[StBernard] St. Bernard residents, politicians voice opposition to mixed-income apartment complexes at meeting

[Westley Annis]

St. Bernard residents, politicians voice opposition to mixed-income
apartment complexes at meeting
by Chris Kirkham, the Times-Picayune 
Tuesday July 14, 2009, 8:04 AM
A packed house of St. Bernard Parish residents and politicians on Monday
continued to voice strident opposition to four proposed mixed-income
apartment complexes in Chalmette, even after the state housing officials
they were expecting didn't show up for the meeting. 


Board members of the Louisiana Housing Finance Agency told parish officials
last week they would not attend a planned bus tour and public meeting with
residents and landlords that had been scheduled for Monday afternoon, saying
they did not agree to the meeting afterward. 

The housing finance board approved tax credits last year that are critical
to construction of four controversial mixed-income apartment buildings
planned in Chalmette, but parish officials hope the board will take a second
look at the amount of rental property already available in the parish. 

An ongoing controversy over the developments has embroiled St. Bernard
Parish government in a monthslong fair housing lawsuit, and prompted a
federal judge to order in March that the parish strike down a construction
ban that had blocked developers from moving forward with the projects. 

Wayne Woods, the chairman of the housing finance agency board, said Monday
that he and other board members had agreed to do the bus tour as a
fact-finding mission, but that his understanding was that "there were not
going be any deliberations or discussions about what should happen or what
should not happen." 

"I'm not in a position at this point to answer questions from the public or
any of the business leaders or the landlords in the area," Woods said.
"Before I can be able to intelligently respond, I have to be able to educate
myself as to those issues." 

The mixed-income apartment proposals have drawn a firestorm of criticism
from parish residents, and previous public hearings on the issue have drawn
hundreds of residents in opposition to the developments. 

Woods said he is open to the idea of rescheduling the parish tour to get a
better understanding for future tax credit allocations, but he said the idea
of rescinding the low-income housing tax credits for these four projects is
off the table. 

"It is not possible to rescind the tax credits, and it's not something that
I would even consider at this point," he said. "If we rescinded the tax
credits, we would open ourselves up to liability from the developer." 

At Monday night's meeting, St. Bernard Parish President Craig Taffaro and
Councilman Wayne Landry argued that the data used by the Louisiana Housing
Finance Agency to make decisions on the tax credits did not accurately
reflect the current situation in the parish. The numbers used by the board
in its "housing needs assessment" were compiled in 2006, but Taffaro said
those numbers did not reflect the large number of new rentals that have come
online as single-family homes have been converted to rental units nor did it
consider rental units that are still planned under the Road Home Small
Rental Program. 

"What we feel . . . right now is that the application that was made was an
application that had flawed information," Taffaro said about the housing
board's decision. "I don't think anyone was trying to dupe any agency or
organization. It was a matter that the information was not accurate, and is
not accurate for the situation for today or projected for five years. So
we'll continue to try to put that information in front of the Louisiana
Housing Finance Agency, and the governor, and others." 

Landry urged everyone in the room to draft a letter to Gov. Bobby Jindal
about affordable housing issues in St. Bernard, and to send it to the parish
government complex to be sent in one large package. 

"Let him see where we think there are discrepancies in our data," Landry
said. "If I am right and there are discrepancies, certainly the governor
would want to be influential in determining if something was wrong." 

. . . . . . . 

Chris Kirkham can be reached at ckirkham at timespicayune.com or 504.826.3321.