[StBernard] St. Bernard Parish needs new attitude on rentals: An editorial

[Westley Annis]

St. Bernard Parish needs new attitude on rentals: An editorial
By Editorial page staff, The Times-Picayune 
January 14, 2010, 6:11AM
The Department of Housing and Urban Development is investigating complaints
about St. Bernard Parish's post-Katrina rental permitting program, and that
scrutiny and the change it might bring are welcome.

Parish officials have stubbornly defended the hurdles they erected to
renting property, saying their intent was to preserve St. Bernard's high
level of home ownership. But critics believe the real aim was to prevent
African-Americans from moving into the parish.

The ordinance that the Parish Council adopted in 2006 initially required
council approval for leases to tenants who were not related by blood to
their landlords, lending credence to the criticism.

The Parish Council dropped the blood- relative provision after the Greater
New Orleans Fair Housing Action Center sued in federal court. Now that same
group has filed formal complaints on behalf of several landlords who say
that they've encountered delays and subjective decision-making on rental
permits.

Some homeowners also have been exploiting a provision of the law that
prevents more than two rental properties within 500 feet. Some people have
taken out permits not because they want to rent out their homes but to
prevent neighbors from doing so. The parish hasn't enforced a provision of
the law that requires proof that a property is being leased, an omission
that makes the strategy possible.

But now, some council members say that they want significant revisions or
even a total overhaul of the law because they fear repercussions from HUD,
which oversees Community Development Block Grant money. The new law would
concentrate on landlord accountability instead of on density.

"No one wants to be the champion of removing that ordinance,'' Councilman
Wayne Landry said. "But at the end of the day it may be something necessary
for the larger good, which is not putting our recovery dollars at risk.''

Fair laws that are equitably enforced are also part of the larger good, and
it's too bad St. Bernard officials didn't see that sooner.