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New Orleans Unveils Controversial Rebuilding Plan

Posted on: Wednesday, 11 January 2006, 18:30 CST

By Ellen Wulfhorst

NEW ORLEANS -- New Orleans officials on Wednesday unveiled a controversial recovery plan giving residents four months to prove they will rebuild in the devastated city before their neighborhoods could be declared off-limits to redevelopment.

The plan calls for a much smaller city, estimating just half of the 500,000 people who lived there before Hurricane Katrina struck on August 29 will return in the next two years.

It proposes residents and experts form planning teams for each neighborhood that will decide by May 20 on the fate of those most heavily damaged by the storm and the flooding that followed. It was designed by the urban-planning panel of the Bring Back New Orleans Commission appointed by Mayor Ray Nagin.

For a neighborhood to be ruled viable, half the residents should commit to come back, the commission proposed as a guideline. Until decisions are made, a moratorium will be placed on rebuilding in badly damaged sections such as New Orleans East, the waterfront Lakeview and the poverty-stricken Lower Ninth Ward.

The proposal drew loud "boos" and shouts of anger from residents who crowded a downtown hotel meeting room for its announcement.

"I'm ready to rebuild. I'm not going to let you take everything. I'm ready to fight to get my property together," one man shouted from the back of the room.

Carolyn Parker, a resident of the ruined Lower Ninth, told the panel: "I don't think it's right that you try to take my property.

"Over my dead body," she said. "I didn't die with Katrina."

If a neighborhood is not deemed habitable, or too few residents return, the city could ban redevelopment and turn it into a park or open space. Property owners could be compensated in a proposed federal buyback program that would provide 100 percent of their homes' pre-storm value.

ELIMINATE NEIGHBORHOODS

"There's no question there's going to be shrinkage. People don't want to hear that," said Joseph Canizaro, chairman of the panel.

The concept of getting rid of certain neighborhoods altogether has angered many black residents of the Lower Ninth Ward who fear theirs is among the most likely to be closed.

The plan will cost some $12 billion for property buybacks, $4.8 billion to build transportation and another $1 billion for demolition of housing and reconstruction of damaged public buildings, said John Beckman, a planning consultant for the commission who laid out the details for the public.

The plan gives everyone an opportunity to return, said Beckman, adding: "We want these people back, every single one of them."

Janet Howard, head of the Bureau of Governmental Research in New Orleans that studies public policy, called the proposal "vague."

"At this point in time it's more of a process than a plan," she said at the meeting. Calling it a step in the right direction, she said: "This is not an articulated overall scheme."

The plan depends on the Federal Emergency Management Agency issuing update maps showing the most flood-prone areas, Beckman said. Those maps, which would help determine who gets flood insurance, are expected by March but the panel called for them in a month.

The plan calls for improved flood protection, a high-speed light rail system, a single authority to replace the multiple boards that oversee the levee system and closing the Mississippi River-Gulf Outlet, a shipping shortcut to the Gulf of Mexico blamed for much of the flooding on the eastern side of the city.

Many aspects of the plan are recommendations and would require approval by federal and state authorities that would have to provide much of the funding.

"This report is controversial. It pushes the envelope," the mayor told the crowd. "Let's discuss it, let's debate it, let's analyze it and let's tweak it.

"This is a recommendation," he added. "We as a community will have the ultimate say."

Some 80 percent of the city flooded after Katrina. Officials said half the city's households were inundated with four feet (1.1 meter) of water or more.

Only about 100,000 residents have returned since the hurricane, and much of the city is uninhabitable. Redevelopment already has stalled as residents complain of getting little or no assistance from FEMA or private insurance companies.

Source: REUTERS

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