Disbursements from the city’s Economic Development Fund to Lake Terrace have totaled $225,000.
Author Archives: Karen Gadbois
Karen Gadbois co-founded The Lens. She now covers New Orleans government issues and writes about land use. With television reporter Lee Zurik she exposed widespread misuse of city recovery funds and led to guilty pleas in federal court. Her work attracted some of journalism's highest honors, including a Peabody Award, an Alfred I. duPont-Columbia Award and a gold medal from Investigative Reporters and Editors. She can be reached at (504) 606-6013.
Posted inLand Use, Squandered Heritage
A house moved to make way for the hospital complex finds new life in Mid City
A success story — for a change — from the city’s snake-bitten program to preserve houses from the bio-medical center footprint by trucking them to different neighborhoods.
Posted inInvestigations, Land Use
Family’s long journey home after Katrina ends when city bulldozes house
It took six years for Kimberly James to get Road Home money to rehab her Upper 9th Ward home. This summer, she thought she was months away from inhabiting it. But in July, she learned that the city had demolished the house, concluding that not enough progress had been made in rehabbing it. She says no one told her the house had been targeted for demolition.
Posted inLand Use, Squandered Heritage
Compliance! Grass grows on a once paved yard
The proposed remedy, fake grass, was as unwelcome as the original offense. The Zoning Board of Adjustment required that the owner jackhammer the cement parking pad.
Posted inLand Use
City demolishes blighted house months after it was sold to developer to rehab
Peter Gardner says he wasn’t notified that the property had been targeted for demolition.
Posted inLand Use
Volleyball club drops plans to build sand courts along Bayou St. John
The group said it expected the Sewerage & Water board to rescind its lease offer due to neighborhood opposition.
Posted inInvestigations, Land Use
NORA offers Road Home properties to businesses, churches under little-known program
Three years ago, the New Orleans Redevelopment Authority created a program called Near Miss, which opened the door for non-residential property owners to buy Road Home lots. So far, 59 properties have been acquired. But the City Council never approved the program, and most of those properties have not been zoned for commercial use.
Posted inLand Use, Squandered Heritage
Adjudication of non-blight code violations resumes after unexplained year-long hiatus
Illegally paved yards, short-term rentals and demolition by neglect draw One Stop Shop scrutiny; Spotted Cat gets go-ahead.
Posted inLand Use, Squandered Heritage
City’s code-enforcement court to meet for first time in a year
The city’s focus on blight means no hearings have been held to deal with code violations such as illegal short-term rentals and front-yard paving.
Posted inLand Use
Volleyball courts on the bayou? Neighbors worry about toilets, ads and parking
Neighborhood leader says the parking that would come with the courts would destroy the bayou’s beauty.