com for his beautiful and functional yard.

Duvernay loved the benefits of the front-yard transformation he achieved working with Mastodonte, LLC as a participant in our Front Yard Initiative incentive program in 2020, and he felt inspired to do even more. Being an accomplished paleontologist, Duvernay maintained an engineer’s perspective as he continued to improve rain capture in his yard.

Now, Duvernay enjoys a swath of different green infrastructure measures, all working in tandem to capture as much water as possible. He estimates that the capacity is now about 3000 gallons.

His yard now includes:

• A 250-gallon cistern to hold collected rainwater from the roof
• A terraced rain garden
• French drains
• Permeable walkways

Great stuff Al! We love to see our FYIers going above and beyond the call of water-stewardship.

Read more about Al Duvernay’s project on NOLA.com

Read more stories about homeowners and their FYI projects

May 2022

On May 25, 2022, Urban Conservancy’s Executive Director, Dana Eness presented to the Quality of Life Committee on the importance of nature-based solutions to stormwater issues.

City Council members Lesli Harris, Freddie King III, and Eugene J. Green listened as nonprofits SOUL Nola, Green Light New Orleans, Urban Conservancy, Groundworks Nola, and EmPower Nola spoke on the challenges we face, current work being done to meet those challenges, and what support is needed.

To watch Dana speak on the UC’s Front Yard Initiative (FYI) skip to 53:21.

The generous support of our funders makes our work possible. We want to give a special thanks to the Wisner Donation fund, Albert and Elaine Borchard Foundation, the Greater New Orleans Foundation, Entergy’s Environmental Initiatives Fund, and you, our all-important individual donors.

If the embedded video isn’t working, click here.

Dec 2021

For some time, New Orleans property owners have replaced green spaces with concrete and other impervious surfaces in efforts to expand parking and reduce yard maintenance. Serious flooding issues began to emerge across the city as a result. Now there is a program incentivizing homeowners to remove their pavement and install grass and other permeable materials so that rain can soak into the ground again, reducing storm water runoff.

In this episode of Waterloop, Dana Eness explains The Front Yard Initiative. Dana explains how the initiative helps property owners to redesign their front yards, the growing appreciation for green solutions among New Orleanians, and the success of the program, which keeps 2 million gallons of water out of our streets and drains yearly.

Listen to the full podcast episode here!

Apr 2021

The Urban Conservancy’s Dana Eness was interviewed by the Preservation Resource Center for the April 2021 issue of Preservation in Print:

“The Urban Conservancy’s Front Yard Initiative (FYI) helps residents to rip up excessive concrete around their homes. Excessive concrete can exacerbate flooding. Tell us how that program got started and how it works.

‘The program started in about 2014 with a frustrated constituent trying to bring some attention to the fact that people in his Uptown neighborhood were paving their front yards, in violation of city regulations, in order to reduce maintenance and increase off-street parking, and there didn’t seem to be any enforcement. We partnered with The Lens news website (excessive paving was an issue that Lens founder Karen Gadbois was reporting on) and invited neighborhood leaders and city staff to come together to discuss the issue.

From that dialogue, we realized that, in addition to people intent on paving, there were many people who had more paving on their property than they wanted but just didn’t know how to go about getting rid of it. We decided we wanted to focus on helping those who wanted to transform their property so it would hold rain where it fell rather than run off and contribute to our street flooding and overburdened pumping system.'”

Read more at prcno.org

Dec 2020

The Life Raft Podcast (hosted by Tegan Wendland and Travis Lux) discussed green stormwater infrastructure and its role in aiding our frequently flooding city.

“When it rains, it pours. And when it pours, it floods.

More and more, that appears to be the situation down South. In New Orleans, several big rain storms in recent years have turned streets into rivers and flooded homes and cars.

This week on Life Raft: flooding. What can we do about it?”

Sep 2020

Press Release on Biz New Orleans

New Orleans, LA, September 24, 2020 — Since Katrina, New Orleans leaders have looked for innovative ways to relieve pressure on the city’s pumping systems during storms and other heavy rain events. Many are advocating for more “green stormwater infrastructure” that will allow the ground to soak up water that would otherwise be sent to catch basins.

Unlike curbs, gutters and drains that move stormwater from a built environment into a nearby body of water, green infrastructure is designed to capture the rain water where it falls. Picture an impermeable parking lot, for instance, that’s been converted into one built with a permeable paving system on top of soil that has been conditioned to enhance its ability to take on water. If you’ve been to Parkway Bakery and Tavern near Bayou St. John, you can picture what it looks like.

A lot of people – from the federal government down to local contractors – have been getting involved in GSI projects. The Greater New Orleans Foundation, the Sewerage and Water Board and the City of New Orleans are collaborating on a campaign called “Every Drop Makes a Difference.” The Gentilly Resilience District, meanwhile, will use a $141 million federal grant to create water features, permeable sidewalks and other water-management infrastructure.

One local nonprofit that’s focused on residential GSI projects is the Urban Conservancy, which just released a report on its Front Yard Initiative based on survey responses from 68 of the homeowners who have participated in the program. In five years, the initiative has raised approximately $100k from the Greater New Orleans Foundation, the Wisner Foundation and other benefactors and used the funds to pay a portion of the cost of residential GSI projects citywide.

Urban Conservancy’s Dana Eness said the good news is that the study shows that “green stormwater infrastructure actually works,” and the functionality only increases over time as plants and their root systems have become fully established.

Continue reading at Biz New Orleans