City Limits Magazine: 1095 Days After Hurricane Katrina

8/9/2019 City Limits Magazine: 1095 Days After Hurricane Katrina

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1095 DAYSAFTER HURRICANE KATRINA,NEW ORLEANS IS COMING BACK.BUT WHAT KIND OF CITY WILL

EMERGE FROM THE RUBBLE?By Mike Longman and Jarrett Murphy

SPECIAL EDITION AUGUST 29, 2008


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A stopped clock inside a ravaged Lower Ninth Ward high school. Cover image: Steps to a vanished house.Photos: Jarrett Murphy


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PUBLISHERS NOTEThis special edition ofCity Limits Investigates is a departure for us as our focus shifts fromNew York to another great American city: New Orleans. As chroniclers of critical urban is-sues, we felt the third anniversary of Katrina could not pass without our taking a close lookat the current state of affairs in the Crescent City.

New Yorks horrific experience of 9/11, the 1906 San Francisco earthquake or the greatChicago fire of 1871 notwithstanding, Katrina is the greatest urban disaster this county

has ever experienced. The hurricane and its flooding left more than 1,800 dead, causedmore than $80 billion in damages and forced more than one million people from the centralGulf coast to migrate. Katrina precipitated the largest Diaspora in the histor y of the UnitedStates. It also was the occasion of arguably the worst emergency response to a major disas-ter in U.S. history. The images of those left behind at the Convention Center or the faces ofthe desperate stranded on rooftops in the Lower Ninth Ward remain etched by anger andshame into the consciousness of the nation.

Now three years later, after much of the attention and initial outpouring of concern hasbegun to fade and the last of the $105 billion in federal assistance to the Gulf Coast is inthe pipeline, New Orleans faces new challenges. Rebuilding the city successfully requiresanswers to a set of complex questions: How to reconcile big plans and individual initiative,how to harness private action and responsibly guide public investment, and how to balancethe fragile state of many neighborhoods and grassroots striving with efficiency, businessgrowth and infrastructure needs.

As meaningful large-scale planning efforts have only just now worked their way throughthe thickets of politics and process, the face of progress up until to this point has been thededicated efforts of individuals. Since 2005, 80 percent of the building permits in New Or-leans have been filed by owners of one- or two-family residences. Mike Longman and JarrettMurphy take a look in this issue at how these effor ts are shaping New Orleans and how theefforts of the city, state and feds collide to empower or frustrate such individual and com-munity based initiatives.

Besides dealing with the transformative hand of nature and the consequences of fed-eral malfeasance, the city struggles now as before with a crippling crime rate and troubledschools. New Orleans lies in a flood plain. It also remains the cradle of indispensible piecesof our culture and national identity. Thousands call it home. Thousands have left and wedont know if they will ever come back.

This issue tries to get at just what kind of city is being made. Whose interests are protected

and whose neglected? What forces will determine the character of the new New Orleans?New Orleans is a city filled with questionsquestions we all have a stake in answering.

Andy Breslau,Publisher

SHIFTING

WINDSNew Orleans,Three Years LaterCHAPTERS

I. The forecast p.5

II. Best-laid plans p.6

III. Radical surgery p.9

IV. After math p.12

V. HOPE and fear p

VI. Safety first? VII. Guess whos coming p.2

VIII. Salvage operation p

IN FOCUS

Katrina on the Stump p.8The nominees on New Orleans

Ready or Not p.15In NYC, waters and risks rise

Firm Plans? p.19A vote on post-storm visions

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CITY LIMITS STAFF

Jarrett MurphyInvestigations Editor

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Abraham PaulosNews Assistant/Reporter

CITY FUTURES STAFF

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WWW.CITYLIMITS.ORG

SPECIAL EDITION

AUGUST 29, 2008


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Like blank slates, slabs from destroyed houses dot the landscape

in hard-hit New Orleans neighborhoods.Photo: JM

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I. THE FORECAST

AS LATE AS LUNCHTIME on the last Friday in August of 2005,

the National Hurricane Center predicted that Hurricane

Katrina could make its second landfall anywhere from

Tampa, Florida to Galveston, Texasa swath of the Gulf

Coast spanning five states and 500 miles. At that hour, the

storm (which had already roared through the Miami area)

was deemed more likely to hit the area around Pensacola,

on the Florida panhandle, than New Orleans. Over that

afternoon, as Katrina strengthened, it tracked further west

than expected, then swung north. The forecast changed.

What happened in the days that followed was

emblazoned on collective memory: A great city under

water, desperate people screaming from rooftops

and attics, families wading through chest deep water

or sweltering in the Superdome, a dead woman left in

her wheelchair. The outcry over the television images

beamed from New Orleans forced the White House to gobeyond its initial flyover approach and send President

Bush to a generator-lit Jackson Square to pledge:

Throughout the area hit by the hurricane, we will do

what it takes, we will stay as long as it takes, to help

citizens rebuild their communities and their lives. And

all who question the future of the Crescent City need to

know there is no way to imagine America without New

Orleans, and this great city will rise again.

A smaller New Orleans faces the future

BY MIKE LONGMAN AND JARRETT MURPHY

with research by Kalyn BelshaSHIFTINGWINDS

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CITY LIMITS INVESTIGATES

6 SPRING 2008

Three years later, New Orleans out-look is as uncertain as was Katrinas paththat Friday before the storm struck.

There is real progress: Houses are be-ing rebuilt, even in hard-hit areas. Most

schools are up and running. Improvedflood protections are going into place.

The last streetcar line to be repaired re-sumed service this spring. Blues, jazz,zydeco and funk still mingle in the airout on Frenchman Street. OverstuffedPo Boys and blazing-red crawfish arestill on the menu.

But for all that seems back to nor-mal, at least 150,000 New Orleaniansdisplaced by the storm have not re-turned to their city. They are believed

to be overwhelminglyalthough notexclusivelyblack and poor. And withpopulation re-growth slowing in thepast year, there is a growing feelingthat those who are coming back to NewOrleans have already arrived.

Thousands of people who have re-turned are still waiting for rebuildinggrants. Levees and flood barriers arestill under construction. Its unclear ifa new crackdown on blight and a loom-

ing deadline to vacate temporary trail-ers are going to get the city moving, ormerely hurt people trying to regain afoothold. Many streets are barely pass-able, the sewer system is in worse shape

now than when it was leaking raw sew-age before Katrina and in a matter ofmonths the city is going to take respon-sibility for thousands of properties thatfleeing homeowners sold to the state.

These obstacles are just the latestthat New Orleans has faced. For manyof the first, critical months of its re-covery, the city had no blueprint forrebuilding. Into the vacuum steppedindividuals and grassroots groups whodecided to rebuild their own parts of

the Crescent City. Homeowners bor-rowed money or applied life savingsto pay for repairs. Volunteers guttedold houses and constructed new ones.

These uncoordinated, autonomousacts of survival are the face of redevel-opment in New Orleans to date. Of the30,000 building permit applications re-corded in New Orleans since the stormstruck, 80 percent were filed by ownersof one- or two-family residences.

But now the city does have a plan, andit could either empower or enervate theindividual efforts that have kept thecity alive. Several rounds of sometimescompeting and conflicting discussionsof how to rebuild ended last summer

with the adoption of the Unified NewOrleans Plan, an effort funded by theRockefeller Foundation. Now people inNew Orleans neighborhoods wonderhow much of their input to that plan willget actionand how much action of anykind there will be, since the plan is un-derfunded by anywhere from hundredsof millions to several billion dollars.

New Orleans is coming back. Butno one knows what kind of city will ar-rive when the comeback is complete

whether it will be a place with room forthose who rebuilt with their own handsand those on the outside who still wantto return.

II. Best-laid plains

When the floodwaters reached theipeak, 80 percent of New Orleans wasunder watersome under two feet, butparts under 10. Its hard for peopleto understand how pervasive Katrina

was, says Chris Bonura, a resident of

the Mid-City neighborhood. Its as ifsomebody pushed the reset button onour whole civilization.

Destruction is still visible in muchof the city today. The storm is every-

where, says transplanted New YorkerEve Abrams. The areas that tourists fre-quent, like the French Quarter, neverflooded because they sit on a naturalrise of ground and look about as theydid before the calamity. In the part ofthe Lower Ninth Ward, however, where

water burst from the levee with enoughforce to toss houses on top of houses,many blocks have nothing but slabs leftfrom demolished homes. In the nearbySt. Claude neighborhood, houses arestanding but several still bear markingsfrom the teams that searched for corps-es after the storma spray-painted Xseparating the date of survey, the agen-cy that searched and the number ofbodies found. Even in middle-class ar-

The president speaks from an empty Jackson Square in September 2005.Photo: White House


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eas of the city like the Carrollton neigh-borhood on the citys western flank, astreet of healthy-looking houses mightinclude a vacant lot or a severely dam-aged residence.

New Orleans neighborhoods have al-ways had a patchwork feel. Before Ka-trina, one could walk through a block ofgorgeous Garden District homes, crossa street, and find oneself among struc-

tures resembling shacks more thanhouses. The very rich and the verypoor lived across the street from eachother; the postcard shot was always aquick camera-pan from an illustrationof urban decay. That pre-existing mixmakes it hard to discern why a par-ticular house looks wounded. Was italways like that, or is that because ofthe storm? is something Abrams oftenasks herself when she sees damaged

homes. In some cases, the storm madeexisting problems worse. Thanks to Ka-trina, local analyst Peter Reichard tellsCity Limits, All this rotten infrastruc-ture was marinating for weeks undersalty water.

The pre-storm decay was on theminds of people who, as the watersdropped, began thinking about the citysfuture. For all its singular charms, New

Orleans was a city plagued by poverty,crime and failing schools. The cityspoverty rate was roughly 23 percent in2004, higher than New York Citys 20percent. In 2004, a New Orleans resi-dent was eight times more likely to bemurdered than a person in New York.

And among U.S. states on fourth grademath and reading scores in 2005, Louisi-ana ranked 47th and 48th, respectively;that year, New Orleans students posted

the third-worst performance in thestate. Civic leaders said they wantedthe post-storm plan to address thesepre-Katrina problems. The slogan wasthat New Orleans should come backfrom Katrina, but come back better.

Since then, New Orleans has certainlynot wanted for plans. The Federal Emer-gency Management Agency (FEMA)drew up a plan for the whole city. Har-

vard students crafted one for the Broad-moor neighborhood. The Associationof Communities Organizing for ReformNow (ACORN) made a plan for the Low-er Ninth. New Orleans East had alreadydrafted a Renaissance Plan before thestorm. Other neighborhoods also forgedtheir own visions of post-Katrina rebuild-ing. These efforts have taken a backseat, however, to three successive wavesof citywide planning.


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While much of the city suffered, the devastation in the Lower Ninth was most dramatic because the water moved through at high velocity. Photo: JM


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KATRINA ONTHE STUMPThe nominees onNew OrleansWhen Sen. John McCain visited the LowerNinth Ward in April, he made a promise.Never again, never again will a disaster ofthis nature be handled in the terrible anddisgraceful way this was handled, he said.At a New Orleans rally in February, Sen.Barack Obama had almost the same cri-tique of what happened in 2005, describinga trust that was brokenthe promise thatour government will be prepared, will pro-tect us, and will respond in a catastrophe.

In September 2005, both McCain andObama voted for a bill providing emer-gency assistance to the Gulf Coast. Laterthat month McCain opposed extendingunemployment insurance for people af-fected by the storm; Obama backed it.Obama also voted for and McCain againsta commission to investigate the govern-ment response to the storm.

Since then, most funding for Gulf Coastrecovery has been attached to bills provid-ing supplemental appropriations for thewar in Iraq. On the first such bill in late

2005, McCain called $29 billion in hurri-cane recovery money non-germane tothe Iraq mission. He did not vote on finalpassage. Obama voted yes.

In a speech in April, McCain applaudedstate-led efforts to improve workforce de-velopment in New Orleans and called onbusinesses to invest in areas like the Low-er Ninth. He said hed ask corporations tohelp with the response to future emergen-cies. And he decried post-storm spending.In the conduct of Congress in the yearafter Katrina and Rita, we saw the sameexcesses, lack of focus, and short-term

thinking that left New Orleans vulnerablein the first place, he said.

Obamas position paper on New Or-leans sets an ultimate goal of protectingthe entire city from a Category 5 storm. Italso calls for incentives to lure doctors toto the city, more rental housing and havingthe federal rebuilding coordinator reportdirectly to the president so that rebuild-ing remains a national priority. JM


8 SPRING 2008

City government launched its firstplanning process with the Bring NewOrleans Back commission, whichMayor C. Ray Nagin appointed inSeptember 2005. In January 2006, thecommission issued a battery of reportscovering everything from land use toinfrastructure, culture and economicdevelopment. The plan called for a fast-track neighborhood planning processto be completed by May 2006. It alsorecommended a moratorium on build-ing permits in heavily flooded areas andcalled for the consolidation of lightlypopulated sections. The plan said thatneighborhoods would have to provetheir viability as loci of redevelopmentbefore the city would invest in them.

Planners now look back on theBNOB with some admiration for its am-bition and its attempt to reduce the pop-ulations exposure to floods and createdenser neighborhoods to which a cash-strapped city could actually provide ser-

vices. But when the Bring New OrleansBack plan emerged, only 150,000 peo-ple were back in towna third of thepre-storm population. The plan seemedlike a prelude to writing some areas ofthe city off before people had a chanceto return and fight for them.

The backlash was intense. Nagin,who faced re-election later in the year,immediately pulled back, disavowedthe moratorium on building permitsand added red-ink addenda to the plan,including a promise that, The areas

where people are investing and rebuild-ing now are where the city will investin immediate neighborhood redevelop-ment. That is not to say that all areas

wont be rebuilt.With the mayors plan stalling, the

New Orleans City Council in April 2006launched a rival planning process. This was controversial from the start: TheBureau of Governmental Research, alocal watchdog group, said the Coun-cil violated city rules by awarding $2.9million to the planners without takingbids. But unlike the mayors plan, thecouncil effort had a substantial out-reach component, involving dozensof community meetings. The effort,

which became known as the LambertPlan, produced 42 separate strategiesfor the citys neighborhoods.

But by the time the Lambert Planhad been completed in October 2006, athird and separate planning process wasunderwaythe Unified New OrleansPlan, run by the Greater New OrleansFoundation and anchored by a $3.5 mil-lion grant from the Rockefeller Foun-dation. Support for UNOP grew out ofa sense that neither Nagins nor theCouncils plan would contain the levelof detail needed to convince the Louisi-ana Recovery Authority to release mil-lions in federal recovery funds.

From July until the following Janu-ary, the UNOP process unfolded in doz-

ens of community meetings and designsessions. Residents got to model whattheir area could look like. Different re-covery scenarios were discussed. TheNagin administration, however, wascool to the UNOP idea. One of the plan-ners who worked on UNOP was Laurie

Johnson, a disaster planner whod done work in Los Angeles and Kobe, Japanafter devastating earthquakes, as wellas Grand Forks, Iowa after their 1997floods. The tepid support from CityHall complicated the UNOP effort. It

was hard to know who your client wasin that atmosphere, says Johnson.

In early 2007, UNOP presented itsreporta nearly 600-page epic that de-scribed the assets, damage and wish-listof every planning district, as well as acitywide infrastructure plan. There wasan emphasis on sustainable developmentand a greener city: bike paths, green ma-terials, mass transit. The Lower Ninth

Ward plan, for example, called for betterflood protections, wetlands restoration,

an improved community center, busi-ness incubation, parks rehabilitation,rental assistance, better mass transit,and senior housing, among other items.

On the crucial question of whether torebuild in severely damaged neighbor-hoods, UNOP charted a path betweenthe mayors plan, which suggestedsome areas might never return, and thecouncil plan, which simply assumed thatevery area would. One of the things


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SPRING 2008 9

[UNOP] started to say was that allneighborhoods were coming backaportion of the Lower Ninth would comeback, it just might not all come back,says Johnson. For flood-prone areas,the UNOP district plans backed a volun-tary land-swap to concentrate smallerpopulations in safer zones. People withproperty close to the floodwall wouldexchange their land for a vacated parcelon higher ground and closer to otherreturning residents.

The UNOP effort, which the Bush-

Clinton Katrina Fund joined Rockefellerin funding, triggered some resentmenton the groundreflecting a suspicionthat outsiders wanted to use New Or-leans as a laboratory. Most of thenonprofits and organizations that havecome to New Orleans have come withtheir own agendas, instead of askingthe people what they want, says WardMcClendon, head of a grassroots re-building organization called the LowerNinth Ward Village. But as a planning

document, UNOP was crucial to con-vincing state officials to release federalfunds to New Orleans. The state andfederal government said were not go-ing to give you money until youve gota plan in place, says Al Petrie, a com-munity leader in the Lakeview section,Thank goodness for Rockefeller.

The City Council passed the UNOPand the Louisiana Recovery Authorityaccepted it last June, paving the way for

the release of $117 million in federalCommunity Development Block Grantfundsand opening a new debate over

whether the months of communityplanning will actually shape how NewOrleans rebuilds.

III. Radical surgery

In one neighborhood in the heart of town,that debate is playing out in sharp relief.

If you have ever taken the cab ridefrom Louis Armstrong International

Airport into New Orleans, odds are youremember the city swinging into viewfrom the elevated expressway. If youhappened to glance to your left while

you topped that span you could spy theold Dixie Brewery and then blocks ofhouses, restaurants and corner grocerystores that make up the neighborhoodcalled Mid-City.

In the heart of Mid-City is a corner jointcalled Luizzas that still cooks up friedpotato Po Boys, a starchy concoction

of French fries on French bread that isserved dripping in beef gravy. Accordingto local lore, the small morsels of meat inthat gravy were a regular source of suste-nance for longshoreman and other bluecollar workers who settled into workingclass neighborhoods like Mid-City.

Most of the dock work was mecha-nized and those types of jobs weregone long before Katrina came swirlingthrough this part of town. Mid-City is

one of New Orleans quieter neighbor-hoods. Its racially diverse population isso laid back that in better times, it wasconsidered a prime spot for families totake their kids to Mardi Gras parades,

which elsewhere can range from intense to downright raunchy.

Now, the area is the target of stateand city leaders who want New Or-leans to have a new, better version ofBig Charity.

Louisiana has a method for providinghealthcare to the poor that differs from

most other states; rather than runninginsurance programs to cover uninsuredpeople, the state funds a system of publichospitals to which indigent people cango for care. The origins of this systemgo back to 1736, when the first CharityHospital opened in New Orleans onlysix weeks after New Yorks Bellevue,the oldest continuing public hospital inthe United States. That charity systemexpanded in the 1920s and 1930s underHuey Long, who founded Louisiana

State Universitys medical school to luredoctors for the states poor. After severalearlier structures were destroyed or out-grown, Charity Hospital in New Orleanstook its modern form in 1939 as a loom-ing art-deco structure on Tulane Avenuein downtown. Nicknamed Big Charity,it was an anchor of poor peoples health-care in the metropolitan area.

LSU runs the statewide charity hospi-tal network and for years argued that it

Mayor Nagin makes plans. Photo: City of New Orleans

WHEN THE BRING NEW ORLEANS BACKPLAN EMERGED, ONLY 150,000 PEOPLE

WERE BACK IN TOWNA THIRD OFTHE PRE-STORM POPULATION. THEPLAN SEEMED LIKE A PRELUDE TOWRITING SOME AREAS OF THE CITYOFF BEFORE PEOPLE HAD A CHANCETO RETURN AND FIGHT FOR THEM.


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10 SPRING 2008

needed a new hospital in New Orleans.Certainly the physical structure, thelayout, is just not the layout of a mod-ern hospital. The ward structures. Thespread-out nature, says Fred Cerise,chief of LSUs health care system, aboutBig Charity. Theres a fair amount ofinefficiency built in to the Charity cam-pus. The physical shortcomings led tofinancial problems and difficulty main-taining accreditation, Cerise says. Re-ports from the Joint Commission, thenational body that accredits hospitals,show that Charity received accredita-tion with conditions for improvementin 1996, 1999 and 2002.

In 2005 a consultant hired by LSUsuggested that 35 acres of Mid-City

would be the right place to locate a new-er, more modern hospital. Then cameKatrina. Staff kept Big Charity running

during the disaster, which flooded thebuilding, but shortly after the storm,LSU shut Big Charity down, saying thestorm had done irreparable damage.Cerise says the hospital system had lit-tle choice. The fact is that LSU did notclose Charity after Katrina, he says.Katrina closed Charity.

The closure of Charity and otherhospitals in town, including the U.S.Department of Veteran Affairs facilitydowntown, built momentum for a newfacilitya much larger one than con-ceived before the storm. In mid-2007,the LSU hospital proposal suddenlyswelled to cover 70 acres in order toaccommodate a new VA hospital nextdoor. The proposed side-by-side hospi-tals would cost $2 billion to build. Pro-ponents see that as a worthy investmentin New Orleans economic future. With

no corporate base since the oil industryfled in the 1980s, the city has been look-ing for an economic engine that couldpower the city the way the old wharvesdidsomething offering higher-wage

work than the tourist and entertainment industry on which the city nowdepends. The LSU/VA proposals back-ers say constructing, running and ser-

vicing the hospital will bring plenty ofnew jobs and, they hope, lure the biosci-ences industry to New Orleans. Beyondthe economic argument, theres a medi-cal one: A top-notch hospital will bolsterthe appeal of local medical schools andreduce or reverse Louisianas shortageof doctors. Says Louisiana Secretary ofHealth and Hospitals Alan Levine: Wedo need to have a destination teachinghospital in New Orleans.

But Mid-City is not a blank slate.

While some of the footprintof the proposed LSU/VA hospital is blighted, other parts are repaired and occupied.Photo: Bobbi Rogers


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SPRING 2008 11

While pocketed by blight and damagedby the post-Katrina flooding, a neigh-borhood exists now on the 25 blocksthat would be bulldozed for the hospital

complex of the future.

The proposed LSU/VA hospitalsfootprint contains a typically NewOrleans, eclectic mix of 150-odd struc-tures that are now in danger of demoli-tion. The area is not pristine. Only onein five residents owns their home and,on average, residents take home someof the smallest paychecks in the city. Ahandful of properties in the footprint arelisted in a city database as tax delinquentor blighted. Proponents of the new med-

ical facility point to those houses as anargument that favors the project.

But most of the footprint falls withinthe Mid-City National Historical Dis-trict. Theres the Dixie Brewery, a land-mark high school that dates back to the1870s and a German cultural centerknown as the Deutsches House. Somefederal historic preservation grantmoney was used to fix housing in thearea that could be demolished for thenew facility. This year Charity Hospitaland the adjacent neighborhood wereadded to the National Trust for HistoricPreservations List of Eleven Most En-dangered Places.

Walter Gallas, director of the National Trusts New Orleans field office won-ders why, in a city where many areas

were leveled by the flood and subse-quent demolitions, the new hospital hasto rise on a blocks where historic prop-erties stand. To him, the proposal begs a

critical question facing all New Orleans:How much of its past should the city sac-rifice in the name of progress?

Even supporters of the plan acknowl-edges that the proposal is far-reaching.

Theyre not talking about eliminat-ing a historic building here, says healthsecretary Levine. Theyre talking abouteliminating an entire historic district.

Theres bound to be hard feelings.Some of the areas value is of more

recent mintits the work of volunteerswho helped rebuild houses there. Wes-ley Bayas picked up a hammer, workingthe past year for The Phoenix of NewOrleans, a non-profit founded by a Tu-lane Medical student that gutted andthen rebuilt homes in Mid-City. Weve

already estimated that weve saved $1.3million dollars in labor costs, saysBayas. Thats not even talking aboutmaterials. Materials in the homesthat are getting rebuilt, youre talking[$15,000 to $25,000] worth of materials.So, I would say its close to $5 million or$6 million dollars thats [in danger of]getting thrown away.

A few million bucks is chump changecompared to a $2 billion hospital withthe potential to attract high-paying

jobs, and historic preservation might

seem like a distraction in a devastatedcity. But historic properties werenttertiary to New Orleans pre-Katrinaidentity; they were integral. And just asintegral to the recovery ef fort has beenthe kind of sweat equity that renovatedhouses in the proposed footprint. Forhomeowners acting in the absence of areconstruction plan, with relief moneyonly trickling in, a simple coat of primer

was more than the mere application ofpaintit was taking a stand. Bulldozing

over that effort would have more than afinancial cost.Complaints about the hospital plan,

however, arent just about the proposalitself. They also concern the entire plan-ning process. Officially, the site in Mid-City is only one of several options be-ing considered as part of a mandatoryfederal environmental review of the VAproject. The VA says it is considering analternative site in New Orleans as well

as in nearby Jefferson Parish. LSU saysits looking at other options from doingnothing to rebuilding on the currentCharity site. The review process is justgetting underway, with the FEMA orga-nizing public hearings about the plan.

But New Orleans government isclearly already preparing the Mid-Citysite for a new hospital complex. LastNovember, it inked a memorandum ofagreement with the VA in which thecity agreed to acquire and clear landfor the new facility, complete a site as-sessment, shift water and sewer lines,improve nearby roads, run new gasand power lines and move businesses,residents and even a sewer pumping fa-cilityall at no cost to the VA. The VA

is also granted exemptions from localzoning and building codes. In return,the city could obtain the site of the cur-rent VA hospital, but the VA decides

whether to let the city own or lease it. Ifthe city fails to accomplish its assignedtasks on time, it could pay fines to the

VA of as much as $10,000 a day.The City Council has yet to hold a

hearing on issuing the hospital proposal.Yet in December, the Council imposeda moratorium on building permits forproperties in the footprint. Its not en-

tirely clear why, because none of theCouncils seven members responded tointerview requests on the matter, but bypreventing any new improvements onthe land, the move limits the potentialcost to the city of expropriating propertyfor the project.

The city could face obstacles otherthan cost, however, in obtaining thatpropertyif current owners refuse tosell. After the U.S. Supreme Court in2005 backed the right of governments

to expropriate land and transfer it to aprivate entity, Louisiana voters approveda constitutional amendmentAmend-ment 5that restricts such transfers.Its unclear whether a public universitylike LSU or federal department like the

VA would be considered private entities,but the amendment could complicatethe hospital deal.

The one court test to date found thatAmendment 5 did not restrict the citys

Republican Gov. Jindal backs the hospital

plan.Photo: McCain 2008


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100

200

300

400

500

600

700

$800Cost of

Iraq War

to Date

($648)Cost of

Medicare

Prescription

Drug benefit

2004-2013($394)

Cost of '01

and '03

tax cuts

in 2008

($233)Post-

Hurricane

aid to

Louisiana

($76)

Post-9/11

aid to

NYC

($20)

AMOUNTS IN BILLIONS

Sources: Louisiana Recovery Authority, Congressional Budget Office,

NYC Independent Budget Office, Army Corps of Engineers


12 SPRING 2008

ability to grab and sell propertiesifthe properties were deemed blighted.

There are indeed some blighted parcelsin the footprint. Bayas argues that theCity Council, by banning any new workin the area, is exacerbating that blight.There are people who want to comeback home, but they cant because theyhave put on stop on any permits in thearea, he says. The moratorium, in oth-er words, could lay the groundwork forthe city to seize the land as blighted,

and avoid Amendment 5.Meanwhile, private investors are grab-

bing parcels in the area. Cesar Burgos,the chairman of the Regional Transit

Authority whose law firm has donated$12,500 since 2006 to Mayor Naginscampaign fund, in late 2006 purchaseda $2 million building on the site that hesays he wants to turn into condos fornurses who will work at the new hospi-tal. LSU itself bought up a chunk of prop-erty in the footprint last July. And PincusFriedman, a real estate investor who lo-cal media reports say is from New York,has purchased at least 28 parcels withinthe area from 2006 on.

The moves by city agencies andprivate investors in the absence ofany real public discussion about theplanmore than the hospital proposalitselfis what gets people angry. Youare having developers come in, bothprivate developers and public plans

that are coming in seizing privatehomes, small businesses in an histor-ic districtin fact, lopping off a goodthird of that public district, says MaryHowell, a civil rights attorney whoseoffice is near the footprint, and whodescribes the hospital plan as the firstgreat post-Katrina land grab.

Jack Stewart, a member of theDeutsches House, the German culturalcenter, echoes Howell. If it has to bedone, and we need the room for the ex-

pansionthats one thing. But to do it insuch a ridiculous, heavy-handed manneris another thing, he says. City leaders,he adds, are going, from saying, Heresthe plan, to saying, There is no plan, so

you dont know who there is who can betrusted. Adding to the confusion is re-cent word that the VA is considering anentirely different site in Mid-City.

IV. After mathWhile a hospital proposal was includedin UNOP discussions for Mid-City, thetalk concerned a campus of 35 acresnot the 70-acre plan currently on thetable. Now other neighborhoods are

wondering how much bricks-and-mor-tar reality will match the Unified NewOrleans Plan that they helped shape.

Much of that question will be an-swered by Dr. Edward Blakely, whomMayor Nagin appointed New Orleans

recovery czar in late 2006. Blakely worked on recovery planning foOakland and Los Angeles after earth-quakes in 1989 and 1991, respectively,as well as in post-September 11 New

York City. Blakely is a former dean ofthe Milano School at New School Uni-

versity in New York.In March of 2007before the City

Council or LRA approved UNOPBlakely articulated his vision for how thecity would rebuild. He picked 17 target

areas across New Orleans where thecity would invest its own money and pro-

vide incentives for the private sector tofollow suit. When one area starts to do

well, investors will want to invest near-by, Blakely said at the time. This willallow the city to redevelop wisely and

will help residents make smart choicesabout where to rebuild.

The target areas include Renewzones where modest public investmentcan bolster ongoing development, Re-develop neighborhoods that have theraw materials for recovery but need amore substantial nudge in the right di-rection, and two Rebuild sections thatneed intense helpthe Lower Ninth,

where the plan calls for a new firehouse, restoring blighted housing andassisting small businesses, and NewOrleans East, where Blakelys plans in-clude a renovated park and library as

well as streetscape improvements. The

FOLLOWING THE MONEYThe federal government has allocated a lot of money to

the Gulf Coast, but plans to rebuild New Orleans are still

underfinanced. Heres how the funding sent to Louisiana

compares to other recent big ticket items:

Iraqs price tag tops Katrinas.Photo: DOD


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SPRING 2008 13


REMAKING NEW ORLEANSPlans for new hospitals, less public housing

2008 Google Imagery 2008 Digital Globe, GeoEye

*

5

1. PROPOSED LSU/VA HOSPITAL

2. FRENCH QUARTER

3. LOWER NINTH WARD

4. NEW ORLEANS EAST

5. GENTILLY

6. LAKEVIEW

Public housing redevelopment

6

4

3

21

*

*

*

*

VA Facility

LSU Hospital

MAP KEY


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14 SPRING 2008

Charity Hospital operated from 1939 until shortly after Katrina, when LSU closed it down.

Photo: Infrogmation

Rebuild areas are slated to receive30 percent of the recovery money ear-marked so far.

Backers of Blakelys approach say

it strikes a balance between nuts andbolts recovery and more symbolic proj-ects that are intended to show the pri-

vate sector that the city is serious aboutrebuilding. The strategy also has itsdetractors. A few criticize the distribu-tion of recovery money so far, includ-ing Pearl Cantrelle, a civic leader whobelieves New Orleans Eastgiven thelevel of damage it receivedisnt get-ting its fair share. Others, like Bureauof Governmental Research president

Janet Howard, think that New Orleansought to spend its money on fixing thestreets rather than, say, a facade pro-gram for small businesses in one area.One of the things that has stunned mein this whole redevelopment effort isthe lack of apparent interest in puttinginfrastructure funds in rebuilding thebasic building blocks of the city, How-ard says. You can look at the populatedparts of the city and know that theres

crying infrastructure needs.In picking what to do, Blakely says

hes been guided by UNOP. The Loui-siana Recovery Agency is supposed to

review each project to see if it adheresto UNOP, but its unclear how rigorousthat vetting will be. Given the size andbreadth of the UNOP, itd be hard forBlakely to pick a project or area that

wasnt encompassed by UNOP. PlannerLaurie Johnson says Blakely has at leastadopted UNOPs recommendations onprocessfor example, hes formed aparish-wide recovery council. However,some specific recommendations of theunified plan, like UNOPs call for a vol-

untary relocation program within dis-tricts, are not on Blakeleys list. Hesdone as much as he can do, given thepolitical environment, Johnson says Ifit had been up to me there would havebeen more implementation in terms ofeducating of city officials. Its a com-plex, integrated thing. You dont justdo pieces of it. While Blakely mightabandon some of them, the UNOP in-dividual neighborhood plans could get

a second life as part of a new citywideMaster Plan that an outside contractoris now preparing for the city. (see FirmPlans?, p. 19)

The price-tag is a big barrier to do-ing more now. To date, Blakely has onlymapped how hell spend the first $117million of an expected $400 million inrecovery funds. Blakelys target areasplan alone will cost at least $1.1 billion.

And for city leaders to deliver UNOPstotal wish list? I think they need anoth-er $10 billion, says Johnson.

The proposed new LSU/VA complexitself wont be cheap. It will cost thestate around $100 million to run. Just tobuild it will require at least $1 billion of

state borrowing. Theres a long wayto go before we have this thing fullyfunded, says health secretary Levine.Even before testing the bond market

where investors might pass on such anambitious project in a storm-scarredcitythe plan has to earn the approvalof the states bond commission. Thechallenge there is were near our debtcapacity now, Levine says.

The hospital would be much more ex-pensive if post-Katrina federal moneyin the form of community development

block grant and FEMA fundswerentin the mix. I do think the people in theLSU system saw this as a once-in-foreveropportunity to be eligible for some fund-ing that just wouldnt have been thereand to start from scratch and build a newhospital facility, says Errol Laborde,publisher ofNew Orleans magazine. The

VAs interest just adds more impetus toget it done now. Bobby Jindal, the statesRepublican governor, backs the plan.Presumptive Democratic nominee Sen.

Barack Obamas campaign literaturealso supports a major medical complexin downtown New Orleans and a new,state-of-the-art Department of Veterans

Affairs hospital in New Orleans.But one major premise for the LSU/

VA planthat Big Charity cannot berevivedis not a settled issue. Theresan ongoing lawsuit by former patientsover LSUs decision to close Charity; italleges that LSU violated state law by


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SPRING 2008 15


closing the hospital without seeking legislative approval. Thelawsuit doesnt demand that Charity be reopened but asks forall the services it once provided to be of fered again. However,a separate inquiry may have put the Charity site itself back onthe table: At the request of the state legislature, the Founda-tion for Historical Louisiana hired engineering firm RMJMHillier to examine whether Big Charity could be used as ahospital again. Hillier reported in mid-August that there areno fundamental flaws that would impede the rehabilitation ofCharity Hospital into a state-of-the-art modern facility. Advo-cates say that the finding could block the new hospital. ButLSU insists Charity will not be reused.

LSU reports that its New Orleans healthcare system, con-sisting of an interim hospital and clinics, now offers 90 per-cent of pre-storm clinical services, but it still has only about63 percent as many beds as it did before Katrinaand whilethe citys population is significantly smaller now, the closureof other hospitals means the LSU system must pick up a lot

of slack. The proposed new hospital would go some way toclosing that gap between health care demand and supply.

There are doubts, however, about whether the new Charitywould serve the same people as Big Charity did.

Their whole idea for this new hospital is to attract sub-stantially more private-insured, private pay patients, says

Jacques Morial, an advocacy associate at the Louisiana Jus-tice Institute whose father and brother served as mayor ofthe city. Its an image problem. They just dont believe thatmiddle class patients, insured patients are going to go to any-thing that has a remote connection to Charity.

When the state hospitals department reviewed LSUs busi-ness plan for the new facility, it adjusted the numbers to as-

sume that the future hospital will treat fewer people lackinghealth insurance. Asked why, health secretary Levine says,I think a lot of it has to with the changing demographicsresulting from Katrina. A lot of people left. And a lot of thepeople who left are uninsured.

V. HOPE and fear

Backers of the LSU/VA plan dont see it as an end in itself.The new campus is supposed to be a spark for a larger bio-medical district encompassing a broader slice of downtownNew Orleans. But just as the LSU/VA plan has people in the

proposed footprint worried or at least wondering about the fu-ture of their homes, the concept of a larger New Orleans medi-cal district also raises questions about who might be leftorpushedout. In a 2007 strategy paper, supporters of such abioscience corridor identified as one of its success factorsthe transformation of the downtown Iberville area, site of an821-unit public housing project, into a mixed-use, mixed-in-come community.

That idea hasnt received much attention, but public hous-ing has been a major battlefield in post-Katrina New Orleansan important part of the social and political context in which

READY OR NOTIn NYC, waters and risks riseNew York Citys Office of Emergency Management says that in aCategory 3 or 4 hurricane, up to 2.3 million city residents wouldneed to evacuate and some 600,000 would require temporaryshelter. In other words, a population the size of Houston wouldneed to leave home and a subset as big as Boston would need aplace to stay.

Storms of that intensity have been unlikely in New York becausenearby ocean waters are relatively cool, but climate change could

increase the risks as waters warm and sea levels rise. By 2100, thecity might see todays 100-year storm every decade or two.Without cold water to protect it, New York City is very vulner-

able to a major storm. The city has 600 miles of coastline andlies at a point where the Atlantic Coast makes a nearly 90-degreebend that could amplify a storm surge. Major bridges are so highthat winds might force their closure, obstructing evacuation. Co-lumbia Universitys Center for Climate Systems Research reportsthat flooding during storms in 1960 and 1992 came within a footor two of causing massive inundation and even loss of life inthe subway system. The Army Corps of Engineers has said that if1985s Hurricane Gloria (which veered east) struck closer to thecity and at high tide, the impact would have been devastating.

The marketplace and government are starting to respond to the

risks. Insurers are writing fewer policies in the citys coastal areas.A 2002 proposal by scientists at Stony Brook University to createfour storm surge barriers at points around the citys coastline is ona list of potential adaptations being examined by the citys Cli-mate Change Task Force. Earlier this year, the Bloomberg Admin-istration selected 10 designs in its What If New York City ?contest to design temporary disaster housing. One entrant pro-posed housing elevated on scaffolding; another had units stackedon barges. First-round winners submitted further-developed plansto the city this summer. JM

One entry from a contest to design emergency housing for a hyp-

tothetical storm-struck New York City.Photo: nyc.gov


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16 SPRING 2008

the LSU/VA plan will unfold. Iberville isthe only large, traditional public housingdevelopment left in the city that standsas large as when it was built. Last De-cember, the City Council approved thedemolition of the four other large publichousing projects to make way for mixed-income developments.

Much about the state of public hous-ing in New Orleans is in dispute andhas been since Katrina, when residents

were barred from returning to many

of the projects. With rents soaringafter the storm and low-income NewOrleanians trying to get back to thecity, advocates wondered why moreunits werent opened for peoples re-turn. HUD says the physical state ofthe buildings made that impossible.We realized the urgent need for anyand all housing. However, after carefulenvironmental and economic review,

we decided it simply made no sense torestore these dilapidated buildings thatnow had even more serious problems,including mold, mildew and severestructural damage, wrote then-Hous-ing and Urban Development (HUD)Secretary Alphonso Jackson in an edi-torial last year.

There is no denying that many of theprojects took on some water. A personinvolved with one of the redevelopmentteams tells City Limits, Frankly, thepublic housing buildings were probably

more reparable than most of the hous-ing. The problem is more of a contract-ing problem, explaining that a floodedbuilding is unattractive to contractorsor insurers because it is difficult toguarantee that mold will not surface

years down the road and force an ex-pensive repair.

Housing advocates, however, disputethat verdict. Bill Quigley, a lawyer activein the fight against the demolitions, saysthe worries about mold are overstated.

That is totally untrue and absurd, hesays. If that was true, no house in NewOrleans would be rebuilt.

New Orleans has been looking at re- vamping its public housing since wellbefore Katrina; as early as 1988, thecity considered destroying half its pub-lic housing. In the years since, Iberville(located on valuable land just blocksfrom the French Quarter) was eyed as apotential Saints football stadium by onedeveloper and a mixed-income commu-nity by another. Then along came theHOPE VI program, launched by HUDin 1992 to replace traditional publichousing with mixed-income, develop-ments. By housing the poor and moreaffluent together, HOPE VI strives toalleviate the economic isolation of theprojects and improve their manage-ment by creating a more sustainablebalance betweens rents and costs.

But the Housing Authority of New

Orleans (HANO) redevelopment planisnt just about improving public hous-ing. Its also about shrinking it. Today,New Orleans public housing sheltersonly 1,800 families, compared to the5,100 families who lived in HANO hous-ing before the storm. Even before Ka-trina, HANO had shut more than 2,000units of public housing that were indisrepair. Some 5,000 units were stillin service. If the redevelopments go ac-cording to plan, only 3,340 public hous-

ing units will remain in the city, along with 1,770 new low-income rentals orSection 8 units (some of which might beoff-site), 900 new market-rate units and900 new homeownership units. At thefour sites where demolitions are under

way, the number of public housing unitswill drop by a combined 70 percent.

According to a 2004 survey by theUrban Institute (a nonpartisan researchorganization) of literature on the firstdecade of HOPE VI, the programs per-formance is the subject of contentiousdebate. Since each city that undertakesHOPE VI designs a slightly differentprogram, its hard to draw broad con-clusions about success or failure. Whatis undisputed is that most residents ofthe projects that get demolished do notreturn to the redeveloped sites, despitesome survey evidence that most intend-ed to. It is an open question whetherthose residents simply changed their

MOBILE 83,900

HOUSTON 68,187

DALLAS-FORT WORTH 32,140

ATLANTA 26,026

MEMPHIS 7,409

SAN ANTONIO 6,542

AUSTIN 6,028

LOS ANGELES 5,491

CHICAGO 4,780

BIRMINGHAM 4,780

WHERE ARE THEY?Nearly three-quarters of the 1.7 million people who received FEMA disaster assistance still

live in Louisiana or Mississippi, the two states hit hardest by hurricanes Katrina and Rita of

2005. But as of last year, some were living farther away, like the 120,000 who moved to Texas

or the 72 who got their relief checks in North Dakota. Here are the top ten metro areas for

Katrina relocations (NYC ranks 15th):Source: FEMA


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SPRING 2008 17

minds, or wanted to return but couldnot. HANO and housing advocates have

wrestled in federal court over whetherthe authority honored its pledge to giveformer residents of the St. Thomashouses preference for new spots in theredevelopment of that site, known asRiver Garden.

Jackson resigned from HUD inMarch amid news reports that he wasunder federal investigation for award-ing one of the New Orleans redevel-opment contracts to a firm with whichhe had financial ties. Meanwhile, asdemolition continues on the four sites,theres word that developers are havinga hard time making the numbers workfor the new developments. The proj-

ects are largely financed by low-incometax credits, which the developers sellto investors in exchange for money topay for construction; investors usuallyalso take an equity stake in the proj-ectthey become investors in the newhousing, in other words. Usually, statesget those credits in proportion to theirpopulation. After Katrina, however,Louisiana received almost as much asCaliforniaeight times its usual share.The problem is no one is ready forthat, says the person involved with the

redevelopment. New Orleans doesntreally have a corporate base that cansupport that investment. And nationalinvestors want to spread their risk.

Thats just one problem. Constructioncosts in New Orleans are significentlyhigher than elsewhere in the south.Insurance is extremely expensive (theLouisiana Insurance Department ap-proved $221 million in rate increasesfrom 2005 through last year). And con-structing housing in a flood zone is com-

plicated: The buildings must be elevated,but also handicap accessible, and build-ing a ramp to a building set 18 feet offthe ground costs millions. Those costsmake it even harder to sell tax creditsbecause investors are leery that the newdevelopments will make enough money.Developers are under pressure to com-plete construction by the end of 2010, orelse the tax credits could lapse.

Not all the citys HOPE VI develop-

BEYOND THE BREACHA timeline of post-flood New Orleans

August 28 New Orleans Mayor C. Ray Nagin orders a mandatoryevacuation as Hurricane Katrina, a Category 5 storm, bears down on the city.Some of those who cannot evacuate take shelter in the Superdome

August 29 Katrina makes landfall near Buras, Louisianaabout 60 milessoutheast of New Orleans. By dawn, parts of the New Orleanss levee systemare leaking. By lunchtime, much of the city is underwater.

September 2 Nagin vents frustration at slow relief efforts, tells radiolisteners I am pissed.

September 3 Superdome and New Orleans Convention Center, where up to25,000 had taken shelter, are finally evacuated.

September 26 Residents are allowed to return to the Algiers neighbor-hood, the first to re-open.

September 30 Nagin appoints the Bring New Orleans Back Commission.

December 1 Residents are allowed to return to the Lower Ninth Ward, thelast area to reopen. An estimated 91,000 people are in New Orleans at thistime, from a pre-storm population of 454,000.

January 11 Bring New Orleans Back urban planning committee calls formoratorium on building in flooded areas. Nagin soon disavows that approach.

April City Council commissions its alternative plan, which becomes knownas the Lambert plan.

May 30 HUD approves Louisianas Road Home program to provide reliefto homeowners.

July 30 Meetings begin for the Unified New Orleans Plan, or UNOP.

December 4 Nagin appoints Dr. Ed Blakely as recovery chief. The cityspopulation is now believed to stand somewhere around 250,000.

January 20 UNOP teams make final presentations to audiences of residentsinside and outside New Orleans.

March 29 Blakely announces the first 17 target zones, where the city willconcentrate recovery efforts.

June 25 Louisiana Recovery Authority accepts the UNOP plan, freeingmillions of federal relief dollars for New Orleans to use.

July 31 Deadline for homeowners to apply for Road Home benefits.

November 19 The Department of Veterans Affairs inks a deal with the cityto acquire a site for a new hospital.

February 19 Demolitions begin at the first of four public housing

developments that are being replaced with mixed-income residences.June 18 Louisiana health department accepts plan for new LSU/VA hospital.

July 1 City-set deadline for people to vacate trailers. Hard-hit areas are givenan extension until September.

August 4 Brookings Institute and Greater New Orleans Community DataCenter report that, based on postal service volume, New Orleans population isat 71.8 percent of its pre-storm level.August 20 A consultants report says that Charity Hospitalcould be reopened.JM

2005

2006

2007

2008


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ers complain of such troubles. TheLafitte projects, which are being rede-

veloped by Catholic Charities-affiliatedProvidence Community Housing, havepartnered with Enterprise, a nationaltax credit syndicator, whose experi-ence gives Lafitte a leg up. According toProvidence CEO James Kelly, the newLafitte will replace all public housingunits with either new public housing orlow-income units in an enlarged devel-

opment. And former residents will havefirst dibs on the new units.

Some of the other public housingredevelopment plans also boast thatformer residents will get preferenceover new ones, but they arent buildingenough units for everyone to exercisethat right. Perhaps they dont need to.Some former residents of the projects

wouldnt return to public housing if

they could, happy instead to have a sec-tion 8 voucher to use. Others wont orcant return to the city.

VI. Safety first?

Fear is probably keeping some away.One study found that 40 percent of peo-ple treated by doctors in the days afterKatrina showed symptoms of post-trau-matic stress disorder. A 2006 Harvard

survey found that one in four survivorshad nightmares about the disaster,

which killed more than 500 people inthe city. A separate survey of collegestudents displaced by Katrina foundthat over one-half of students experi-enced a significant degree of fear fromthe storm. That poll also found thatover one-half felt that the disaster waslargely caused by human/technological

error, as opposed to natural events.Thats a reasonable feeling. New Or-

leans flooded not just because of Ka-trinas might, but because flawed leveesand floodwalls built by the federal gov-ernment gave way or were overtopped.

Whats more, federally constructewaterways built for the shipping indus-trylike the Gulf Intracoastal Water-

way and the Mississippi River Gulf Out-lethelped pipe the storm surge from

the Gulf of Mexico to the citys shores. These manmade waterways also contributed to the loss of wetlands that

would have formed a barrier againsKatrinas surge.

New Orleans residents believedthis system of levees and canals wouldshield them. Instead, it exposed them todestruction. Before Katrina we thought

we were protected from the worst storm

18 SPRING 2008


The Corps of Engineers replaced the floodwall that collapsed and inundated the Lower Ninth Ward. Photo: U.S. Army


19/28

characteristics in the region, says Sandy Rosenthal, execu-tive director of Levees.org, an advocacy group that has calledfor better protections. While Katrina was a Category 5 stormat sea, by the time it reached land it was a Category 3, and itswung east to spare New Orleans a direct hit. At Rosenthals

house in the Uptown section, the papaya didnt even fall outof my papaya tree, she says. It looked like we had just had abad thunderstorm.

After the flood, New Orleans attorney Joseph Bruno fileda lawsuit against the Corps of Engineers alleging that theCorps was liable for damage to the western part of the city.(Neither Rosenthal nor Levees.org were involved in the suit).

A federal judge agreed that the Corps record was shame-ful, but found that the feds have immunized themselves witha 1928 law. Im not totally shot down yet, Bruno tells CityLimits. Hes pursuing a separate case against the Corps forflooding in the east of the city. At the same time, Rosenthalsgroup continues to press for an 8/29 investigationsimilar

to the 9-11 Commission, an independent inquiry with sub-poena powerof what caused the floods. She says the Corpsstudy of its own performance was flawed.

Meanwhile, the Corps is in the midst of a $15 billion setof projects to improve flood protection around New Orleans.

Together, these projects are supposed to protect New Or-leans from a storm of unusual strength--one that would be ex-pected to occur once every 100 years. For Rosenthal, thatsnot enough. The Netherlands, after all, protects against a10,000-year storm. Rosenthal wants 1,000-year protection forNew Orleans.

Its unclear what the additional cost of that would be. Fornow, however, the citys planning process has had to operateunder an assumption that New Orleans will be protected.

When the city began planning for recovery, there was hopethat the rebuilding approach would factor in flood risk. WhileNew Orleans is sometimes depicted as being entirely belowsea level, half of the city actually lies at or above sea level.

A 2007 Tulane/Xavier University study concluded that NewOrleans could accommodate its entire current populationon that high ground. When the mayors Bring New OrleansBack plan pulled back from factoring risk mitigation into thecitys recovery strategy, however, the issue was permanentlyplaced on the back-burner. The city basically took the po-sition that the free market would determine the location of

recovery, says Allen Eskew.Its tempting to fault people for wanting to move back into a

flood plain. But Johnson points out that, For so many families,white and black, its hard-earned soil. Beyond the historicalweight of the land they left, low-income families had practicalreasons for returning. What you see is people going back to

what they have left, says Mary Croom-Fontenot. Why arethey rebuilding? Because its all they have left.

UNOP called for a voluntary program allowing people toswap their vulnerable property for a parcel in the same neigh-

SPRING 2008 19


FIRM PLANSA vote on post-storm visionsOne silver lining to New Orleans enduring post-Katrina cloud is thatthe Crescent City now has the money and the workload to attract topplanning firms. Thats a break from the past. New Orleans reputationwas such that you couldnt get decent planning firms to come in here

and do the work, because they knew they couldnt get the job becausethat was given to friends of politicians, says Bill Borah, an author.There was no predictability, no transparency.

In a book he co-authored with Richard O. Baumbach, Jr., The Sec-ond Battle of New Orleans, Borah chronicled the long fight by commu-nity groups against city leaders who, following a suggestion by RobertMoses in 1946, wanted to run an expressway along the MississippiRiver through the French Quarter. It was by the closest of margins thatpreservationists were able defeat the planned expressway.

Now preservationists are again battling with the powers that be,especially over the fate of Big Charity and the plan to demolish an his-torical district for a new hospital. Planners, meanwhile, have providedthe city with a road map via the Unified New Orleans Plan. UNOP islikely to help shape the citys new master plan, which respected Boston

firm Goody Clancy will work on for the next year or so.In November, New Orleanians will vote on a ballot measure to

change the city charter and give the master plan the force of law.City Planning Commission Executive Director Yolanda Rodriguez says

the citys zoning laws, which will implement the master plan, alreadyhave the force of law. But Borah argues thats not enough for the kindof changes New Orleans needs. If the charter is not changed, then thework that Goody Clancy would do in a master plan will go on the shelf,or be cut up like a Christmas turkey because thats the way the existingprocess is, he says. Mike Longman

In the 1940s, Robert Moses proposed a highway through historic

parts of New Orleans.Photo: Library of Congress


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20 SPRING 2008


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SPRING 2008 21


Rushing water apparently tore the wall off this Lower Ninth Ward

school, photographed in 2007, but did not reach high enough to dis-

turb the lesson on a second-floor blackboard. Photo: JM

borhood but on safer ground. The city hasnt adopted the idea.There was never the money to relocate the interests that werethere prior to the storm, says Greg Rigamer, a demographer.He thinks such a relocation could happen anyway. I think

what you will see after time are market-driven considerations

driving that. Insurance is more expensive, the lack of servicesavailable. The market speaks louder than policy.The fits-and-starts and politics of the planning and rebuild-

ing process havent helped New Orleans recovery, but theyhavent stopped it dead, either. I think were sort of drift-ing towards the right track, says Rob Couhig, a prominentlawyer. The citizens are leading the charge, which is good.Government is struggling to catch up and as a result its notas supercharged a recovery as many would hope.

But there is one great mystery hovering over Blakelysstrategy, the master plan, the hospital proposal and everyother vision for the New Orleans of the future: How big willthat New Orleans be?

VII. Guess whos coming

In July 2005, the Census Bureau estimated New Orleanspopulation at 453,726. After the largest evacuation in Ameri-can history, it is believed to stand at around 300,000 todayalthough that figure, which is largely based on the number ofpeople receiving mail in the city, is substantially higher thanother estimates. Even by the postal service measure, popu-lation growth has slowed considerably. It grew 40 percentfrom 2006 to 2007 but only 4 percent over the past year. Andit varies greatly across neighborhoods: While 93 percent ofhouseholds in Algiers are receiving mail, only 19 percent arein the Lower Ninth.

While most current residents today are believed to bereturnees, the city certainly includes some new people. Be-sides the usual turnover that all cities experience, New Or-leans has attracted laborers, volunteers, planners and others

whove come to work in the rebuilding. Some of these newpeople will leave; theres already evidence that the laborersare moving on as the supply of work levels off.

The slowdown in people moving back leads several peopleCity Limits interviewed to conclude that New Orleans is aboutas big as its going to getat least 150,000 people smaller thanbefore the flood. I think weve kind of crossed that point. The

repopulation has basically plateaued. says John Lovett, a lawprofessor at Loyola University who has monitored rebuildingpolicy. More or less whos coming back is back.

Not everyone wanted all of pre-storm Katrina back. Onlythe best residents should return, then-HUD Secretary Al-phonso Jackson said in 2006 of the citys public housing resi-dents. I dont mean rich, because everybodys low-income.


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22 SPRING 2008

Those who paid rent on time, those

who held a job and those who worked. Then-City Council president Oliver Thomas said in early 2006, We needcommitted people. We dont need soapopera watchers all day.

But a wide array of New Orleanians voiced support for right to returnlingo that local activists borrowed frominternational law and applied to theclaim that pre-storm residents had onliving in post-storm New Orleans. Na-gin publicly embraced the concept. Inhis letter introducing the Bring New

Orleans Back plan, the mayor wrotethat the plans goal was to make it pos-sible for all citizens can return to andreclaim their citizenship as members ofthis unique city that we call home.

That is not happening. If New Or-leans population settles at its currentlevel, it means about a third of the pre-Katrina city is not coming home.

To some in the city, that fact doesnot reflect a policy failure. People

who wanted to come back could come

back, says one prominent New Orlea-nian who asked not to be named whendiscussing the third rail of local politics.Was the city supposed to pay for themto come back?

Clearly, some people have decidedto leave New Orleans behindthose

who are afraid of the next hurricane, orwhove found a better life, job or schoolsfor their kids. One of my biggest con-cerns is the New Orleans school sys-

tem, says Jennifer Jones, a resident

of New Orleans East who evacuated tothe East Bronx. Because I have twoyoung children, Im not sure I want toput them through moving and enteringa substandard school system.

But individual choices to return orstay away arent made in a vacuum.

Virginia, who asked us not use her lastname, was allowed back to her Gen-tilly Terrace neighborhood just beforeHalloween 2005. After 30 years on thatstreet, she told herself shed rebuildher house, which had taken on 12 feet

of water. Her family, however, worriedabout the 65-year-old surviving thenext big storm. So I started thinkingabout it and then the question almostgot answered automatically because allof a sudden nobodys going back, shesays. A few of her neighbors are return-ing. Many arent. You dont want tobe the only person living within a fewblocks, she says. About once a month,she looks online to find an apartmentthat she can afford close to the city,

but nothing has been within reach.Make no mistake about it: I love NewOrleans. I love Louisiana. It has many,many faultsmanybut there is a feel-ing there, and people do care on a dailybasis and they are interested and I justmiss that, she says. I really learned alot more about missing New Orleansthan I ever thought I would.

In post-Katrina New Orleans, perDarwin, the fitter are more likely to

survive: the affluent who can affordto rebuild, and to stay or pay higherrents, the healthy who can get by de-spite a disrupted health care system,the young who can do the heavy liftingof rebuilding their house, people withcars who dont depend on a reducedmass transit system. Other people arenot equipped for the daily battle. Theydont have the education skills andthe social skills to fight, says Melvin

Jones, a pastor in middle-class, majorityblack New Orleans East. Older people,theyll give up.

The bright side, says Greg Rigamer,is that people who are in New Orleansnow must really be committed to thecity; you wouldnt chose to move to a

place with high crime and poor servic-es unless you really wanted to.

On the neighborhood level, advo-cates we interviewed still insistthat more people will return. After all,many homeowners are just now gettingthe rebuilding grants that will allowthem to restore their homes. Jones, forone, is optimistic about New OrleansEast. Its coming back, he says. We

were a neighborhood of hard-workingpeople that, no matter what, we were

going to come back.A recent survey by the University of

New Orleans found that rebuilding wascomplete or underway on 62 percent ofthe citys parcels, a very hopeful sign.Some neighborhoods, though, are see-ing more of that activity than others;

Along Dublin Street in the middle-classCarrollton neighborhood, more than95 percent of the houses are rebuiltor in process. On Delery Street in thetraditionally black, lower-income Lower

Ninth, more than half are still derelict.But even in the Lower Ninth, the dif-ference between last summer and thisone is visible to even a casual visitorthe progress is slow, but its there. Slabsare being laid for new houses. Utilitiesservice is improving. The neighborhoodis still devastated, but organizer MaryCroom-Fontenot sees hope. Citizens,even a week after the storm, wantedto come back. We are not only coming

SOME PEOPLE ARE NOT EQUIPPEDFOR THE DAILY BATTLE. THEY

DONT HAVE THE EDUCATION SKILLSAND THE SOCIAL SKILLS TO FIGHT,SAYS MELVIN JONES, A PASTOR INMIDDLE-CLASS, MAJORITY BLACKNEW ORLEANS EAST. OLDER PEOPLE,THEYLL GIVE UP.


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SPRING 2008 23


back, we are back, she says.Across the city in Lakeview, a middle-

class, majority white neighborhood, all7,000 houses were flooded, says Lakev-iew Civic Improvement Association pres-ident Al Petrie. Its going to continue,he says of the resurgence, but adds, We

will never get back to 100 percent.Indeed, for all the hope, huge obsta-

cles remain. Some date back to the firstdays of the recovery: trouble with insur-

ance companies, FEMA, the Small Busi-ness Administration, high constructioncosts and fierce demand for contractors.Legal advocates have gone to court twiceto get the city to revise its proceduresfor demolishing properties, alleging thatNew Orleans was tearing down houses

where rebuilding was underway; morethan one house in the Lower Ninth isspray-painted Dont Demo!

In recent months, the city has an-nounced an aggressive anti-blightcampaign of fines and citations, as wellas a deadline for people to vacate tem-porary trailers.

The impact of such measures is com-plex. Homeowners who have been un-able to return might be hurt by the anti-blight effort, but blight is undeniablya barrier to the recovery of the hard-est hit areas. It has to happen, says

Tom Pepper, a leader of the CommonGround Collective that has gutted andrebuilt houses in the Lower Ninth. Itsa horrible thing to fine someone $500.But you have to assume responsibilityfor securing your property.

People also want the trailers gone, butits not as if everyone has somewhereto go. I think its rushing things, saysPepper of the trailer deadline. After all,

many people are just waiting to get theircheck from Road Home.

The Road Home program was fund-ed by the federal government butdesigned and administered by the stateto help homeowners whose property

was damaged by the storm rebuild orrelocate. The program, which a com-pany called ICF International has beenpaid more than $900 million to run,

has encountered problems since it waslaunched in 2006.

Some troubles stemmed from thedesign of the policy itself. Road Homeoffered homeowners a choice betweenselling out to the state or staying in theirhome and receiving a rebuilding grant.Most people (124,000, or roughly 90percent of those who got awards) chosethe latter. But the formula was frustrat-

A large homeless encampment under Interstate 10, which cuts through the citys center, drew national attention this year. Photo: Lizzie Ford-Madrid


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24 SPRING 2008

ing. The maximum grant was $150,000but it subtracted insurance payments.

And the award was often based on thepre-storm value of a home. That left

many homeowners with less moneythan they needed for rebuilding. Theaverage award was under $59,000.

But even getting the grant often re-quired a long wait and a lot of documen-tation from the homeowner. Fears offraud led the state to initially award themoney in installments, which made ithard for homeowners to pay for repairs.

That policy was reversed last year. Untilrecently, ICF refused to accept third-party assessments of property value,and insisted on using its own formula,

which homeowners said consistentlyundervalued their property. Last year,ICF changed its procedures to acceptpost-Katrina appraisals. As time hasgone on, however, the price of buildingnew houses has only climbed. RoadHome was supposed to be a gap-fillingprogram, says Annie Clark from Poli-cyLink, a national think tank thats been

working in New Orleans, but that gaphas gotten larger as time has gone on.

The program is due to end this year,

but 2,300 people are in the appeals pro-cessa process where the rules werestill changing in July. Legal advocatesare making a final push to get peoplethrough that pipeline. This summeris now or never, says Davida Finger,a lawyer who has assisted homeown-ers with their claims. Ivy Parker, a NewOrleans resident who evacuated to New

York City, is waiting to resolve a disputeover $40,000. So far we havent heard

anything [about the appeal] and we justhave to wait til they get to us, she says.

Another 6,000 applicants are listed asinactive, which advocates say probably

includes people who still want to pursuetheir claim but have been unable to.

Advocates like Melanie Ehrlich,president of the Citizens Housing Ac-tion Team, which has monitored RoadHome, hope that policies will be im-proved in the last months of the pro-gram to increase the grants the hom-eowners get. There wont be enoughmoney for everyone, however. And

while Road Home undoubtedly helpedthousands of people move back to NewOrleans, the flaws in the program may

have prevented some people from com-ing home. I know it. I know it, saysEhrlich. Weve lost people becausethis program was run so poorly.

Road Home also almost totally ne-glected renters, despite a pronouncedaffordable housing crisis in the monthsafter the storm as thousands of units

went offline. Rent statistics tracked bythe local Maddera & Cazalot realty firmshow rents shot up 27 percent over-alland 37 percent for two-bedroom

apartmentsbetween spring 2005 andsummer 2007. A vital part of the afford-able housing stock in New Orleans isthe supply of so-called double shotgunsin which a landlord lives in one half andrents the other. Road Home offeredassistance to these owners, but did sothrough a complicated program that re-quired the owner to secure a construc-tion loan that the state then paid off.For owners with poor credit, this was

not possible. That program has beena massive failure, says Lovett, the lawprofessor who has tracked Road Home.

At least low-income homeownership

has gotten a boost from Habitat for Hu-manity, which with volunteer labor anddonated supplies has built or is buildingmore than 300 homes in the New Or-leans metro area for families making be-tween 35 percent and 60 percent of areamedian income. But since it is a private,nonprofit group, Habitat is constrainedin how much it can do. Habitat does notrehabilitate houses because of worriesabout liability for mold and because itsconstruction managers are trained tobuild a limited set of house designs.

And Habitat isnt active in the Ninth Ward right now, because it doesnhave services that are needed for ourhomeowners such as grocery stores,schools, health care and mass transpor-tation, says spokeswoman Aleis Tusa.Brad Pitts Make It Right Foundation isactive in the Lower Ninth, where it aimsto build 150 homes.

Some critics think New Orleans af-fordability problem stems from govern-ment investing in the wrong kind of

low-income housing. Rather than help-ing mom-and-pop landlords, Louisianahas directed million of dollars of low-in-come housing tax credits to new multi-unit developments in New Orleans that,the Bureau of Governmental Researchsays, might just create new concentra-tions of poverty in the city.

Whats more, the creation of post-Ka-trina affordable housing is not immunefrom the traditional worries about cor-

WHILE ROAD HOME UNDOUBTEDLY

HELPED THOUSANDS OF PEOPLE MOVEBACK TO NEW ORLEANS, THE FLAWS INTHE PROGRAM MAY HAVE PREVENTEDMANY OTHERS FROM COMING HOME.A message in the Lower Ninth.Photo: JM


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SPRING 2008 25

ruption in New Orleans. In early August,Nagin and every member of the CityCouncil received subpoenas as part of afederal investigation of the citys afford-able housing agency, which was subse-quently raided by federal agents. The

investigation concerns allegations thatcontractors received funds to renovateblighted houses but did not actually dothe work.

The next big thing to hit the real es-tate market will be an outgrowthof the Road Home program: the statehanding to New Orleans control ofaround 4,000 parcels from homeowners

who sold out. The New Orleans Recov-

ery Authority (NORA), which dates tobefore Katrina, will add to those prop-erties to a portfolio of 2,000 blightedand tax delinquent properties that italready has. Beyond that, NORA esti-mates there are 20,000 to 25,000 parcels

of blighted land that the city could endup owning. All that empty space is rawmaterial for New Orleans recovery.

In a plan submitted to state regula-tors, NORA acknowledges the difficultdecisions it faces from neighborhood toneighborhood: how to provide enoughland for development without swamp-ing the real estate market. Letters willgo out soon to targeted areas for theLot Next Door program, in which ho-

meowners will have first right of refusalon empty lots adjacent to their property.NORA will also bundle parcels for saleto developers, and reserve some forcommunity facilities and green space.The question is, says John Lovett, is

there enough demand in the real estatemarket? The problem with all theseproperties is if you cant move them andcant transfer them theyre just going tobe albatrosses around the citys neck.

NORAs goal is for at least 25 percentof the parcels to be used for affordablehousing. Annie Clark worries that the af-fordable housing will be unfairly distrib-uted, as wealthy neighborhoods will buyup all available Lot Next Door parcels

For some, rebuilding is an act of defiance. This home still bears the markings left by a rescue teamPhoto: Pangaeus


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26 SPRING 2008

and crowd out low-income housing.In certain neighborhoods, homeown-ers are going to get a windfall, increasetheir property value and therell be norequirement for affordable housing inthat neighborhood, Clark says. Andin some neighborhoods where land ischeaper, theyll be stuck with all thataffordable housing. Im kind of wor-ried about the re-concentration of af-fordable housing in neighborhoodsthat traditionally have held much ofthat housing.

NORAs executive director, Harlemnative Joe Williams, says all neighbor-hoods should welcome housing for

working people, but adds: One sizedoes not fit all in terms of redevelop-

ment. Since the damage from thestorm wasnt uniform through the city,the distribution of Road Home proper-ties that were sold to the state is un-even. According to a count providedby the Louisiana Land Trust, thereare 21 such parcels in the zip codethat contains, among other neighbor-hoods, the well-to-do Garden District,

versus more than 500 in the zip codesencompassing New Orleans East.

Some neighborhoods have alreadyresisted the construction of affordable

housing. Lakeview, for one, last yeartightened restrictions on building sizeto block multiunit development. Civicassociation president Al Petrie says theneighborhood is increasingly diversealong racial lines. But, he adds: Peo-ple want to be around people who arein the same economic category. You

want someone whos going to maintaintheir property the same way you main-tain your property, after weve madethe investment weve made.

That feeling is not confined to tradi-tionally white Lakeview. Its also pres-ent in historically black New OrleansEast. Something were concernedabout is the number of Section 8 peo-ple coming in. That concerns us in that

when we get that, we get it in largeconcentrations, says Mel Jones. Thegovernment doesnt prepare them totake care of houses and they live likethey live in the projects. Weve got to

figure out a way to help those brothersand sisters.

The shifting racial and economicmakeup in Lakeview and NewOrleans East takes place within a city

whose overall population mix is chang-ing. The influx of young professionalsis a hopeful sign, in the view of archi-tect Allen Eskew. I am very proud ofthe fact that its probably the greatestsingle in-migrationsort of intellec-tual migrationthe most weve hadin history, he says. We all need tobe vigilant that the original residentsare not only welcomed but we do ev-erything we can to make that returnpossible. The other issue, which is not

mutually exclusive, is the embrace ofnew people who come into town.

The mixture of new and old NewOrleanians has altered the citysmakeup, from 67 percent black be-fore the storm to around 58 percentblack now. There has been a change.It has not been what you would call asignificant shift, at least in terms ofracial politics, says Rigamer. Werestill a majority African-American city.

A reduced majority still wields politi-cal power. Nagin, who did not enjoy

the support of most blacks when firstelected in 2002, relied on their back-ing in his 2006 mayoral race against a

white opponent.For those blacks who have re-

turned, though, there are indicationsthe welcome has been less than warm.

The Greater New Orleans Fair Hous-ing Action Center found in a surveyconducted between September 2006and April 2007 that six in 10 landlordstreated white renters more favorably

than blacks.Its a very different city. The blackpeople are not coming back, says poetKalamu ya Salaam, a Ninth Ward na-tive. They gave the majority of poorblack people a one-way ticket out ofthe city and no way back. And if youcouldnt afford to leave when it wasmandatory evacuation, how can youafford to come back when no onesmaking any provision for you?

VIII. Salvage operation

A 2008 survey by the Kaiser FamilyFoundation found that a narrow ma-

jority of city residents think the citysgoing in the right d

City Limits Magazine: 1095 Days After Hurricane Katrina

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