[StBernard] St. Bernard Parish officials want review of rental supply; fair housing group seeks contempt order

[Westley Annis]

To put it bluntly, how much time do we have until Provident, money-grubbing
blood sucker, lose the credits?  Don't they have a limited amount of time to
get this done?






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	St. Bernard Parish officials want review of rental supply; fair
housing
	group seeks contempt order
	by Chris Kirkham, The Times-Picayune
	Wednesday June 10, 2009, 6:13 PM
	As the fallout from a federal fair housing lawsuit over four
mixed-income
	Chalmette apartment complexes continues to mount in St. Bernard
Parish,
	parish leaders were in Baton Rouge Wednesday asking a state board to
take
	another look at the amount of low-income rentals already in the
parish.
	
	St. Bernard Parish President Craig Taffaro and Councilmen George
Cavignac,
	Fred Everhardt and Wayne Landry went before members of the Louisiana
Housing
	Finance Agency to argue that St. Bernard is already saturated with
	subsidized rentals that threaten to destabilize the entire housing
market --
	without adding four more 72-unit complexes.
	
	The housing agency allocated low-income housing tax credits last
November
	that are crucial in financing construction of the four proposed
Chalmette
	apartment buildings at the center of the court dispute.
	
	"We're not a community that can afford to exclude anyone," Taffaro
said. "We
	can't afford to exclude affordable housing, market-rate housing,
subsidized
	housing. But what we cannot afford also is to unbalance that
formula."
	
	Wednesday's discussion came as the plaintiffs in the fair housing
case,
	Provident Realty Advisors of Dallas and the Greater New Orleans Fair
Housing
	Action Center, filed a motion in federal court to hold St. Bernard
Parish
	officials in contempt of court after they blocked Provident's
attempt to
	move forward with construction in April. The federal court case
centered on
	a parish ban on construction of large apartment complexes, which the
	plaintiffs argued was a "racially discriminatory" attempt to prevent
the
	four mixed-income developments from moving forward.
	
	U.S. District Judge Ginger Berrigan in March ordered the Parish
Council to
	rescind the building moratorium, but a month later the parish's
planning
	commission denied Provident's request to resubdivide the four lots.
In May
	the developers tried to appeal the commission's decision to the
Parish
	Council, but members directed them back to the planning commission.
	
	In the motion, Provident and the fair housing center claim the
latest
	decisions by the commission and the council are "a continuation of
their
	discriminatory efforts to keep potential African-American renters
out of St.
	Bernard Parish."
	
	The plaintiffs have requested a hearing on June 24, and want
Berrigan to
	order the parish to pay all attorney's fees and potential damages to
	Provident resulting from the delays.
	
	The parish has appealed Berrigan's previous decision.
	
	On Wednesday, Taffaro limited his comments several times because of
the
	litigation, at one point saying "I'm not allowed to ask you guys to
pull the
	tax credits."
	
	That prompted a quick response from housing board member Allison
Jones, who
	said, "You guys can do whatever you want, but it'll be over my dead
body."
	
	Taffaro and the councilmen said recent statistics compiled by real
estate
	consultant Wade Ragas show that St. Bernard has a much higher
percentage of
	affordable rentals than surrounding parishes.
	
	The statistics showed that rentals make up about 20 percent of St.
Bernard's
	housing stock, but that 44 percent of those rentals are subsidized
by either
	Section 8 vouchers or the FEMA rental assistance program. By
comparison,
	Regas' stats show that rentals in New Orleans make up 53 percent of
the
	housing stock,but 24 percent of those rentals are subsidized.
	
	Landry said the large supply of rentals is "driving down the prices
for
	homeowners." And Cavignac argued that the average rental rate in St.
Bernard
	is at or below what the Department of Housing and Urban Development
	considers "affordable."
	
	But Jones noted that the statistics cited by the St. Bernard
officials
	directly contradicted statistics given to them by another real
estate
	contractor. Those statistics showed much higher average rents in St.
	Bernard, but were compiled using rental rates as of 2006.
	
	In the end, the housing agency members said they would review both
sets of
	data and come to St. Bernard to get a sense of what was happening on
the
	ground.
	
	Chris Kirkham can be reached at ckirkham at timespicayune.com or
504.826.3363.