HumidCity

Read here first: Mayor Nagin Hates Neighborhoods

Then ask yourself this: if it is so easy now to get a demolition order pushed through, which building would YOU like to have go first?

I’m thinking 1300 Perdido Street.

Any other suggestions?  Put ‘em in your comments below.

Now’s the time to push this through, people.

Liprap

PLEASE SPREAD THE WORD ON THIS - THANK YOU.
–
Davida Finger, Staff Attorney
Loyola University N.O. College of Law
Office: 504.861.5596
Fax: 504.861.5663
Cell: 504.292.6715

That guy in Lakeview, the one the SWAT team went to visit yesterday, is now dead.

A man was reportedly shot and killed by New Orleans police SWAT officers after a 10-hour standoff in which he barricaded himself in his FEMA trailer in Lakeview, according to police.

The confrontation began after the man, wearing a gun in his waistband, chased away FEMA workers who were attempting to reclaim the trailer in which he was living, police said.

The standoff ended Wednesday morning when police shot him after using several canisters of tear gas trying to draw him out. Associated Press reports say paramedics took him to a hospital, where he later died.

Now here is the interesting quote a few paragraphs down:

Though he didn’t actually draw his gun, he placed his hand on it near his waistband while ordering the FEMA workers to leave the trailer, the workers told police.

Via NOLA.com

The things that really gets me about this is that so many of the lives lost to flying bullets merit no more than a blurb. This guy was colorful and dramatic enough for the news, but what about the ongoing spate of death that infects our city like the plague?

-Loki, HumidCity Founder

What have we been driven to?

An NOPD SWAT team Tuesday afternoon surrounded a house in Lakeview as a resident who learned he was about to lose his trailer threatened a FEMA official with a gun and barricaded himself inside the trailer, police said.-NOLA.com

-Loki, HumidCity Founder

You know, disaster capitalism is a foul and fetid thing. It has the morals of a politician and the honor of Richard III. That said, these scum take it to a whole new level. Here is an example of frat boy mentality at its worst, crossing the line from sophomoric humor into the realm of true douchebaggery. They go around various cities and interview the homeless, then they use those interviews as fuel for “belittling humor.” Bad taste is right.

Now they are not only in New Orleans to pull what humor they can out of the many homeless camped under the Claiborne Overpass, but they have even tried to embrace the Web 2.0 world by sending out a press release to the local bloggers. Click “more” t read it. Then I encourage you to contact them and share your opinion of their efforts. (I have deactivated the hyperlinks as I do not wish to aid their search engine ranking in anyway.)

I thought carpetbaggers were bad enough, now we have the fratbaggers to?

-Loki, HumidCity Founder Read the rest of this entry »

So even on a business trip to Vegas I cannot escape the stench of FEMA incompetence. It seems they have a great new plan for disaster housing since their prior efforts were both inadequate and toxic: modular housing. From the comments in this article in the NY Times it seems they are still doing a heckuva job!

“FEMA seems like a babe in the woods on this stuff,” said John Henneberger, co-director of the Texas Low-Income Housing Information Service, which is working on trailer alternatives. “They seem to be clueless.”

The view in Washington is not much different. “It just sounds like they still don’t know what they’re talking about, to be frank,” said Ronald D. Utt, a senior research fellow at the conservative Heritage Foundation. “To say, O.K., we didn’t get it right with trailers so we’ll move on to something more exotic like prefab housing is a bizarre suggestion.”

FEMA clueless? What a shock!

-Loki

The latest in the ongoing letters of Matt McBride, syndicated from the email.

Dear New Orleanians,

How many ways can a city violate its own laws? A small committee inside New Orleans’ city government appears to be trying to answer that question.

First some fundamentals. The Housing Conservation District Review Committee (HCDRC) is the body charged with reviewing demolition applications in historic neighborhoods outside the city’s local historic districts. That geographic area - called the Housing Conservation District - is roughly south of I-610 on the east bank and also includes a small area near Algiers Point on the west bank.

The agenda for the HCDRC’s bi-weekly meetings is compiled by the city’s Safety & Permits department, which accepts demolition permit applications. Safety & Permits also chairs the committee, which is made up of mostly mid-level city bureaucrats and has no staff. The Committee meets in the offices of Safety & Permits. In effect, the committee is a wing of Safety & Permits, and has historically done that agency’s will, which is tilted toward approval of demolition permits.

One can find the laws governing HCDRC’s operation online at municode.com (http://www.municode.com/Resources/gateway.asp?pid=10040&sid=18). They are in sections 26-3 through 26-10. Those laws are not particularly long or complicated; they take up less than four pages. Yet the committee and Safety & Permits have somehow managed to display a stunning degree of ignorance of those rules (twice in the last two months it has been citizens informing city employees of the applicable laws), except where it was more advantageous to exploit them. In fact, it is difficult to find a law relating to HCDRC not ignored or exploited by Safety & Permits or the Committee over the past two years.

1) Review “all” properties

Let’s start with the most basic rule: all properties within the Conservation District are to be reviewed by the Committee. There are a few notable exceptions (more about them later), but generally “all” means “all.” Instead, as I have written before, over 900 HCDRC-eligible properties were just not included on HCDRC agendas since the storm. In the vast majority of cases, they were simply excluded for no other reason than to avoid review.

This pattern started with the third demolition application after Katrina and it continues to this day. Since I and other citizens first put the Committee and Safety & Permits on notice that we were aware of this avoidance in late November, 2007, over a dozen more properties have avoided review and have gotten demolition permits through this method.

2) The 70% loophole

One of the exceptions to review of all HCDRC-eligible properties was passed in April of 2006. It exempted properties with flood damage estimates greater than 70% from HCDRC consideration for demolition. Safety & Permits, the gatekeeper for both demolition applications and damage estimates, appears to have driven a truckload of demolitions through this loophole. Over 350 properties had their estimates revised above 70%, and then received demolition permits without HCDRC review.

But for a few scattered exceptions, nearly every property that had its estimate raised in this fashion was HCDRC-eligible. That is, this was not a citywide phenomenon of hundreds of property owners with derelict houses coming into City Hall independently of each other, looking to demolish. Instead, the pattern was confined almost entirely to the Housing Conservation District. I believe this was Safety & Permits operating under pressure from the Federal government to make maximum use of available demolition funds within tight time constraints, and finding any excuse to spend those funds, lest they appear foolish in front of Washington.

This problem, like the non-review of eligible properties, also continues. Since late November, over two dozen properties have avoided review by virtue of damage assessments getting increased above 70%.

3) But, some 70% properties should still get reviewed…

There was a codicil to that 70% exception passed in May of 2006. It stated that properties to be demolished within National Register Districts (which overlap the Housing Conservation District) were to be reviewed by the staff of the city’s Historic District Landmarks Commission (HDLC) if their estimate was greater than 70%. This particular provision is called “section 26-10″ in the city code.

As I wrote earlier, the staff at Safety & Permits admitted - in print - that they never read that provision of the law. On December 13, 2007, Ed Horan, a Safety & Permits staffer responsible for review of demolition permit applications, wrote in an email to one of my colleagues, Meg Lousteau:

“Meg,

“Yesterday was the first time I have ever read Section 26-10 of the City Code…I have already alerted both Mr Centineo [head of Safety & Permits] and Mr Perkins [head of the HDLC] of my ignorance of 26-10 and can assure you and them that all future demolition applications will follow the procedure outlined therein.

“This morning I will inform the permit analysts of the misunderstanding and of new process as required by law.”

At least 130 demolitions were affected by this admitted ignorance (they were never passed along to HDLC for review) - a blatant due process violation which remains unaddressed.

4) Inadequate notice

The notice provisions of the HCDRC laws call for publication of the Committee’s agenda in the newspaper. There are no provisions for adding properties to the agenda after publication. Yet there have been many instances of properties getting added on the day of the meeting.

At the November 26, 2007 HCDRC meeting, members of the City Attorney’s staff insisted on adding 19 properties to the agenda at the end of the meeting (after most members of the public had left), with no notice whatsoever. The Committee, instead of viewing this as against procedure and regulation, proceeded to vote on acceptance of the demolition applications, allowing 14 to proceed. In fact, they approved demolition of a property they had denied just two months earlier. That was also illegal. The city code says that properties cannot be demolished for one year after denial by the HCDRC (pending a City Council appeal, which did not happen in this case).

This was not the first time un-noticed properties had been added to the HCDRC agenda and then voted upon. It happened on July 9, 2007, when 23 properties came before the committee without public notice. All were brought by the city, not individuals. All but three were either approved or withdrawn because they had already been demolished. Those other three were deferred for future consideration, but were never considered again. Yet all three still received active demolition permits later in the summer (oddly on August 28 and 29, right before FEMA was due to stop paying for the Corps of Engineers to demolish houses).

I have found at least four other meetings just in 2007 where this happened.

5) No redevelopment plans submitted

One would think the city would have a vested interest in avoiding the jack-o-lantern effect of empty lots pockmarking historic neighborhoods. Instead, they actively encourage it.

One of the criteria for the HCDRC to evaluate demolitions is “the proposed plan for redevelopment.” Another is the “proposed length of time the subject site is anticipated to remain undeveloped.” Yet property demolitions are routinely approved without either of these pieces of information.

The November 12, 2007 meeting is a typical example. 13 properties were on the agenda that day. A 14th was added at the meeting, without prior notice. 9 of those structures had no redevelopment plans. All but one of those nine had their demolitions approved, and the ninth wasn’t approved because the wrong address had been placed on the agenda (also a common occurrence).

Nearly the same thing happened at the October 8, 2007 meeting: 6 properties were on the agenda, none with redevelopment plans. All but one were approved, with the sixth application withdrawn by the applicant.

Here’s one more example: on July 23, 2007, there were 32 properties on the HCDRC agenda. Not one had a redevelopment plan. Many (including over a dozen in the neighborhood of Xavier University) were planned to become vacant lots. Not a single property was denied a demolition permit that day.

The default position for the HCDRC is to approve demolitions, no matter whether they meet the criteria for evaluation or not.

6) Violation of the “30 day” rule

Another rule in the city code stipulates that the HCDRC must accept or deny a demolition application within 30 days of its submittal to Safety & Permits. If a decision is not reached within 30 days, the application is denied. The applicant may then appeal the decision to the City Council for a final ruling. This rule has been in existence since 2000.

Over the years, however, the HCDRC has seen fit to grant deferrals for properties. Sometimes, properties are deferred for months at a time. In some cases, this is done to allow neighborhoods and developers time to meet and discuss plans for a site. In other cases, owners don’t show up, or the committee sent notice to the wrong address, or some other reason. No matter the reason, deferrals to a time greater than 30 days after permit acceptance are not legal under the current law.

Some properties have been deferred for over 100 days, spanning half a dozen HCDRC meetings. Such delays are not unusual. Since Katrina, the HCDRC has reached decisions on over 190 properties after 30 days had passed after their applications were submitted. Over 170 of those were approvals. Under the 30 day rule, all should have been denied, with appeals going to the City Council.

Until January 28, 2008, the 30 day rule had never been enforced. At the HCDRC meeting that day, it was pointed out to the Committee (by citizens in the audience) that continual deferrals of properties, sometimes for months at a time, are illegal.

At first, members of the Committee - even when confronted with the actual printed verbiage from the city code - denied its applicability. It took assent from a representative of the City Attorney’s office (the City Attorney has been attending HCDRC meetings recently, as the circus nature of the proceedings has been publicized in the newspaper) to persuade the bureaucrats on the Committee that they were indeed violating the law.

When they finally saw the light, the Committee members immediately denied permits for all properties which violated the 30 day rule, some of which did so because the committee had granted deferrals. Or at least, they tried to do so. There were at least two properties which violated the 30 day rule, but which still got their demolitions approved.

Conclusion: Total reform is needed.

At its most fundamental level, the HCDRC should be following the criteria laid out in city law for demolitions. It should also be following the laws on proper notice, expediency of decision, and review of all properties. Instead, none of these things are happening.

The city has shown itself as a repeat offender in violation of its own laws. The best solution at this point is complete reform of HCDRC. Fortunately, there is pending legislation before the New Orleans city council to do just that. In addition, a recently signed consent decree provides punishment if the city does not shape up. Things are moving forward to bring accountability and sanity to a process that so far has been opaque and insane.

Matt

Dear New Orleanians,

The city’s notification process for demolitions has been notoriously ineffective. Lists of Imminent Health Threat and Imminent Danger of Collapse properties are posted to the city’s website, and then disappear within days. The city has been hauled into federal court in two separate cases since Katrina because of its poor notification procedures for demolitions.

However, one should realize that the city’s failure to notify homeowners about pending demolitions is not due to a lack of information. In fact, the city has a bunch of information about demolitions, but they are - for whatever reason - wildly reluctant to release it.

I have obtained two lists of properties cleared by FEMA in December 2007 for demolition. I believe they have been compiled by a company called Beck Disaster Recovery (BDR), which has a contract with the city for property management of demolition properties. BDR has offices in 1515 Poydras, across from City Hall.

These lists are different than any other lists previously published, because it is a near certainty that these houses are targeted for demolition. They have already been cleared by FEMA as “eligible” for federal funding. Also, the raw numbers of properties (about 1400) matches closely with what has previously been announced as a total still to be taken down (about 1800, according to a FEMA press release from November).

We have seen these lists validated over the past few weeks, as Safety & Permits has assembled HCDRC agendas from them, and permits have been granted based on them.

Here’s what I have done - I have taken the simple raw lists of addresses and have bulked them up with all the information I could glean about a given property. I have added whether the property is HCDRC- or HDLC-eligible, and if it is HCDRC-eligible, whether or not it has yet come before the Committee. I’ve added previous demolition permit dates, a comparison of IHT status between the information on the original list (shown in column B) and what has been released publicly by the city over the last year. I’ve added damage estimates. Basically, if there’s any public information I could get about a property, I’ve added it to these lists (which I combined into one spreadsheet) [I have converted the spreadsheet into a Google document you may view here. -Loki].

So here’s a key of the information on the spreadsheet:
Date of release: date of the list on which the property appears. The lists were released on 12-13-07 and 12-19-07

File/WO#: I’m not sure what this is - I assume there are work orders for each property. This was on the original lists as received.

Type of demo: this is information that came with the lists. The types are IHT (Imminent Health Threat), IMA (Imminent Danger of Collapse), VOL (voluntary, i.e. homeowner-initiated), and there are a few noted as COMM (commercial, though this is not really a type of demo so much as a type of building). Imminent Health Threat demos are quite controversial, since there is no objective standard for what constitutes an Imminent Health Threat, and the notification process is poor.

Street number, street direction, street name, street suffix, ZIP code: these make up the address for the property

Demo permit? Demo permit date?: Whether or not there is a demo permit on the property, and the date it appeared in Safety & Permits’ system

12-31-06 damage assessment, 11-1-07 damage assessment, Dam assess incr above 70%?: City damage assessments, obtained from the city’s website. Also, whether the damage assessments were increased above 70% (presumably to avoid review by the Housing Conservation District Review Committee).

Review type: The demolition can be reviewed for its impact on the historic fabric of the city. The review can be either HCDRC (just the Housing Conservation District Review Committee), HCDRC & NatReg (property is within a National Register District, which could entitle it to review by the Historic District Landmarks Commission if its damage assessment is greater than 70%, under Section 26-10 of the City Code), HDLC (review by Historic District Landmarks Commission), or “No review” (outside all historic areas). I’ve done my best to determine this based on city-produced maps.

HCDRC review date: if the property has come before the HCDRC, this is the date it happened.

Extra review under City Code Section 26-10: if the property has a damage estimate over 70% and is within a National Register Historic District, it is entitled to extra review by the HDLC before demolition.

Imminent Health Threat (according to publicly released lists): The city has released various IHT lists since the beginning of the year. There was a partial list in March, a list with IHT and voluntary demos mixed together in July, and at least four different IHT lists since late September (only two of which are available on the city’s website). I checked the addresses on this latest list against those IHT lists.

Match col B & col Q: I then checked the IHT status from those publicly released lists against the status that was on this list when it arrived. They don’t always match, as indicated by “NO MATCH.”

GPS coordinates: these came with the original list

Owner: these were on the original lists.

Due to some of the methods I’ve used to compile information, occasionally I’ve had to split addresses into two rows. So sometimes a property which is a fourplex with an address like “932-34-36-38 Smith Street” will appear across two rows. I didn’t have to do that very much, but it did happen a few times. I apologize for any confusion.

I am not going to claim that this list is 100% correct. I’ve had to correct typos and clean up information as best as I can, but there are almost undoubtedly errors. Plus, I can’t necessarily vouch for some of the raw information, like ZIP codes and GPS coordinates. However, I feel it’s best to get the information out so that people can have something in hand, as well as understand the scope and breadth of the entire demolition effort.

I hope you find this useful.

Best regards,

Matt McBride

[Syndicated from the email -Loki] 

From: Meg Lousteau

Sent: Tue 12/11/2007 8:24 PM

To: Edward J. Horan

Subject: demolition question

 

Hi Ed - I want to apologize again for unwittingly involving you in today’s mess.  I have never and would never question your integrity or
work ethic, or deliberately put you in a bad situation.  I
hope you understand that my concern, and the concern of many others, is
based on the confusing and varied demolition procedures, and the
difficulty we’ve had in getting information from the department.  From now on, I will contact you first with any questions I have regarding demolitions.

 

On that note, I do have a question that I hope you can help answer.  Below
is the municipal code that states that buildings in National Register
districts that have damage assessments at or above 70% are supposed to
be reviewed by HDLC.  To my knowledge (which is, admittedly, incomplete), no such buildings have gone before HDLC.  Am I misreading the ordinance, or has another
ordinance superseded it?  Or maybe it’s in conflict with another law? 

 

Thanks in advance for your help.

 

-Meg

 

Sec. 26-10. Demolitions within national register district.

 

Any
structure that is located within a national register district and which
has been determined by the department of safety and permits to be
substantially damaged by Hurricanes Katrina or Rita, and where the
damage is defined as 70 percent or more of the replacement value prior
to the hurricane damage as determined by inspection by the department
of safety and permits, and which structure is constructed below base
flood elevation according to the flood elevation maps issued by the Federal Emergency Management Agency
and in effect as of August 29, 2005, must be reviewed by the staff of
the historic district landmarks commission prior to issuance of a
permit for demolition.

 

(M.C.S., Ord. No. 22226, § 1, 5-3-06 )

On Dec 13, 2007 8:22 AM , Edward J. Horan < ejhoran@cityofno.com> wrote:

 

Meg,

 

Yesterday
was the first time I have ever read Section 26-10 of the City Code. I
have read, re-read, quoted, cut and pasted, and mentally tattooed onto
my brain Section 26-6 of the City Code . I was certain that 26-6 (which
contradicts 26-10) was the Section governing the Housing Conservation
District. I have already alerted both Mr Centineo and Mr Perkins of my
ignorance of 26-10 and can assure you and them that all future
demolition applications will follow the procedure outlined therein.

This morning I will inform the permit analysts of the misunderstanding and of new process as required by law.

 

Edward Horan

Zoning Administrator

City of New Orleans

Department of Safety and Permits

From: Meg Lousteau

Sent: Thursday, December 13, 2007 11:41 AM

To: Edward J. Horan

Cc: Mike Centineo; Elliot Perkins

Subject: Re: demolition question

 

Hi Ed - thank you so much!  I can’t wait to forward this information to my fellow concerned citizens.  It’s a huge relief to know that so many demolitions will now get some kind of review.  We deeply appreciate your help with this.

 

We
noticed that at least one property seems to have slipped through the
cracks - the building at 1231 S. Rampart Street , which is in the Central City National Register
District, was issued a demolition permit yesterday.  I could be wrong, but shouldn’t this be going to HDLC?

 

[screenshot of permit application for 1231 S. Rampart St. from velocityhall.com]

 

That brings up another, very important question:  what steps will Safety and Permits take to rescind the erroneously issued permits that should have been reviewed by HDLC?  I think that all eleven I mentioned on Tuesday would now need to be reviewed, as
well as many more.  I can try to get a list of them, if that would help.

 

Many thanks,

Meg

From: Edward J. Horan

Date: Dec 14, 2007 12:39 PM

Subject: RE: demolition question

To: Meg Lousteau

Cc: Mike Centineo, Elliot Perkins

 

The
permit for 1231 S Rampart has not yet been issued, as you can see in
the information below the status is n/a and the fees have not been paid.

 

We will not retroactively apply this Section.  All future applications will be evaluated with Section 26.10.

 

Edward Horan

Zoning Administrator

Dept. of Safety & Permits

Cityof New Orleans

1300 Perdido St. Rm 7E05

New Orleans , LA 70112

Powered by ScribeFire.

I spent a significant chunk of my day today sitting it work down in the Bywater listening to the pounding of torrential rain on the window behind me. It was about 11:30am that a text message alerted me to the fact that strange things were afoot at City Hall. Moments later I was making the prior post.

Now I have had some time to dig through a variety of footage and punditry, windbags of the internet and the cathode tube alike. As usual I found jackal like barking on both sides of the argument. Sound and fury and extremism with little evidence of reason. In short a true bipartisan effort.

I would be a liar if I claimed to understand all of the intricacies of the situation, and a fool if I honestly thought I had the solution. What I do know is that I am weary with the vitriol that New Orleans has produced so copiously since that fateful August of ‘05.

As usual the few voices I found making sense were in the local blogosphere. If you want intelligent analysis I highly advise going to the source posts these excerpts are taken from and read them in their entirety. Lets start with Schroeder over at People Get Ready:

I hope to have time to say more about what is shaping up to be one of the worst defeats in the history of New Orleans for racial harmony — the public housing controversy. For now, I’ll just say that I think that the most egregious offenders against the interests of public housing residents have been the uninformed lefty white poseur anarchist intellectuals who swooped into the city to save it from the uninformed right-wing white reactionary bourgeoisie.

True — there are a number of locals in the mix as well — white and black — who have called for action, and action is necessary to force people to the table in search of compromise, instead of yelling at each other. I guess I’ve just decided that I won’t make a fool of myself by standing again with braggard activists who wouldn’t themselves choose to live in the public housing projects, and who aren’t so much struggling for better lives for public housing residents as they’re trying to champion their own egoistic hero complexes, and to confirm their distorted world views inspired by some manifesto they read somewhere.

On the other hand, I’m equally repulsed by the rhetoric issuing forth from conservative ideologues, mainly heard sqawking their boot-strap doctrine on Clear Channel Fox-affiliate 99.5 FM and the redundant Entercom stations 870 AM/105.3 FM/1350 AM.

He goes on to make a statement that I believe everyone reading should take to heart and work towards:

Once again, the presidential candidates who emerge to represent their respective parties need to commit to an additional debate in New Orleans, to debate the future of New Orleans as the most important venue where the future crises of the rest of the nation are being staged today.

So that is a small fragment of a passionately brilliant post from our favorite Peanuts Character. Now on to my favorite bivalve, Oyster from Your Right Hand Thief (a former HumidCity contributor), as he waxes eloquent on the photo from todays Times-Pic which shows Sharon Jasper, who wishes to return to her public housing. “I might be poor but I don’t like to live poor. I thank God for a place to live but it’s pitiful what people give you.” This is the quote that appears under a picture of her sitting next to a HUGE widescreen TV that most of the people I know could not afford. Instead of quoting him I’ll just send you over to read the post (its short) and see the picture. Draw your own conclusions. I’ll wait here for you.

Back now? Good.

Let’s check in on Varg over at The Chicory, shall we? The pertinent post (go read it all, you know you want to) starts off kicking:

But one theme is emerging above all others:

Don’t depend on the government for housing. As we learned in August of 2005, don’t depend on the government for ANYthing. It’s a losing proposition. Nagin said there was no win-win situation. The Chicory says for the residents, it’s a lose-lose situation.

We have all seen it. We have all done the paperwork, endless reams of paperwork. The powers that be have been worse than useless, they have been self serving at the expense of the people they are supposed to lead. They are, as Frank Zappa so eloquently put it, jumped up used care salesmen in bad suits whose paychecks are drawn from our taxes. They work FOR us and need to be reminded of it.

He goes on to sum things up beautifully:

I saw another photo that claimed housing as being a basic human right. This further drove me away from the protesters. It’s a responsibility isn’t it? I understand the situation many people find themselves in. I understand the various circumstances that can lead to someone finding themselves homeless. What I can’t understand is the point one reaches when they feel as though the government has a responsibility to provide them housing when they don’t accept that responsibility themselves. The government is an uncaring, globular institution which can be swayed in many different directions and will often leave its dependents without roofs over their heads. People of all classes should be strongly encouraged to become independent of it.

So leave a comment, even if you are a confirmed lurker leave a comment. Give me some more viewpoints. It is a complex issue and one that we all need to get a grip on ASAP.

Loki
HumidCity Founder

EDIT/UPDATE: There is a very worthwhile discussion of this going on in the New Orleans LiveJournal Community Here END UPDATE 

As we go back and forth over the issue of public housing in New Orleans we get the joy of scenes like the one currently being enacted downtown. It seems that things have tipped in the direction of violence between protesters and police down at the City Council.

Why is it that we, as a species, cannot seem to escape the urge to be just plain shitty?

A Little Xmas Pepperspray to go with the SWAT teams deployed to City Hall

Joy.

Joy to the [CENSORED] world.

-Loki

A message from Jeanne Nathan. To respond, email jnyno@aol.com
Dear New Orleans Citizen,

The debate over demolition of public housing buildings in New Orleans has been cast in either/or rhetoric that has undermined any serious consideration of what is the best way to improve communities that were once home for 4500 mostly working families, many of whom are still scattered far from home.

Using the fear of urban crime and drugs as the banner for destroying over 700 sturdy, well built and well designed bricks and mortar buildings, HUD officials have failed to provide the facts, plans or contracts on which New Orleanians can judge the sincerity or appropriateness of their plans for building mixed income housing in their place.

Violent crime in the city has risen since Katrina, despite the fact that most public housing is vacant, and closed off to former tenants, who were, by the way, leaseholders whose possessions still lie frozen in time in their former homes. Violent crime, most of it perpetrated by teen age males against teen age males is rising nation wide. It is a by product of a drug industry that has replaced disappearing entry level manufacturing, port and service jobs. The abandoned urban public school systems have also failed to educate our youth for the increasing high tech and knowledge based economies.

HUD has spread lies about what tenants do and don’t want; how many new affordable apartments it “plans” to create; about how many affordable apartments are available in the city. Former tenants warn that past promises for new development turned out to be a mirage; that new mixed income communities never deliver the promises of affordable apartments. Vast acreage owned by HUD and ready for new developments lies vacant, waiting for new housing units HUD promised long ago.

Our public officials, long silent on these plans, now seem ready to accept HUD’s lies and public policy on face value without further exploration. Our news media has done little better so far, quoting HUD’s numbers, inaccurate depiction of housing, much of it virtually untouched by the storm, as “flood ravaged and obsolete,” and failing to go beyond the street protests to look at the valid arguments against wholesale immediate demolition of 4500 units of housing.

In today’s New York Times Adam Nossiter quotes a former New Orleanian living in southwest Louisiana as saying she opens her windows to listen to the cows for company at night, missing her city, but finding no neighborhood where she once lived.

Anyone who believes HUD’s claims that tenants do not want to return has turned their back on reality and their fellow citizens.

No one can know all the true facts about the need, alternatives and plans for public housing right now. There has simply not been enough examination of the alternatives. Many of us participated in the three phases of planning after the storm, and learned what participation in planning means. HUD regulations require similar planning involvement by its tenants. Yet, in fact, HUD signed preliminary contracts with developers that required wholesale demolition without such participation, setting up a sham series of noon time West Bank meetings only after the contracts were inked.

In the face of this confusion, many professionals familiar with housing, planning, preservation and social issues are calling for a time out. Rather than vote for demolition, they call on the City Council to vote for a moratorium to allow more careful review of the best ways to perhaps demolish some of the buildings in worst disrepair, others that would open streets through the once isolated developments, renovate units as Historic Restoration Inc. did in five older public housing buildings in the St. Thomas projects that became the River Garden complex, and add features that would attract a wide range of tenants, while offering a real one-for-one opportunity for working families to return to these new developments.

Lets take a few months to dig beneath the surface, get the facts straight, and create a more informed mandate for HUD to follow in creating new housing for former and new tenants.

The citizens of New Orleans, whether tenants, neighbors, or residents anywhere in our city, deserve informed decision making and plans. We talked about a new New Orleans in those desperate days after the storm. Lets not abandon that dream so fast.

We are seeking individuals and organizations to communicate with City Council members on these issues no later than tomorrow, before the Council meeting this Thursday. Please use the email addresses below to contact the council members.

Arnie Fielkow - Council Member-At-Large
AFielkow@cityofno.com

Jacquelyn Brechtel Clarkson –Councilmember-At-Large
jbclarkson@cityofno.com

Shelley Midura - District A
SMidura@cityofno.com

Stacy S. Head - District B
SHead@cityofno.com

James Carter - District C
JCarter@cityofno.com

Cynthia Hedge-Morrell - District D
CHMorrell@cityofno.com

Cynthia Willard-Lewis - District E
CWLewis@cityofno.com