|
October 5, 2006 – The Times-Picayune
Officials float plans for Lafitte
By Gwen Filosa
Developers unveiled ambitious plans this week for a revamping of the Treme and the Tulane/Gravier neighborhoods that include the Lafitte public housing complex, with promises to build at least 1,500 homes to replace subsidized units lost to Hurricane Katrina.
Lafitte, a cluster of brick apartment buildings completed in 1941, is destined for demolition, but developers who recently leased the shuttered complex from the Housing Authority of New Orleans say their plans will not reduce the number of subsidized homes.
Providence Community Housing and Enterprise, two developers that combine nonprofit and for-profit assets, welcomed almost 300 residents Tuesday night to kick around ideas and view the proposed building plans. It was the start of a weeklong public-relations blitz, with developers repeating they are determined to help the city recover.
"We are not HUD. We have nothing to do with HUD," said the Rev. Michael Jacques, a Providence board member, during a public meeting Tuesday at St. Peter Claver's cafeteria in Treme. "We're not here tonight to just build houses. We're here to build a community. This was a great community of peace. This is a community with lots of history, a place of music, culture, dance, second-lines, schools and institutions."
In June, the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development, which essentially governs the historically troubled housing authority, announced it would tear down Lafitte and three other traditional brick complexes to make way for a mixture of housing styles and prices.
The redevelopment of Lafitte and the surrounding footprint is the first nearly solidified plan to arise from HUD's decision to rip down the aging complexes to make way for modern homes that do not concentrate poverty into insular, stigmatized neighborhoods.
Providence and Enterprise say they have a capital commitment of as much as $20 million in loans to buy sites in the community. Catholic Charities, a partner in the plan, has promised an additional $2.5 million for "case management" and counseling for families who lived in Lafitte.
The bulk of the funding appears to be coming from low-income housing tax credits, of which Louisiana has a small fortune from Congress to allot.
HANO has said the costs of repairing the flooded complexes, including Lafitte, outweighs reality. In its Homebuilding Plan newsletter, the developers included a photograph of a flooded Lafitte driveway, depicting water covering two cars.
The mood at Tuesday's meeting was friendly, as people sat around tables to brainstorm and fill out questionnaires.
"It's time to go," legendary chef and neighborhood resident Leah Chase said of Lafitte. "People like new things. Everybody wants a nice house."
Chase, whose 65-year-old restaurant on Orleans Avenue, Dooky Chase, is under reconstruction from flood damage, is living in a trailer as she rebuilds her own shotgun home. The Lafitte residents were her "bread and butter" customers hungry for her home-cooked takeout, Chase said. But the buildings have served their purpose and had their time, she said.
"We have to do better things," she said of public housing. "I never get sentimental about a building. I'm not about a building, I'm about people."
Providence's plans include modular housing units, three of which have gone up in the 1800 block of Dumaine Street, and repairing elderly housing at St. Martin Manor and St. Ann's. The developer team says it will concentrate on rebuilding 200 properties in the short term.
The overall redevelopment of Lafitte, Treme and Tulane/Gravier could take three to five years to complete.
The loss of Lafitte, home to nearly 900 people before Katrina, is contributing to the citywide housing crisis as rents have skyrocketed while the housing stock for the working poor has nearly disappeared.
Before Katrina, HANO had 5,100 occupied apartments. The number is nearly 1,100 today, but it is growing, HANO said. Those living in public housing pay 30 percent of their income. The average rent paid in New Orleans public housing is $85 a month, according to HANO.
HANO said Wednesday that residents have started returning to a section of the B.W. Cooper complex off Earhart Boulevard. More than 300 apartments will eventually be re-occupied there.
"As HANO cleans each unit and it passes safety inspections, residents are informed that they are able to move in," said spokesman Adonis Expose.
But HANO has canceled plans to reopen homes at the C.J. Peete complex in Central City, Expose said, in spite of HANO's statement months earlier to return residents there. Post-Katrina vandalism is to blame, Expose said.
Peete, the former Magnolia project that is on the National Register of Historic Places, has been vacant since Katrina hit. Since then, the complex has been riddled by thieves and looters who have stripped copper and other building materials from the brick buildings that were never fenced off by HANO.
HUD plans to demolish St. Bernard, Peete and Cooper eventually to make way for redevelopment.
|
