[StBernard] Blanco proposal short on details

[Westley Annis]

Blanco proposal short on details
Costs of recovery proposal troubling 
Tuesday, April 11, 2006
By Laura Maggi
Capital bureau 

BATON ROUGE -- The Louisiana congressman who drafted a hurricane recovery
plan that was torpedoed by the Bush administration earlier this year asked
Gov. Kathleen Blanco on Monday to extend the public review period for her
rebuilding proposal. 

Rep. Richard Baker, R-Baton Rouge, said that he has several critical
questions about the state proposal that were heightened by the release
Monday of a study of the rebuilding costs associated with his original plan.
Baker said there are not enough details in the housing proposal drafted by
Blanco's Louisiana Recovery Authority, particularly how the state plans to
deal with property that is bought from homeowners who want to relocate. 

The "action plan" that the Louisiana Recovery Authority has drafted to give
homeowners up to $150,000 apiece to help repair, rebuild or buy out
hurricane-damaged houses is in a "comment period" until April 17. After
that, state officials have said they want to bring the proposal to the
Legislature for consideration before sending it to the U.S. Department of
Housing and Urban Development for final approval. 

Baker asked that state officials extend the comment period for a couple of
weeks in order to study the data compiled by the Gerson Lehrman Group. The
group's report, which was done free, was commissioned by the Baton Rouge
Area Foundation and Greater New Orleans Inc. 

But Andy Kopplin, executive director of the Recovery Authority, said that it
may not be necessary to extend the comment period, adding that the authority
has received the report and will take it under consideration. Kopplin has
said that all comments that are received will be reviewed and possibly
incorporated into the final action plan before it is sent to the
Legislature. 

It is not clear whether all the data collected in the report applies to the
Blanco rebuilding plan, as the Baker and authority proposals take different
tacks to help homeowners rebuild their property. The Baker proposal is more
generous to people with expensive homes and includes some commercial
property in its price tag. 

For example, the report pegs the cost of Baker's buyouts at $12 billion,
while the Recovery Authority plans to spend $7.5 billion on assisting
homeowners. But Baker's proposal also allows for the packaging and resale of
land, which the report estimated could be worth about $6.53 billion. 

Baker said the substantial dollars potentially associated with selling to
developers or others land that is purchased from homeowners should give the
state pause about whether they should modify their current proposal.
Specifically, Baker said it might be necessary to create a state entity that
could help redevelop whole communities by putting together tracts of land
and selling them. 

Baker's proposal was initially endorsed by Blanco and most other state
leaders, but rejected by the White House in January. The Recovery Authority
subsequently put together its own housing proposal based on the Bush
administration's request for billions of dollars in Community Development
Block Grants, which borrowed some aspects of Baker's plan. 

"I'm saying we need to work together," Baker said, adding that he likes many
aspects of the state proposal, especially that it allows for homeowners to
repair a damaged house. 

Kopplin said that the state plans to bundle land that is purchased from
homeowners and hand it over to local redevelopment authorities, which will
determine how to proceed. 

. . . . . . . 


Laura Maggi can be reached at lmaggi at timespicayune.com or at (225) 342-5590.