[StBernard] St. Bernard Parish getting smaller, but lots getting larger

[Westley Annis]

St. Bernard Parish getting smaller, but lots getting larger
by Chris Kirkham, The Times-Picayune 
Saturday December 20, 2008, 9:40 PM

To the left were Jason and Jennifer, the young couple eagerly awaiting their
newborn. To the right was Miss Angela with the accent, who told stories over
the fence of working in a kite factory in Italy.

The affable neighbors are gone; vacant lots with concrete slabs remain.

But Brining and hundreds of other property owners across St. Bernard see new
opportunity in the idle lots that pockmark the parish. In once-dense
sections of this suburban enclave, homeowners soon could double or triple
their lot sizes under a program where they get first crack at buying the
adjoining Road Home buyout properties.

"This is how it is now, " Brining reflected. "I don't have neighbors now.
This opportunity is here, so why wouldn't I?"

Search for available properties in St. Bernard Parish

Map showing where heavy concentrations of buyouts are located.

The Lot Next Door programs in St. Bernard and New Orleans have been touted
as a neighborhood redevelopment tool to boost property values and avoid
unkempt property that doesn't contribute to the tax base. They're also a
symbol of the area's shrunken population, and an overt admission by
government that many idle properties could remain vacant for years without
such an initiative.

Homeowners in St. Bernard responded in droves after the parish created a
call center this summer, with nearly 2,000 homeowners expressing interest in
the 4,038 formerly flooded lots in the parish that were sold to the Road
Home program.

The parish has signed its end of an agreement to begin transferring lots
from the Louisiana Land Trust, the state holding agency for Road Home
properties, to interested landowners. Michael Taylor, the executive director
of the land trust, said his office has not yet received the paperwork but
said there should be no delays in signing once it arrives.

St. Bernard Parish President Craig Taffaro said he expects some of the first
property transfers to occur in January.

Prices aren't calculated

Still unknown at this stage is how much the lots will cost. The parish has
to hire an appraiser to determine the selling price of each lot, a key piece
of information for homeowners who have already poured thousands of dollars
into rebuilding flooded homes.

"Everybody is sitting at the edge of their seats, biting their nails,
wondering if it's going to be affordable, " Brining said.

According to the parish's Lot Next Door plan approved by the Louisiana
Recovery Authority, the properties will be sold at "fair market value."

But pinpointing the value of a vacant lot can be difficult, particularly
because Lot Next Door rules prevent a buyer from building a house on the
land. Estimates would be based largely on how much value a homeowner could
expect to gain by increasing lot size.

"What's the value of a piece of land that you can never develop for a
house?" asked David Boehlke, a neighborhood redevelopment consultant with
the Greater New Orleans Foundation who has worked with St. Bernard in
developing the program. "It's difficult to put restrictions on land use and
then expect to get any kind of market value for the land."

Most money from the property sales will go to the state Office of Community
Development, which intends to funnel the proceeds back to the parishes. In
St. Bernard's estimated budget for the Road Home property plan, the parish
anticipates $61.7 million from property sales, but Taffaro cautioned that
revenues could be much lower.

Country living in the city

Still, some residents are simply eager for the chance to spread out. Even
before the Lot Next Door program was announced in St. Bernard, Charmaine and
Richie Clements bought their neighbor's empty lot in the Chalmette Vista
neighborhood late last year in a private sale, eager for their dogs to have
more room to run. They're holding off on more ambitious landscaping plans,
though, hoping to get first dibs on buying two additional adjoining lots
through the program.

Though the cost is unknown, Richie Clements said it's hard to put a value on
living in "a country house 6 miles away from Jackson Square."

"What we decided was that we would stay here and we would invest in the
property, knowing we might not get our investment back, " Charmaine Clements
said. "But that's OK, because this is where we chose to stay."

Based on the initial interest in the program, Taffaro thinks more than half
of the Road Home properties in St. Bernard will be sold to private
homeowners. Once the appraisals are finished, the parish will examine lists
of interested buyers and proceed with the transfers.

The parish has no money yet to hire an appraiser or property manager, and is
working with the land trust to identify financing sources.

Once the parish redevelopment commission approves the sale, title for the
properties can be transferred directly from the land trust to the private
homeowner, avoiding a scenario where the parish takes on the increased
expense and liability of maintaining the lots.

Other uses are possible

There are no guarantees that next-door homeowners would get the properties
automatically. Local government entities such as the parish or local levee
boards get first preference on the Road Home lots, to be used for projects
such as drainage retention ponds, parks or other green space.

Next-door neighbors are the second priority. In the event that two neighbors
each want the vacant lot between their homes, the property would be split in
half. In some cases, neighbors to the rear of a vacant lot could also be
eligible to purchase.

St. Bernard is including a provision to entice new homeowners or former
residents to buy in the parish and also have the chance to purchase the
adjoining Road Home-owned lots. Remaining lots would be left to nonprofit
groups and investors, with a focus on developing affordable housing.

Taffaro said the parish is also exploring programs to encourage Lot Next
Door purchasers to talk with landscape architects or gardeners about how to
best manage the new space.

"We don't just transfer ownership, we transfer it into a use so that
neighborhoods begin to take on a different look and feel than they do now,
where it's just abandoned lots, " Taffaro said.

Based on a grid of the Road Home properties, huge swaths of northern
Chalmette and Arabi near the 40 Arpent Canal are or soon will be vacant lots
included in the program. Twenty-five percent of the 8,365 eligible
properties in Chalmette have been sold to the Road Home. In Arabi, it's 33
percent.

One key difference between St. Bernard's property program and the one run by
the New Orleans Redevelopment Authority is that New Orleans is moving
forward with both Road Home buyout properties and blighted properties that
have been condemned and adjudicated. St. Bernard, for now, is focusing on
the Road Home lots that have clear titles and don't have go through a
time-consuming expropriation process.

The agreement between New Orleans and the state to begin parceling out Road
Home properties is still awaiting approval from Mayor Ray Nagin but could be
signed next week, said outgoing NORA executive director Joe Williams. NORA
has already gotten appraisals for more than 500 properties, which can move
toward sale once the state signs the agreement.

One other sticking point in St. Bernard is the pace of demolitions on Road
Home properties. Of 4,000 lots in the parish, 1,500 still have houses on
them that need to be demolished before a transfer can take place. Taylor, of
the state land trust, said the state is finalizing another contract before
the end of the year to demolish any remaining structures. Slabs also will be
removed using land trust money.

Taffaro said the parish is designing an appeal process if prospective Lot
Next Door buyers want to keep the slab for a patio or garage. In that case,
the parish could require fences or other property improvements to ensure
that the lot doesn't remain a vacant eyesore.

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