[StBernard] WHERE WOULD YOU RATHER LIVE? IN THIS? OR IN THIS?

[Westley Annis]

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WHERE WOULD YOU RATHER LIVE? IN THIS? OR IN THIS?
The LRA wants to know why FEMA is spending $75,000 on trailers when these
cottages cost less than $60,000 
Saturday, March 18, 2006
By Greg Thomas
Real estate writer 

Jake Borrouso of Chalmette lost his home and mother to Hurricane Katrina. He
now lives with his girlfriend in a 28-foot trailer in Picayune, Miss. 

The quarters are tight, and Borrouso isn't looking forward to spending
hurricane season in the trailer. 

The trailer "rocks in the slightest wind now. This is ridiculous," Borrouso
said. 

So after touring one of the small hurricane-proof homes that some are
touting as an alternative to trailers, Borrouso left with one question. 

"Why not do this in the first place instead of the trailers?" he asked. 

State and local officials are wondering the same thing. 

The Louisiana Recovery Authority, St. Bernard Parish and the Mississippi
governor's office are all lobbying FEMA to replace the temporary travel
trailers it is using to house displaced storm victims with the "Katrina
Cottage," a 400- to 750-square-foot prefabricated home that sleeps four, can
be erected in days, and could eventually be expanded into a full-size
permanent home. 

The cost of the cottage, they argue, is hard to beat. FEMA is spending about
$75,000 to deliver and install each of the 23- to 28-foot trailers for storm
victims. A Katrina Cottage can be set up for less than $60,000,
manufacturers say. 

And with hurricane season fast approaching, many worry about the ability of
FEMA trailers to weather storms. The Katrina Cottage, which under one model
would be made of concrete and steel, would be a far safer structure. 

"FEMA even wanted us to devise an evacuation strategy (for the upcoming
hurricane season) that included evacuating the travel trailers," said an
incredulous Walter Leger, who heads the LRA's housing committee and is a St.
Bernard resident. 

"All I can do is advocate it," Leger said of the Katrina Cottage. 

Andres Duany, a Miami architect who promotes "new urbanism," a planning
philosophy that seeks to create compact towns that reduce suburban sprawl,
is working with Louisiana on planning issues and is a critic of FEMA
trailers. 

"The use of temporary trailers is a viable proposition if the loss is
something on proportion of (Hurricane) Andrew, (which destroyed) 20,000 to
30,000 houses," Duany said. But the metro area lost 300,000 homes as a
result of Hurricane Katrina. 

Spending more than $70,000 on a travel trailer is an "absolute scandal and
waste of taxpayer money," Duany said. FEMA got "caught with the wrong model
and wrong policy." 

FEMA officials say their hands are tied. 

The 1974 Stafford Act, which governs the assistance FEMA offers in the wake
of disasters, prevents the agency from spending money on permanent
residential construction. Furthermore, the thousands of manufactured mobile
homes that FEMA set up in Florida in the wake of Hurricane Andrew in 1992
remain today as blighted communities, something state and federal officials
want to avoid. 

Mark Misczak, FEMA's Louisiana human services branch director, who has
primary responsibility for housing, said he's asked Washington to make an
allowance for permanent structures, but the answer has always been no. 

Misczak thinks the policy should change, but adds it would literally take an
act of Congress. 

"I do feel that there are limitations set forward in the law that if changed
would be better suited (for FEMA) in a catastrophic event (such as Katrina).
We don't have the authority we need to address the issues we're facing," he
said. 


Cottage industry is born 

The impetus behind the Katrina Cottage concept began days after Katrina when
Duany sent out a call for architects to come up with a safer, permanent
means to house hurricane victims quickly. 

New York architect Marianne Cusato responded with a sketch of a
308-square-foot hurricane-proof home designed to look like a Creole cottage.
The cottage, as designed by Cusato, could be mass produced and trucked in to
devastated areas. A model was displayed at the International Builders Show
in Orlando, Fla., in November where it generated widespread interest. 

Dozens of other Katrina Cottage designs have also been developed. Many of
the designs are for full-scale homes and rely on a cement product for
durability as siding. The rest are typical wood structures built to
hurricane code standards. 

Lafayette architect Steve Oubre, president of the Louisiana chapter of the
American Institute of Architects, modified Cusato's original design, adding
a second-story loft and increasing the overall size to 750 square feet. A
model of Oubre's design is near completion in the parking lot of the
Wal-Mart Supercenter in Chalmette. 

All of the Katrina Cottages, regardless of which architect designed them,
rely on common construction themes. Most call for construction on cement
pilings, which means they can be built in any flood plain. Following a
flood, owners of the cottages should be able to dry them out instead of
gutting them. 

The main objective of the Katrina Cottage concept is for it to be a "seed"
home that could be expanded into a larger 1,200- or 1,400-square-foot home
once the previous structure has been demolished. The expansion would be
U-shaped to create a New Orleans-like courtyard. 

But on larger lots, the cottages could also be kept in their original small
size and used as an apartment or guest house once the main home on the
property is repaired. 

A handful of companies say they can build Katrina Cottages, including Home
Front Inc. of Englewood, Fla., which is constructing the Chalmette model. 

Home Front President Brian Bishop said the cottage his company is building
relies on panelized walls. The walls are constructed of 6 inches of hard
foam insulation sandwiched by sheets of concrete-fiber siding.. The roof
would be made of steel siding with 6-inch solid- foam insulation. The
interior ceiling also would have a steel finish. 

The Home Front kit to build the home would cost between $25,000 and $30,000,
and once installation costs are added in the total cost would rise to about
$58,000. Finishing the interior with paint and wallpaper could cost many
thousands more, but the house would be livable after an initial four- or
five-day assembly period. The exterior of the cement-fiber board must be
painted, however. 

All of the companies capable of building Katrina Cottages rely on some form
of prefabrication to speed up construction. 

Home Front and other companies are watching the situation along the Gulf
Coast carefully to see if FEMA will change its policy. 

Southern Energy Homes Inc. of Addison, Ala., has sales representatives in
the area "to see where the actual demand is," said Ty Batchelor, an
executive with the company. 

"There's a lot of talk of what people would like to do. We want to know what
people are actually going to do," Batchelor said. "We would love for FEMA to
change its mind." 

David Roberson, president and chief executive officer of Cavalier Homes,
also located in Addison, is also waiting to see what Washington decides
about the Katrina Cottage. 

"If FEMA were to design or request folks in the manufacturing industry to
build a product that fit into the motif of the Katrina Cottage product, we
would be a very active bidder," Roberson said. 


Growing call for cottages 

Meanwhile, the list of advocates for the Katrina Cottage is growing. 

Leland Speed, director of the Mississippi Development Authority, that
state's economic development arm, said FEMA's travel trailers have left
coastal residents in a bind. 

"We're still in FEMA trailers (seven months later). Can you imagine, 37,000
travel trailers with over 100,000 people in them (and hurricane season
coming). They depreciate, get old. FEMA trailers are junk," Speed said. 

Gavin Smith, director of Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour's Office of Recovery
and Renewal, said the governor has asked Washington to replace thousands of
trailers with Katrina Cottages. 

Louisiana officials are lobbying for the cottage as well. 

Andy Kopplin of the Louisiana Recovery Authority said that his group
continues to lobby FEMA to change its permanent structure rule. "They are
just stuck on the interpretation that the Stafford Act restricts them" from
using a Katrina cottage-type structure, Kopplin said. 

St. Bernard Parish President Henry "Junior" Rodriguez said the cottage "is a
good concept, but I don't know how many people would want to use it." At the
same time, he adds that "I guarantee you (Katrina Cottages) are safer to be
in" than trailers. 

Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La., expressed her own frustrations over problems with
what many say is a safer, permanent, cheaper strategy. 

"This is another example of the dysfunctional planning that is FEMA's
trademark. First they bought thousands of mobile homes that couldn't be
placed in flood zones. Now they won't provide affordable, hurricane-safe
housing for hurricane season because the homes would be too 'permanent.' The
limitation here is not one of legislation, but one of imagination," Landrieu
said in a prepared statement. "Sure, the Stafford Act needs improvement --
and I intend to work to make it better. To ensure these temporary homes in
fact don't become permanent, I challenge this administration to work with
Louisiana leaders to create and secure the passage of a long-term housing
plan that actually works." 

David Downey, a staff disaster expert for the American Institute of
Architects, supports the Katrina Cottage concept because he fears that
temporary housing solutions like travel trailers can easily become permanent
fixtures that offer almost no protection against wind and flood. He also
cautions against overstudying the issue. 

"We have to be cautious of analysis paralysis. At the end of the day we need
to start putting a shovel in the dirt and make progress," Downey said. 

. . . . . . . 


Greg Thomas can be reached at gthomas at timespicayune.com or (504) 826-3399.