[StBernard] St. Bernard Parish will meet to discuss disposition of vacant lots

[Westley Annis]

St. Bernard Parish will meet to discuss disposition of vacant lots

Published: Sunday, May 20, 2012, 9:00 AM

 By Benjamin Alexander-Bloch, The Times-Picayune 

Following the St. Bernard Parish Council's adoption of a three-year
redevelopment and disposition plan for some 2,000 Louisiana Land Trust
properties, the parish commission overseeing the properties will hold
meetings this week to nail down how to best handle the vacant lots. In the
meantime, the state's Office of Community Development and the U.S.
Department of Housing and Urban Development will review the administration's
LLT plan and specify any needed changes. The state's Louisiana Land Trust is
the nonprofit holding company for properties acquired by the state under its
Road Home program after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.

Swaths of St. Bernard's storm-ravaged landscape were -- and still are --
ripe for planning, rebuilding, molding and reimagining the future of the
parish. These rebuilt houses next to vacant lots were photographed in 2008.

There is $3 million earmarked for parish LLT property maintenance and Parish
President Dave Peralta said last week that the parish is obligated "to
wisely use these lots to rejuvenate (parish) neighborhoods, increase
property values and improve overall quality of life."

About 4,500 lots in the parish were sold to the Road Home program, and the
Louisiana Land Trust in turn sold about half of the lots to neighboring
property owners in what was dubbed the Lot Next Door program.

St. Bernard has about 40,000 residents, about 41 percent less than its
pre-hurricane population of 67,000, according to recent U.S. census
estimates. Arabi and Chalmette have more than half of the remaining 2,000
LLT lots.

Parish officials have predicted that the parish will acquire the remaining
LLT properties from the state by the end of 2012, but it's possible the
state may agree to hold on to them for longer, something the parish probably
would embrace since control of the properties also entails maintenance and
liability costs. The parish might have to take over maintenance
responsibilities as early as June 1.

The parish's Housing, Redevelopment and Quality of Life Authority Commission
is the official recipient of the parish LLT properties and the three main
disposition paths for the lots are through the Lot Next Door program; for
public use, recreation, environmental quality and ecotourism; and private
redevelopment. The parish plan estimates that about 1,300 LLT properties
will be sold for private redevelopment and the remainder either maintained
by the parish or used for public, recreational, environmental or ecotourism
purposes.

Before approving the LLT plan at its meeting last week, the Parish Council
amended it to include market considerations. For example, the council
determined it might harm the local real estate market to put all the
properties up for sale at once.

The council also decided that while the parish wouldn't sell or auction
properties for less than 90 percent of their appraised value, that it could
sell bundled properties for below that margin.

The HRQL commission will debate and possibly decide on a specific
distribution plan for the 2,000 lots during a meeting in the Parish Council
Chambers in Chalmette on Wednesday at 3 p.m.

Council Chairman Guy McInnis, who sits on the commission, said the plan
likely will include a mix of individual sales, auctions and bundled property
sales, and that the commission also will discuss the pace of sales and the
percentage and size of bundles.
 "This is going to be the first time we are selling lots where people can
actually build homes," McInnis noted, emphasizing the need for public input.

The Lot Next Door program, the only previous sales mechanism for the LLT
properties, let private property owners purchase vacant LLT lots abutting
their properties. But under that program, the lots could only be used as
yards or for home expansion, such as pools, garages or attached guest
houses, not for new home construction.

Parish Housing and Redevelopment officials say they already have received
more than 80 inquiries about LLT properties for small-scale redevelopment
(up to five lots) and a number of developers have expressed interest in
acquiring LLT properties for large-scale redevelopment (more than five
lots).

The commission will host two additional town hall meetings on Saturday in
the council chambers to discuss neighborhood covenants for LLT properties -
one from 10 a.m. to noon will discuss eastern St. Bernard properties, and
one from 1 to 3 p.m will discuss western St. Bernard properties.

As part of the general LLT plan, the HRQL commission eventually will draft a
redevelopment plan for each proposed subdistrict and present them to the
parish Planning Commission and the Parish Council for approval. Subdistrict
covenants would be attached to property titles, although redevelopment
guidelines largely will be reserved for large-scale developments.

Benjamin Alexander-Bloch can be reached at bbloch at timespicayune.com or
504.826.3321.



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