[StBernard] St. Bernard Parish land use's past, present and possible future discussed

[Westley Annis]

St. Bernard Parish land use's past, present and possible future discussed
 By Benjamin Alexander-Bloch, NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune 
on December 03, 2012 at 9:00 PM, updated December 03, 2012 at 9:34 PM Print

St. Bernard Parish residents on Monday night heard about how their parish
real estate, population and land uses have changed, for the better and
worse, during the past 15 years and beyond, from Hurricane Katrina to
decades before, all the way back to the 1960s. Residents -- about 200 all
told, more than the initial meeting place, the Christian Fellowship Church
room in Violet, could hold -- flocked to the first community meeting to help
form the basis of the parish's recently launched comprehensive master land
use and zoning plan process.

"St. Bernard used to be a place where the housing fit the needs for one's
whole life, from apartments to starter homes to nice move-up homes," said
Jeff Winston of Boulder, Co.-based MIG/Winston Associates, who is
spearheading the study with various subcontractors. "Now that appears less
the case."

Charles Buki, founder of Alexandria, Va.-based czb LLC, who is handling
strategy and analysis for the planning process, said, "We all know why
people aren't moving to St. Bernard right now. It does not make financial
sense to move to here right now. Right now, it makes sense for the dollar
stores to be here and for Wal-Mart to be here.

"But St. Bernard is not retaining families that can make choices except for
folks who already are emotionally attached to being here," he said.

Buki also said that the parish getting back to its pre-Katrina population of
about 65,000 likely is unrealistic and pegged the more realistic number at
45,000. "If you want things to change you need to control the market, but it
won't change unless you can adapt," Buki said. "And property values are a
function of the demand to live here -- when it goes up, property values go
up and then you have more tax dollars to make improvements."

Parish Director of Community Development Candace Watkins said she picked the
planners who are handling the process because their proposal "was extremely
empathy-based, meaning it was very focused on the desires and the emotions
involved in the process, of the people who live in the community.

"This is not just a technical document," she said. "This is what you want,
what you see, how you envision your parish."

The process is in its first phase, which means it is engaging in the
"collaborative review and determination of values" phase, according to
literature handed out at the meeting, which was moved to a larger auditorium
in the church to accommodate the crowd. Watkins said this phase is expected
to wrap up by September, 2013.

"If you want things to change you need to control the market, but it won't
change unless you can adapt." -- Charles Buki
While the value of median homes in St. Bernard dropped only slightly from
2000 to 2011 -- from about $85,000 to $83,000 -- median home values in
Orleans, Jefferson, St. Tammany and Plaquemines parishes all increased by at
least $20,000, according to an analysis presented Monday by Buki.

In fact, Buki said the market "hit a wall 10 years before Katrina, in 1995."
He said that between 1965 and 1975, St. Bernard residents were building the
parish, and between 1975 and 1985, the parish was growing. Between 1985 and
1995, the parish simply was "enjoying it, as everything fit together, jobs
were matching up with housing prices and it just felt great to be here,"
Buki said.

"But then between 1995 and 2005, you fell asleep at the wheel, people seem
to have stopped taking care of things and just kind of let things happen,"
Buki said. "So actually the market peaked 10 years before Katrina, and so
now you have to unwind a lot of that stuff."

But many in the audience continued to refer to Katrina, which destroyed
every house but one in the parish.  Even Fire Chief Tommy Stone explained to
the planners, "We had a lot of the housing companies flip these homes after
Katrina, and just do substandard work."

The czb study showed that St. Bernard's real estate market largely caters to
families with combined annual incomes of between $20,000 and $60,000. That's
compared with St. Tammany Parish, which caters to families with combined
incomes of between $100,000 and $200,000, or Jefferson Parish, with families
who have about an $75,000 annual income.

Owner households in St. Bernard have decreased from 18,753 in 2000 to 8,297
in 2011- - down by about half, according to the czb study. The number of
single-family homes also is down, from 16,878 to 8,480. St. Bernard
households in rental units have declined from 6,370 to 3,977.

Meanwhile the czb study pegged the 2011 population at 36,034 residents, down
30,407 from 2000.

As part of the planning process, the parish asks residents to take a survey
with a variety of questions about their community, what they feel are
important aspects of the parish as a whole, and how they feel people outside
the parish perceive the parish. There also are general questions, such as,
"Is St. Bernard Parish headed in the right direction overall?"

For more information about the comprehensive planning process, visit a
parish website, www.stbernardparishcompplan.com. People also can direct
questions to Candace Watkins, the parish's community development director,
at 504.278.4310 or 504.355.4427.