[StBernard] Testimony begins in lawsuit challenging St. Bernard Parish multi-family housing moratorium

[Westley Annis]

Testimony begins in lawsuit challenging St. Bernard Parish multi-family
housing moratorium
by Chris Kirkham, The Times-Picayune 
Wednesday March 11, 2009, 12:10 PM
Testimony is being heard today in a federal suit filed against St. Bernard
Parish by a fair housing group that contends the parish's moratorium on new
multi-family housing developments violates fair housing laws. 

The case centers on four mixed-income apartment buildings proposed for a
parcel of vacant land across from Chalmette Battlefield. The developers
bought the Chalmette tract from the Arlene and Joseph Meraux Charitable
Foundation.

The Greater New Orleans Fair Housing Action Center claims the moratorium,
which the Parish Council adopted in September 2008, is discriminatory
because it limits rental housing, which the group says disproportionately
affects African-Americans. 

Parish Council members have said the moratorium and an earlier ordinance
that requires specific council approval for many home rentals are meant to
preserve the character of single-family neighborhoods and help protect
property values in an unstable real estate market. 

Testimony opened in U.S. District Judge Ginger Berrgian's courtroom this
morning with Matthew Harris, a developer for Provident Realty Advisors, a
Dallas company that wants to build four complexes with a combined 288 units,
saying the moratorium jeopardizes the federal funding the company hopes to
use.

James Perry, executive director of the Greater New Orleans Fair Housing
Action Center, testified that the moratorium is discriminatory because it
limits rental housing, which he said disproportionately affects minorities.

The group also sued the parish over the council's adoption in 2006 of a
rental ordinance that initially included a clause requiring council approval
for homeowners to rent their homes to anyone who was not a blood relative.
The ordinance applied only to single-family homes that had not been rentals
prior to the Katrina.

The council removed the blood relative clause and the suit was settled, with
the parish not admitting fault but agreeing to pay $32,500 and legal fees to
settle damage claims.

Later, that amended rental ordinance was upheld by a federal judge who ruled
against a group of investors who had sought to have the ordinance tossed
out.