A $14 billion blueprint for rebuilding this hurricane-damaged city relies heavily on financial incentives to get people to elevate their houses or to otherwise build more safely.

And it recommends focusing initial investment in areas that have come back more quickly from Katrina.

"The financing follows the people," Darren Diamond, a consultant on the planning team, said. "This is a people driven plan."

The Unified New Orleans Plan, the latest in a string of recovery plans and intended to be the last of them, was given to city planning officials on Tuesday -- 17 months after Hurricane Katrina -- for the start of what's expected to be a months-long approval process.

Mayor Ray Nagin has said he will sign the plan, spokesman James Ross said, though Ross couldn't comment on the particulars until a plan reached Nagin's desk. Nagin's newly appointed recovery chief, Ed Blakely, told The Associated Press he considers the plan "just recommendations" and the $14 billion target too low to get New Orleans where it can grow into a world-class city.

"We may need three to four times that to get us where we want to go," Blakely said, though he expressed confidence the cash-strapped city could secure that funding and be successful with private investors.

Since the storm, parts of the city -- broken down or troubled even before Katrina -- remain in shambles. Houses in some neighborhoods are still vacant or not gutted. Streets are pocked by tire-busting potholes, and street lights work intermittently. Small businesses are struggling. And the city's criminal justice system and schools here have been slow to recover.

The Unified plan proposes about $14 billion in spending over the next five to 10 years to restore what Katrina ruined: one scenario suggests about 80 percent of that -- or $11.5 billion -- coming from the federal, state or local governments, with the rest, about $2.5 billion, from private sources.

That would be in addition to the money the government already has obligated for rebuilding projects, consultants said. As of Friday, the Federal Emergency Management Agency says it's obligated $754 million to Orleans Parish, which includes the city and its agencies, for infrastructure projects.

In the short term, over the next two years, the proposal suggests using temporary, portable facilities for such things as schools and health clinics in parts of New Orleans slowest to repopulate, like the Lower 9th Ward, to gauge where people resettle. It also suggests repairing major infrastructure in areas where there are more people.

It will be up to the city to adopt the plan, make any zoning changes and allow for the incentives the plan recommends to create such things as affordable housing and clustered neighborhoods, where homes and businesses in less populated areas would be centered around retail and community hubs.

The clustering, elevation of homes and rebuilding of slab-on-grade homes to mitigate future flood risk would be voluntary under the proposal, raising questions about whether would-be investors would balk about putting their money into the plan. Blakely doesn't think they will, saying investors take risk into account.

"I think we can get the money as long as people here -- how should I put it? -- they act like they're living in a city and not a group of separate neighborhoods," he said.

Consultant Laurie Johnson said neither residents who participated in the planning process nor the city showed any appetite for mandating those activities.

The plan anticipates spending about $4 billion over two years, with about $1 billion going toward infrastructure and utility repairs, $511 million for schools and $787 million for flood protection.

Planning officials expected Blakely's office to take a lead in finding recovery dollars. Blakely said at a forum Monday night that during a recent lobbying trip to New York, the city had pulled together about $500 million from investors to rebuild such things as streets and public buildings. Contracts are still pending.

Don Powell, the federal coordinator for Gulf Coast rebuilding, said at a hearing this week that his office will assess the need for future funding, his office said.

(Copyright 2007 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)