[StBernard] Demolish? Rebuild?

[Westley Annis]

Demolish? Rebuild?
Prodded by local officials, St. Bernard residents are making tough choices.
The result, they hope, will be a parish focused on the future. 
Sunday, July 23, 2006
By Brian Thevenot
Staff writer 

On a recent muggy day, 74-year-old Warren Meilleur cut down enough giant
weeds in front of his destroyed Chalmette home to break the blade on his
weed trimmer. Then he used a shovel and his bare hands before resorting to
chemical warfare. 

In a deluged subdivision where some houses and yards haven't been touched
since the flood, Meilleur had earlier gutted the one-story brick ranch home.
Next he planned to board it up, with at least one Plexiglas window to allow
police to see any squatters who might get inside. For several days in a row,
he traveled two hours each way from Walker, to work in the hot sun. 

Meilleur has no plans to move back. He's laboring instead for the benefit of
his neighbors who are rebuilding amid the miles of blight and in response to
new parish mandates. 

"I'm squeezed for time and money. We're retired and on a limited income. So
for me to be doing all this, it's a strain," he said. "But I'm trying to
comply. I understand why they're doing it." 

Unlike in New Orleans, where city government has often seemed more concerned
about displaced residents than about those who are back and rebuilding,
officials in St. Bernard Parish are demanding that thousands of property
owners follow Meilleur's example. 

Through a series of recent Parish Council actions, officials are pushing all
property owners toward the heart-rending decision of whether to tear down or
rebuild, hoping to ignite a sense of duty to a community where all but a
handful of structures flooded. So far, about 5,000 people have signed up to
have their homes demolished by a parish contractor or a volunteer group. In
the meantime, the council has ordered all other property owners to gut their
houses, fix their roofs, tend their yards and secure windows and doors. 

Of about 27,000 St. Bernard homeowners, all but about 7,000 have given the
parish an indication of plans for their property, either by seeking building
or demolition permits or signing up for a free gutting program. But the rest
appear simply to have walked away, leaving others to contend with the blight
they've left behind. 

Parish officials have put those properties on a blighted list and published
the addresses, the first step in an emerging condemnation process. Absentee
property owners will eventually have a lien placed on their property for the
cost of any gutting, demolition or yardwork the parish government takes on,
according to the council ordinance. The intent, officials said, is to clear
the miles of blight inhibiting the plans of many who might return and
rebuild. 

"People need to get the message that they need to come and take care of
their properties. They need to respect their neighbors in the community,"
said Parish President Junior Rodriguez during an interview inside the
trailer where he now lives and works. 

The measures represent not only a new phase of recovery, but an effort to
spur a psychological shift in the citizenry. 

"From an emotional recovery standpoint, shock and confusion have been
rampant, and that's what leads to inaction," said Councilman Craig Taffaro,
a counselor by trade. "Empowerment and action bring healing." 

Moreover, the push represents a purposeful shift in the priorities of local
officials: From now on, the needs of those residents who are back will take
precedence over those who can't or won't return. 

As one might expect, council members have caught hell from owners who
consider the rules an undue hardship. 

"It's not easy," Taffaro said. "We've been called everything from communists
to insensitive and inhumane you-know-whats. But human nature is that as long
as you allow people to procrastinate, they'll procrastinate." 

Many others, however, have praised the new law, particularly those who have
already invested heavily in neighborhoods with an uncertain future and shaky
property values. 

The self-reliant attitude in St. Bernard stands in stark contrast to New
Orleans, where a similar though less stringent gutting ordinance ended up
getting gutted itself in response to complaints of the hardship it might
cause the elderly, the infirm or the displaced. After the ordinance passed,
Mayor Ray Nagin criticized the Aug. 29 anniversary deadline as "too soon."
Then Councilwoman Cynthia Willard-Lewis sought and won an exception for most
of the Lower 9th Ward. 

Now as the deadline approaches, it remains unclear how or whether it will be
enforced. Nagin's office said recently it would "try" to enforce the law,
but would "respect owner's property rights" and give special leniency to the
elderly. The mayor also predicted a rash of lawsuits that would prevent him
from enforcing the law. 

Nagin's office did not respond to two requests for comment last week. 

The opposition to the gutting ordinance echoed earlier backlash to the plans
of the Bring New Orleans Back Commission, whose members were shouted down as
elitist "land thieves" for recommending shrinking the footprint of a city
for the sake of flood control and to achieve the density of development
necessary to sustain reconstruction of the city's shattered infrastructure.
An equivalent committee in St. Bernard also recommended replacing
development with green space, but stirred only a relatively minor uproar,
officials said. 

Six months after release of the New Orleans plan, and its lukewarm reception
by Nagin, an official planning process that was supposed to be completed by
May had not begun. Now, as they need to persuade federal officials to
release billions in rebuilding cash, New Orleans officials have announced a
new planning process -- or at least the appearance of one -- that will try
to blend the disparate efforts of the City Council and grassroots
neighborhood groups. 

In St. Bernard, officials appear to have had their fill of sob stories and
paralysis. A recent Parish Council committee meeting featured telling
exchanges. One rental-property owner stood up to protest the gutting
ordinance, offering a host of reasons why she couldn't clean out her 26
properties in time to meet the Aug. 29 deadline. 

"Somebody was going to buy the properties from me," she started to explain,
before Councilman Mark Madary cut her off. 

"Yeah, and I'm going to lose 100 pounds," he cracked, impatient with the
string of excuses. "Who doesn't want to give the responsibility to the next
guy?"' 

In another exchange, Taffaro cut off Recovery Director David Dysart in the
middle of an impassioned argument that parish officials should continue
efforts to force FEMA to pay for house-gutting. 

"All due respect, but that's a pipe dream," he said. "FEMA's never going to
pay for house gutting . . . and I'm not going to endorse one more program
that takes the responsibility out of individual hands." 


Hard line applauded 

In Buccaneer Villa South, residents who have returned to rebuild appreciate
the hard line. As in all flood-ravaged areas, the biggest concern of
rebuilders is ending up on a block where few others come back, raising the
specter of blight, crime, isolation -- and properties worth less than the
cost of rehabbing them or that can't be sold at all. 

Across the street from Meilleur, Terri Eschmann, 49, swatted flies between
swings of a sledgehammer, knocking bricks out of the destroyed back wall of
her mother's house. The family had been most concerned over whether
Eschmann's elderly mother's neighbors would return, raising health and
safety concerns of living among abandoned homes. She applauded the council's
actions. 

"It keeps the property values up, and nobody wants to live next to a dump,"
she said. 

Her mother decided to move back when she learned the neighbors on both sides
were doing the same, and other houses in the neighborhood would be torn
down, Eschmann said. 

Next door, Mark and Krystal Buras have nearly completed the new exterior of
their light-green two-story home, which stands as a beacon of recovery on a
block where many damaged homes appear untouched since the storm. Mark Buras
admits to a soft spot for people who had no insurance and truly can't afford
to meet the council's demands to fix their properties -- as opposed to those
who just "pocketed the insurance." But his wife has no such patience. 

"She's a lot more hard-core than I am. She wants everybody to take care of
their yard before the snakes get in there," he said. "She feels like people
should make up their minds -- you're either coming back or you're not." 


A new look for parish 

As in New Orleans, St. Bernard officials appointed a citizens committee, the
St. Bernard Citizens Recovery Committee, to draw up a master plan for the
community. Like the New Orleans committee, it drew up a plan that makes some
bold recommendations that can become reality only if a complex set of
political and financial factors fall into place. 

The vision, which will be the subject of upcoming neighborhood planning
sessions, calls for buying out homeowners in a large swath of land near the
40-Arpent Canal, on the northern border of the skinny east-west parish
development line. That swath will become green space and also serve as flood
protection by ponding and soaking up rainwater and storm surge. 

Among its other recommendations, the plan would transform the parish's main
artery, Judge Perez Drive, which long has been an unremarkable mishmash of
billboards, big-box stores and strip malls set far back from the street
behind giant parking lots. The plans calls for moving small businesses up to
the divided boulevard, on the model of New Orleans' Rampart Street, to
provide a true main-street atmosphere. 

Another recommendation calls for connecting and beautifying all the canals
in the parish, on the model of European cities such as Amsterdam. 

Although St. Bernard politicians took some heat for recommending that some
areas revert to green space -- a term that's become an epithet in New
Orleans and paralyzed the planning process -- the St. Bernard Parish Council
approved the concept, subject to modification. 

David Gorbaty, co-chairman of the parish planning committee, concedes such
visions may evaporate if the parish fails to draw substantial public and
private investment. But it's all but guaranteed to tank unless local
officials deal with the oceans of blight that stand in the way of
reconstruction, he said. 

"I applaud the government for focusing on the people who are here rather
than the people who are not. We're approaching a year; it's time for people
to decide what they're going to do, so the pioneers can have some quality of
life." 


A can-do populace 

To be sure, St. Bernard has years of work ahead; most of the parish remains
in ruin. But the parish's relatively small and homogeneous population -- and
renowned grit -- gives it a distinct political advantage over New Orleans.
For one, it's dominated by fiercely independent, working-class families,
many well-versed in construction and maintenance and deeply connected to a
relatively isolated place that few residents leave. And, ironically, another
factor that draws St. Bernard together is the very sweep of its devastation.
Virtually every house and business flooded, binding the citizenry together
in shared pain -- and shared self-interest. 

"In New Orleans, you have areas that didn't take much damage. So there's a
perception if not the reality that 'other people didn't experience what I
experienced,' and 'the public officials didn't suffer like me,' " Gorbaty
said. "In St. Bernard, people can be mad at the officials for not picking up
the trash or whatever, but they know the officials are going through the
same thing they are.' " 

Even before the flood, St. Bernard political scraps tended to be settled
behind closed doors more often than not, whereas New Orleans political
factions and divided classes tended to publicly salt each other's wounds. 

"We're a peaceful, harmonious, obstinate people," Gorbaty said. "And if you
lived in St. Bernard, chances are you lived there you're whole life." 

With another recent council action, parish officials are aiming to keep the
demographics of the parish fairly stable. In a move officials concede may
invite legal challenges, they are requiring that anyone buying properties in
the parish get a special-use permit from the council if they intend to rent
them. It's unlikely many of those permits would be granted, Taffaro said,
because the point of the ordinance is to keep developers from buying up
homes cheap, doing minimal repairs and renting them to low-income tenants,
creating slums. 

"On the surface, it's easy to say St. Bernard just doesn't want low-income
residents," Taffaro said. "But I'd say St. Bernard wants people that are
going to be invested in the sustainability of our parish. Our goal is to
have permanent occupation, not transient occupation. There's a social theory
that says poverty doesn't return when it leaves, but that doesn't apply here
because FEMA gives a way for poverty to return." 

Some residents who applaud the ordinance put it much more bluntly: They
don't want St. Bernard to become the next Lower 9th Ward. 

"I think it's great. Because you're going to have people buying up
properties cheap and renting them, and you know what kind of crime that's
going to bring," Mark Buras said of the ordinance. 


'From ideas to action' 

Ben Brown, a planner with Duany Plater-Zyberk and Co., the firm headed by
Andres Duany, an influential New Urbanist, led an early planning process in
St. Bernard. He recalled being floored by the intense engagement of
officials and residents, particularly given the biblical scope of the
devastation. The parish courthouse overflowed with more than 700 people,
necessitating the installation of video monitors outside the main courtroom,
the same room where many had sought refuge from the flood. 

The audience sat on the floor, stood on chairs, screamed. A handful later
followed planners and architects around all day, soaking up whatever wisdom
they could. 

"It's the best experience I've ever had in a charette or a public meeting,"
Brown said. "Everybody was totally engaged, and of course there's that St.
Bernard personality: If it's in your head, it's out your mouth. They are a
very special people who live there." 

Months later, officials appear to be facing head-on the difficult decisions
that doom many rebuilding efforts. 

"We're going to have towns and communities that fail in this rebuilding
process, and they're going to fail because people can't make those tough
decisions," he said. "Local officials have to tell people, 'I'm sorry, but
you have to make a choice right now on where you're going to live. Put up or
shut up.' We're all going to be judged on how well we move from ideas to
action." 

Brown also has done planning work in New Orleans, on behalf of civic groups
in Gentilly aiming to take control of their own destiny amid government
paralysis. 

In New Orleans, Brown sees an officialdom cowed by loud opposition from a
slew of disparate interests, unable to act or even to set up a clear process
leading to action. 

"You have people that keep screaming, 'Don't block me out of my
neighborhood!' and the elected officials seem to get paralyzed," he said. "I
can't even figure out how decisions are made in New Orleans." 

After the collapse of the Bring New Orleans Back Commission's planning
process, local and state agencies recently agreed on a new "unified"
process, expected to be completed by the end of the year. Financed by a $3.5
million grant from the Rockefeller Foundation, the process threatens to
become a kitchen with too many cooks -- the mayor, the council, the city
planning commission being three of them, along with a slew of planners hired
to assist neighborhood groups. 

Brown said it's not clear where the buck will stop. 

"The great thing about New Orleans is that you can sit down over a few beers
and talk (with connected locals) about how decisions are made there, and
you'll be very entertained,' he said. "But when you get up and stagger away
from the table, you still don't know how things get done. . . . Then people
laugh and say, " 'They don't get done -- it's New Orleans.' " 

If people aren't making quick decisions in New Orleans, that's
understandable given the general lack of accurate public information and
flip-flopping by public officials, said Quintus Jett, a Dartmouth College
professor who has been helping to organize and develop civic groups in
Gentilly. 

"It seems as if they want to keep certain information in, or only tell
certain people. They might think they're withholding information to protect
people, so they won't be afraid to rebuild," he said. "But frankly, the more
information comes out, the more people will come back, because they know the
deal. They can face it head-on." 

Forcing homeowners to make decisions or spend substantial sums maintaining
their destroyed property, as in St. Bernard, may not be the best or most
compassionate way to encourage neighborhood redevelopment, Jett said. But at
least putting blighted properties on a published list and setting clear
rules for homeowners allows people to make informed decisions, he said. 


Rugged individuals 

In another Chalmette subdivision, on the opposite side of Judge Perez Drive
from Buccaneer Villa South, Peter Nguyen and Ly Shipley live in a trailer,
surrounded by immaculately landscaped, brick-lined flower gardens. 

"That's not FEMA," Shipley said, pointing to the trailer in the front lawn.
"That's $17,000." 

Nor has the couple received any government help for the rebuilding of the
home that sits behind the trailer. Nguyen tired of waiting for contractors
and didn't want to pay their inflated post-storm rates, so he gutted and
rebuilt its innards himself. In a month, he'll be ready to move in, he
figures. 

Two houses across the street have their own gardens -- of giant weeds, some
of them higher than the rooftops. 

"Sometimes I see rats run out of there and across the street," Nguyen said.
"It doesn't matter to me if they come back or not, but I just want the
debris gone. If you don't do it, there's a big fine -- I like that." 

Before the flood, the couple ran a convenience store in the 9th Ward, which
they haven't been able to reopen. In his pre-Katrina life, Nguyen knew
nothing about construction or contracting. He jumped to the task anyway,
learning on the job. 

"If you never do it, you'll never learn how," he said. "Nobody's going to do
it for you." 

. . . . . . . 

Brian Thevenot can be reached at bthevenot at timespicayune.com or (504)
826-3482.