St. Bernard Residents Sharply Reject Housing Plan
The continuing battle over the development of four proposed mixed-income apartment complexes in St. Bernard Parish reached a new level Tuesday, as the parish council refused to hear an appeal from the developer, who had been denied permission to start the project.
The plan had been rejected by the St. Bernard Parish Planning Committee. It is at the heart of a debate between parish residents and developers.
During the meeting, Councilman Wayne J. Landry, without going into detail, announced that the appeal would not be heard. In an interview after the meeting, Landry said he received the paperwork late Monday night, giving the council inadequate time to review it. With this rejection, Landry said, the developers have two options: give up or return to the planning committee, which had already denied developers access to the tracts of land needed to begin construction.
John Relman, an attorney representing the Dallas-based developers, Provident Realty Advisors, said he was confused about the decision. “There was no clear articulation for the denial,” Relman said. “We still don’t know why we were denied.” Relman did not say how the developers plan to move forward.
Relman attempted to make a lengthy presentation to the council, but Landry cut him short, citing a two-minute speaking limit for public comments.
Developers argue that the complex will provide struggling New Orleans residents with an affordable place to live, while neighbors say it will lead to an increase in crime and a decrease in surrounding property values. The 72-unit complexes would reserve 50 percent of their space for tenants who make about $35,000 or less annually, and 20 percent for those who make less than $20,000 per year.
“The first and foremost concern is for our own safety and welfare,” said Dana Arcement, a licensed real estate broker and parish resident. “We, as a community, are not in favor of those types of developments here. We pride ourselves in single-family home ownership and we do not want these developments to be built here because all they do is perpetuate drugs and crimes. ”
Several residents spoke up during the tense meeting to voice their disapproval of the project.
“We have been ambushed by Katrina and we don’t want to be ambushed again,” said Polly Boudreaux, president of the Lexington Place Civic Corporation, a housing association. “We have made great strides. We struggled to build our neighborhood back to pre-Katrina. We don’t need more drugs and more crime.”
The Greater New Orleans Fair Housing Action Center, which supports the plan, did not immediately return messages seeking comment.
After the meeting, some residents questioned the developers’ motives. “They have nothing else to look out for but their own self interest, their own enrichment on this,” Arcement said. “They do not care about the citizens of this parish.”
Doug Reed, who said he owns several apartment complexes in the area, pointed to his inability to find tenants. He says the proposed units would add more housing to a neighborhood that is still struggling to fill empty buildings. “You have to look at the need,” he said.
Residents say that pre-Katrina, the parish suffered from the types of crime that the mixed income housing complex would bring back.
“We’ve been through it,” Arcement said. “Katrina wiped all that out. We’re looking for a clean slate here. We are looking for a new beginning. We are not a dumping ground, either, for low-income developments to be built here. We just do not want it.”
Reed denied, as The Times-Picayune reported on Tuesday, that race issues are fueling the tensions. “We aren’t talking about race issues here. We are talking about dense rentals,” he said. “We know there is a need for that but we just don’t like this plan. It’s not about ‘not in my back yard’ it’s about ‘do it in a better setting that managed is properly.’”
“We have white trash in this parish, white criminals in this parish,” Arcement said. “We don’t want them living here to protect the best interests of all our residents.”
The developers failed to submit the required wetlands study, drainage study and plans, traffic study and proposed road improvements. When WalMart developed a similar tract of land, all these studies were required before re-subdivision of the land. Many other landowners testified at the previous planning commissioners public hearing that these studies were required of them. If this development were single family homes, these development plans would be required before re-subdivision.
The apartments are not economically viable and fail to meet many of the CDBG funding, new tax market credit and HUD requirements regarding siting minorities and low income housing projects by heavy industry, casino’s, railroads and too far away from transportation, social services or even the job base (which is tourism in New Orleans, not St Bernard Parish, LA). We have trouble evacuating ourselves for hurricanes; will this developer evacuate all these needy families?
Yet, in the name of the almighty dollar, the developers will continue to play the race card.
I have been a life long resident of St. Bernard, I am 68 years old and I was born an raised here. I cme back after Katrina and was in my home by 2006. I was one of the forunate ones to have flood insurance. It took all we had and I do not want the houseing developoments or all the rentals in private owner subdevisions. I have live in my house for 37 years. And I would hope the parish values us enough to help us to keep our homes in owner only subdivisions. There are enough apparments availabe for renters. Please step up to the plate and help our parish survive and thrive. Do not let all the people who want to cash in on our misfortune to make money with out care as to what it doing to our recovery.
I have left a message above and I hope our goverment pays attention to it. The way things have been going ,there has been many times when I wondered if I made the right choise in coming back.
Just for clarification purposes, I stated to the journalist who conducted this interview that this is not a race issue, as the Dallas, Texas property developers, whom, if thes apartments are built, STAND TO MAKE AN ENORMOUS AMOUNT OF MONEY, would like everyone to believe. Residents of St. Bernard are victims of criminals of “all” races, including “white trash,” and we’re fed up with it. All these apartment complexes will do is perpetuate crime, committed by “all” races, and drug abuse, at the hands of “all” races, and the good, law abiding citizens, of “all” races, of St. Bernard Parish, have had enough with the increase in crime and drugs in our parish since Katrina. We will not stand for these low-income housing complexes being built to further accomodate these criminals and drug abusers, and pushers, to continue to victimize “all” residents of St. Bernard Parish and destroy our community more than it’s already been destroyed. Dana Arcement.
I have been a lifelong resident of St. Bernard Parish. In a misguided effort to control the influx of investors buying up cheap properties for rentals in previous areas that there were no rentals, the parish government came across as racist. At this time, if you drive around our parish there are “for rent” signs everywhere, in every block. We do not have a shopping center yet here, ground zero for Katrina, no walmart, no sears, k-mart, etc. We have one large grocery, Winn Dixie, when pre-Katrina we had 2 Winn Dixies, 2 Sav-a-Centers, IGA and others. We have no hospital. We simply do not need, do not want, another 4 large development. Go look at Provident Housing’s website in Texas. They talk about nothing but profit. They have just bought the last large tract of beach in the Texas peninsula. The local sellers are all about tax credits.
Our infrastructure is not ready for the people we now have. Another large influx of low income people we cannot support is the problem. We do not have any high dollar jobs here yet, our economy in the parish is very limited. We have only menial minimum wage jobs. We do not have a full fledge bus line. How can we help any low income people with no mass transit? No hospital services? Its ludicrous, not racist.