[StBernard] Demolitions urged for St. Bernard homes

[Westley Annis]

Demolitions urged for St. Bernard homes

By JOE GYAN JR.
New Orleans bureau
Published: Mar 16, 2006

CHALMETTE - With the caveat that FEMA has not released its revised flood
elevations, a town planner recommended Wednesday night that St. Bernard
Parish residents with slab-on-grade brick ranch homes demolish them and
rebuild higher.

Andres Duany of Miami, who is working with parish leaders, residents and
Gov. Kathleen Blanco's Louisiana Recovery Authority to craft a long-term
rebuilding plan for flood-ravaged St. Bernard, said the majority of houses
in the parish are brick ranch-style homes.

"I think it's boom time for the house-leveling market in St. Bernard
Parish," Duany said at the St. Bernard Parish Courthouse before making his
final presentation to about 1,000 residents who packed a second-floor
courtroom and spilled out onto the spiral staircases and into the lobby to
hear him. Those outside the courtroom watched the presentation on
closed-circuit television monitors.

Duany, who noted that all but three of the houses in St. Bernard were
heavily damaged by Hurricane Katrina, recommended that the parish's
antebellum homes and 19th-century Victorian-era houses be restored;
turn-of-the-century shotguns and doubles and pre-war cottages be raised and
renovated; and post-war cottages and brick ranch homes be demolished and
rebuilt to raised standards.

Duany said it would cost between $80,000 and $100,000 - figures that drew an
audible gasp from the courtroom crowd - to raise an existing slab-on-grade
brick ranch, so it would be more economical to tear it down and rebuild
higher.

"If I were you, I would demolish them and start over," he said.

Duany also advised elevating and renovating what he called recent suburban
houses, built since 1990.

"How funny they look raised on little legs, I don't know," he said.

Duany cautioned residents that prefabricated homes are "coming your way"
because of a shortage of workers and a focus on housing in the city of New
Orleans.

"The old mobile home ain't what it used to be. They're much, much stronger,"
he said. "In the end, this hurricane is going to restore honor to the mobile
home industry."

Duany also introduced residents to what he called "Katrina cottages," which
have cement walls, no sheetrock and are designed to "get wet."

"Will it float?" one man yelled from the back of the packed courtroom,
drawing laughter from the crowd.

"I didn't know you well enough to actually propose a floating house," Duany
said with a grin to the audience.

Duany also said the rebuilt and redesigned St. Bernard should incorporate
more green space and open areas, particularly north along the 40-Arpent
Canal - which extends from Arabi to Violet - where the land is low and most
prone to flooding.

"It is not good policy to rebuild everywhere," he said.

Duany said concentrated rebuilding around a town square would be more
economical and safe than dispersed rebuilding in an existing subdivision.

"A house here, a house there," he said of the latter method. "It's (a
compact neighborhood) not about flooding. It's about real-estate value. This
is a chance to actually get ahead of the game."

Duany also suggested turning St. Bernard Highway into a "parkway" lined with
trees, a high-speed highway with only factories on it. He said Judge Perez
Drive would serve as Main Street, and a town center could be located at
Judge Perez and Paris Road.

"At the moment you haven't got a (town) center," he said.

Duany told reporters the plan is designed to "move St. Bernard decisively to
the 21st century."

"This could be the beginning of a true new beginning for St. Bernard
Parish," Louisiana Recovery Authority member and Lamar Advertising Chief
Executive Sean Reilly of Baton Rouge said. "You can't begin to build again
until you begin to dream again."

State appeals court Judge David Gorbaty, who co-chairs St. Bernard's
Citizens Recovery Committee, said the parish can "rise from the ashes."

Last week, St. Bernard Parish Council members identified several flood-prone
areas of the parish that should not be redeveloped. They said they will
recommend to the LRA that about 2,000 homes - along drainage canals and in
areas that have repeatedly flooded or in neighborhoods that had serious
density or drainage issues pre-dating Katrina - be included for
hazard-mitigation buyouts.

Under the hazard-mitigation grant program, which involves the voluntary sale
of the property by the owner, FEMA pays 75 percent of the home's pre-storm
value, with the local government responsible for the remaining 25 percent.
Mitigated properties remain green space under the program.

The LRA financed Duany's work in St. Bernard and in Lake Charles and New
Iberia, where he held similar planning meetings for that region of the state
last month.
  
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