[StBernard] St. Bernard Parish's Lot Next Door program is expected to sell about half of available lots

[Westley Annis]

St. Bernard Parish's Lot Next Door program is expected to sell about half of
available lots

Published: Monday, January 17, 2011, 10:00 AM

 By Benjamin Alexander-Bloch, The Times-Picayune 

The deadline for St. Bernard Parish's Lot Next Door program is two weeks
away, and residents have scooped up about a fourth of the available lots,
although final closing is still pending on many.

The program, approved by the Louisiana Recovery Authority in October 2008,
has the goal of shifting the about 4,400 St. Bernard vacant lots sold to the
state's Road Home program back to nearby private property owners. Road Home
purchased the lots with U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development's
Community Development Block Grant funds.

The St. Bernard Parish Housing, Redevelopment and Quality of Life Commission
approves any sale and then the Louisiana Land Trust, the nonprofit holding
company for Road Home properties, transfers the title to the homeowner.

The program has been touted as a neighborhood redevelopment tool to boost
property values and avoid unkempt property that doesn't contribute to the
tax base. It's also an admission that many of the idle properties might
otherwise remain vacant for years, symbols of the parish's shrunken
population.

The most recent U.S. census data estimates from July 2009 have St. Bernard's
population at 40,655 residents, down by about 26,574 residents from
pre-Katrina numbers. Parish government calculates the current population at
about 45,000.

Nearly 80 percent of St. Bernard's housing units had severe damage from
Katrina's storm surge, according to federal estimates.

The February 1 deadline is for the first tier of the program, wherein owners
of domiciled and homestead-exempt homes that are directly adjacent to the
Road Home lots get first dibs on the property. If both homestead-exempt
owners want the lot in between them, it will be split.

The property owners must submit a $650 deposit to Global Risk Solutions, the
Miami-based company contracted to administer the purchase agreements. If the
owners miss the Feb. 1 deadline, they will no longer have the first shot at
the property.

Global Risk Solutions has set up an office on the second floor of the Gulf
Coast Bank building at 1801 East Judge Perez Drive in Chalmette. The
company's phone number is 504.569.1905.

St. Bernard Parish President Craig Taffaro said he expects the program to
move quickly and anticipates selling about 50 percent of the lots.

Following Feb. 1, non-homestead-exempt property owners next door to a Road
Home lot have the chance to buy it. After that, homestead-exempt property
owners to the rear of a Road Home lot have the chance to buy it.

The average price of a lot is about $5,000, with price per square foot
ranging from 60 to 90 cents, Taffaro said. The lot appraisals, commissioned
by the parish, factor in that, under the program, properties can be used
only as a yard or for home expansion, such as to add a pool, garage or an
attached guest house - not for new home construction.

Taffaro said after administrative costs, the parish anticipates averaging
about a $300 profit per lot.

The parish has hired the New Orleans planning firm Waggonner & Ball
Architects to recommend what should be done with the lots that aren't sold
through the Lot Next Door program. The recommendations are anticpated by the
end of the year. While unsold lots would be transferred to the parish,
Taffaro said that's the worst-case scenario, as then the parish would become
responsible for maintaining them.

Before sales of the Road Home lots began, Louisiana Land Trust, which held
about 8,800 lots including many in New Orleans, paid between $20 million and
$30 million a year for grass-cutting, maintenance and security on its
properties, according to the land trust's own estimates in 2008.

The parish has given about two dozen lots to various nonprofit groups, such
as the National Relief Network and the St. Bernard Project, to develop
single-family, affordable housing, Taffaro said.

The New Orleans Lot Next Door program had only 2,500 eligible participants
out of about 5,000 Road Home properties. Of those, about 800 have signed or
are pending purchase agreements and 200 more are expected to be completed
within the next four months, according to the New Orleans Redevelopment
Authority.