New Orleans City Council agrees to ease zoning rules for Lower 9th Ward housing

BY JESSICA WILLIAMS | This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. MAR 29, 2019 - 3:39 PM

New Orleans City Council member Cyndi Nguyen, whose district includes New Orleans East, listens to public comments before voting on whether Entergy’s $210 million power plant should proceed in New Orleans, La., Thursday, Feb. 21, 2019.

Advocate staff photo by SHAWN FINK

Builders aiming to break ground on new homes in the Lower 9th Ward will have a smoother road ahead under zoning rules the City Council finalized Thursday.

The council unanimously agreed to ease construction rules on 30-foot-wide lots, which are smaller than current construction rules require but abundant in that neighborhood. Before, developers had to get special permits in order to build on those lots.

The council also lifted a requirement that single-family homes have off-street parking, and agreed to cut the number of required off-street parking spaces for two-family homes from two to one.

“As we talk about building affordable houses and restoring neighborhoods, this has been a barrier for developers in the (Lower 9th Ward) that they have to go through,” said City Councilwoman Cyndi Nguyen, who authored the measure.

Thursday's move came four months after the council directed the City Planning Commission to study reducing some of the restrictions on Lower 9th Ward developers. 

Officials hope the changes will help spur residential construction in an area where progress has been slow-going after Hurricane Katrina's devastation in 2005. 

Because many homeowners in the area received their property through inheritances or had paid off their mortgages before the storm, they weren’t required to keep flood insurance and often didn’t have it.

Although a $13.4 billion Road Home grant program for people without insurance doled out funds that matched what homes were worth before Katrina, that aid only went so far in neighborhoods with depressed property values. 

In the end, many residents who wanted to return after the storm could not. The New Orleans Redevelopment Authority assumed control of lots homeowners gave up and has been trying to sell them to interested buyers and homebuilders ever since.

Businesses, meanwhile, have shied away from the area’s reduced population. City officials hope the construction of more homes will help jump-start broader investment in the area. 

The regulations would also allow front yards to be set back 10 feet from the city streets, instead of 20 feet, as had been required before. 

Nguyen said she hoped the move would help agencies like the redevelopment authority and the developers it works with to get projects off the ground more quickly. 

"This is a step to help the L9 to rebuild many of its vacant lots," she said. 

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Lower 9th Ward Could Become Home Again with Subsidies from New Orleans Redevelopment Authority

BY JESSICA WILLIAMS | This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. OCT 13, 2018 - 6:45 PM

Lots for sale in the Lower 9th Ward: The New Orleans Redevelopment Authority will offer 15 lots to homebuilders and prospective homebuyers at reduced prices, a small part of a broader effort to revitalize the still-recovering neighborhood.
Advocate graphic

Lower 9th Ward native Kendall Spears thinks the neighborhood where he grew up got shafted after Hurricane Katrina.

The neighborhood suffered the most catastrophic damage of any part of New Orleans from the storm and the subsequent flooding, but Spears doesn’t think the allocation of federal or state recovery dollars to the neighborhood reflected that devastation.

As a result, too few Lower 9 residents have been able to return and too few businesses have located there. City subsidy programs in recent years have been few and far between, he said.

But Spears, 28, is feeling more optimistic these days. He's hoping to be a new homeowner in his old neighborhood, under a city program aimed at lifting the Lower 9th Ward's prospects.

"I figure that part of my responsibility is to fix up where I'm from," he said. "And why wouldn't I want to live in my own neighborhood, given the right opportunity and chance?"

The program, run by the New Orleans Redevelopment Authority, offers subsidies to developers willing to turn some of the vacant Lower 9th Ward properties NORA owns into affordable single-family homes for purchase. It will also help would-be homebuyers like Spears with down payments and closing costs.

While the Lower 9th Ward was mostly inhabited by homeowners before the storm, some advocates have charged that redevelopment projects in the area have mainly targeted renters. They want NORA and other agencies that own lots in the Lower 9th Ward to market to would-be homeowners as well.

But developers and some city officials say the demand for homes in the Lower 9th Ward has been lackluster because the neighborhood lacks important services. They see it as a chicken-and-egg problem that might be remedied if public subsidies could be used, at least at first, to lure new renters.

NORA, which works to return vacant or blighted city properties to commerce, has had to try to please both sides. More than two years ago, it partnered with developers and other agencies in an effort to build 188 rental homes. One firm, Neville Development Group, broke ground on more than 40 of those rentals this summer.

And NORA this month solicited bids from eligible homebuilders for some of its vacant lots, its second such request in as many years. Its first, which was targeted at the Lower 9th and other neighborhoods, didn't net any applicants for the Lower 9th.

"Based on the comments and the feedback we've gotten from some of our partners in the community, we are hoping to get some good responses this time," NORA Executive Director Brenda Breaux said recently.

Breaux's agency owns roughly 600 lots in the Lower 9th Ward. Under the program, each eligible homebuilder may buy and redevelop up to 15 lots, many of them located along Andry Street.

The firms may buy the lots for 10 percent of their fair market value or $2,500, whichever is greater. NORA will then provide low-interest loans of as much as $100,000 per property to build homes. Firms can later have up to $75,000 of each loan forgiven.

Developers will be selected based on their experience, the strength of their proposals, their ability to repay the loans, the impact their projects would have on the surrounding area and their willingness to work with disadvantaged businesses.

The developers must also work with real estate agents to find prospective buyers.

The homebuyers, meanwhile, can get $25,000 in down payment assistance and potentially as much as $65,000, depending on the amount of financing the home's developer receives but does not use.

The program is generally open to people who earn no more than 80 percent of the area's median income — $36,750 this year for a single resident — though there may be some exceptions for people who earn more than that.

Public school teachers, law enforcement officers, firefighters and emergency medical technicians will get first choice of the homes for sale.

Developers have until Nov. 5 to apply. NORA will award lots to eligible developers in December.

The program is being funded by about $1 million in state housing grants.

The subsidies are needed because low-income people often can’t return to the neighborhoods they left after Katrina, Spears said. And few other city areas need as much help as does the Lower 9th Ward, which has whole blocks of empty lots, he said.

Spears recalled a lesson he learned as a child at Bunny Friend Playground in the nearby Upper 9th Ward, from a coach who told Spears and other boys to keep the park clean.

"Coach Melvin would say if we would pick up trash, other people would pitch in too," he said. "If you start to make things look better with this program, and put effort in, I believe the people around you will start to do better and make more investments."

View original article from The New Orleans Advocate here.

Developers Chosen to Build Affordable Single-family Homes in Lower 9th Ward

BY JESSICA WILLIAMS | This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. DEC 24, 2018 - 10:08 AM

Four developers have been chosen to build affordable homes in the Lower 9th Ward as part of a plan by city officials to revitalize that neighborhood.
Advocate graphic

Four developers have been chosen to build affordable homes in the Lower 9th Ward as part of a plan by city officials to revitalize that neighborhood.

The nonprofit groups tapped by the New Orleans Redevelopment Authority this month include Home by Hand, Lucas Construction, UnCommon Construction and SBP (formerly the St. Bernard Project).

Up to 16 vacant properties along Andry Street near Dr. Martin Luther King Charter School were available for rehabilitation. The nonprofit Home by Hand will develop up to four of them, while SBP will take up to three properties. 

Lucas Construction will take up to two, and UnCommon Construction will take one.

Aaron Frumin, of UnCommon, which partners with high schools to award construction apprenticeships to students, said the project will allow his nonprofit to fulfill its mission while also serving a neighborhood in dire need of more investment.

The redevelopment authority made the properties available as part of its Orleans Housing Investment Program, which offers subsidies to developers willing to build affordable single-family homes for purchase. The program also helps would-be homebuyers with down payments and closing costs.

The program is seen by some advocates as a way to encourage home buying in and area that before Hurricane Katrina had one of the highest rates of black homeownership in the city. 

City officials also hope the program will help increase the area's population and attract the private investments it now lacks. 

A panel of NORA staffers and city officials evaluated seven proposals before selecting four developers to receive the awards. 

Developers were selected based on their experience, the strength of their proposals, their ability to repay the loans, the impact their projects would have on the surrounding area and their willingness to work with disadvantaged businesses.

Home by Hand scored the highest, with 482 of 500 possible points, followed by SBP, with 426 points; Lucas Construction, with 410 points and UnCommon, with 380 points. 

The groups will buy the lots for 10 percent of their fair market value or $2,500, whichever is greater. NORA will then provide low-interest loans of as much as $100,000 per property to build the homes. Firms can later have up to $75,000 of each loan forgiven.

The developers must also work with real estate agents to find prospective buyers.

The homebuyers, meanwhile, can get $25,000 in down payment assistance and potentially as much as $65,000, depending on the amount of financing the home's developer receives but does not use.

The program is generally open to people who earn no more than 80 percent of the area's median income, or $52,500 for a family of four.

However, families who earn up to 120 percent of median income — $78,720 for a family of four — and can show that they were negatively impacted by hurricanes Katrina or Rita are also eligible. 

Public school teachers, law enforcement officers, firefighters and emergency medical technicians will get first choice of the homes for sale.

The program is being funded by about $1 million in state housing grants, and firms will have a year to redevelop the properties upon purchasing them from NORA. 

Frumin said the redevelopment authority's willingness to subsidize development in distressed areas is a win-win for nonprofits like his, which often run on a shoestring budget. 

"It’s like having our cake and eating it, too," he said. 

The New Orleans Redevelopment Authority (NORA’s) Lots To Celebrate initiative supports the creation and implementation of temporary public art and community events on NORA-owned vacant land in Orleans Parish. The official Lots To Celebrate programming interventions intend to actively engage residents and community members in the design and planning process and incorporate the celebratory themes of community pride and reflection on the city’s 300th anniversary. The official Lots To Celebrate project partners include: Water Block, LLC; Team Happy Foundation; Advocacy Center of Louisiana and PlayBuild NOLA, and will take place at various locations across the city beginning October 20th through November 24th. Please come out and celebrate!

Download the official Lots to Celebrate Informational Event Flyer.