[StBernard] Senate may OK money for Katrina cottages

[Westley Annis]

Senate may OK money for Katrina cottages 
By Ana Radelat, Gannett News Service

WASHINGTON - Storm victims living in cramped trailers soon may be able to
move into sunny little cottages with big porches that are built to withstand
wind and water.
The Senate is considering an unprecedented step: allowing the Federal
Emergency Management Agency to provide inexpensive, permanent housing to
Americans who have lost their homes to a natural disaster.

Next week, the Senate Appropriations Committee, headed by GOP Sen. Thad
Cochran of Mississippi, will consider adding money to President Bush's $19
billion request aimed at helping the Gulf Coast recover from hurricanes
Katrina and Rita. Mississippi officials hope the panel approves funding to
build 20,000 Katrina Cottages - tiny homes born of a new architectural
movement that look like traditional Gulf Coast cottages.

"(Cochran) hopes to include in his bill new ways to provide comfortable,
safe and efficient housing for the victims of Hurricane Katrina," said Jenny
Manley, Cochran's press secretary.

Under current law, FEMA is allowed to provide only temporary housing to
disaster victims. That has resulted in the scattering of 37,000 trailers
along the Gulf Coast. But the governors of Mississippi and Louisiana have
argued that there are better alternatives to the trailers, which were
welcomed as part of the emergency response to Hurricane Katrina.

"The federal government needs more options in future hurricanes,"
Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour said.

But there's opposition in Congress, and in the Bush administration, to
altering FEMA's mission.

"I think one of the biggest misconceptions is that we're designed to make
people whole when our job is to get them back on their feet," FEMA
spokeswoman Nicol Andrews said.

To advance his vision of rebuilding the storm-ravaged coast, Barbour asked
town planner Andres Duany of Miami, who is known as the father of the "new
urbanism," to come up with ideas.

New urbanism is an architectural movement that embraces old-fashioned,
small-town concepts. It promotes communities where people can walk to
shopping, churches and schools, and it promotes traditional homes with large
front porches that invite socializing.

Duany asked New York architect Marianne Cusato to draw blueprints for an
affordable, storm-proof home with Southern charm.

The result: a 308-square-foot home with one large room, a tiny bunk-bed
sleeping space, a kitchenette and a shower-stall bath. It has many windows
to let air and sun in, and a wide porch. The exterior is waterproof, built
of a mixture of fiberboard and cement that looks like wood siding.

"It's designed to take a swim in the South," Cusato said.

The cottages - built as modular units and as do-it-yourself kits - are
expected to withstand 130-mph winds and come with wall units that provide
heat and air conditioning.

Cusato's cottage is estimated to cost about $35,000 to build, compared with
the roughly $75,000 that FEMA spends to buy and deliver a trailer. Cusato
said she's had several calls from housing groups outside the Katrina-ravaged
states that are interested in the cottages.

"The idea that came out of this disaster is that it's possible to make
affordable housing nice," she said.

Some storm victims may elect to live in the cottage while their homes are
being repaired, then use the cottage as an outbuilding. Others may transform
the cottage into a permanent home.

A version of the cottage recently was unveiled in Louisiana, and other
models are in the works.

  
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