reversed logo New Orleans Black

More Articles

N.O. agency airs plan for bought-out lots

Section: Business

David Hammer

New Orleans' redevelopment agency has a plan to turn thousands of Road Home buyout properties into new homes and green space, a process that could take 10 years and cost more than $15 million a year.

But that cost depends on major state and federal subsidies the agency hasn't yet secured.

The New Orleans Redevelopment Authority, or NORA, has completed the plan as required by the Louisiana Recovery Authority. If the LRA approves it, the state will start sending NORA what should be about 7,000 storm-damaged lots it bought or will soon buy through the Road Home program.

Before the LRA rules on NORA's plan, the local agency will hold a hearing tonight at 6:30 p.m. at the City Council chambers to get public input.

"It's critical that we hear what the people have to say about this process," said Joe Williams, NORA's executive director. "There is a presumption in New Orleans that the demand for property is unlimited. The unfortunate reality is that soaring construction costs and homeowners' insurance premiums have driven the price of housing so high that it has limited demand and hindered affordability."

NORA faces an unprecedented challenge. The process must proceed slowly, the NORA plan says, because the agency must not only manage the incoming Road Home properties, but must strategically avoid crippling the real estate market. And NORA must manage the bought-out properties in concert with the 10,000 blighted or adjudicated lots it already has on the books. Further complicating matters, the agency soon may take on up to 15,000 other properties in substandard condition.

The last thing NORA wants to do is shuffle the properties on to developers indiscriminately, leaving large pockets of unsellable homes.

In its first year handling Road Home buyout lots, NORA wants to sell at least 240 of them for market-rate redevelopment, sell at least another 240 for developing affordable housing, turn another 100 into open space, and move more than 75 of them through the city's Lot Next Door program, which lets homeowners buy neighboring vacant lots.

If NORA meets those goals, and expands the program as homeownership demand grows and construction costs shrink, it can resolve about 800 Road Home lots a year, according to the agency's plan.

The Louisiana Land Trust, formerly known as the Road Home Corp., is the quasi-public agency the state created to hold the Road Home buyouts until they can be transferred to parish agencies such as NORA. The Land Trust estimates 6,000 to 9,000 buyouts could be in Orleans Parish when the Road Home process is done, meaning that at 800 a year, it could take more than 10 years to return all of the properties to commerce.