Unsightliness is one problem. The other is that a flood-prone city like New Orleans needs to be able to absorb as much rainwater as possible, something concrete is not good at.
Category: Land Use
Posted inLand Use, Squandered Heritage
Holy Cross community looks askance at proposed riverfront towers
A developer has proposed two 13-story, 135-foot high apartment buildings, significantly higher than the 75-foot maximum desired by the neighborhood association.
Posted inLand Use, Squandered Heritage
Elevating houses crowds sidewalks in historic neighborhoods
Elevating your home in a dense historic neighborhood is a tricky proposition because what goes up must also go out.
Posted inLand Use
Landrieu Planning appointee has unpermitted parking slab
Kyle Wedberg paved the entire street frontage of a lot next to his home, without securing the required permits.
Posted inLand Use, Squandered Heritage
Lots of paving, no permit: Board of Zoning Adjustment to review more concrete lawns
Pave first, ask permission later: That seems to be the philosophy in three cases before the city.
Posted inLand Use
Two years after city funds Lake Terrace, owner behind on taxes
In a press release issued last week, Mayor Mitch Landrieu’s administration prided itself on a recent decision by Judge Lloyd J. Medley Jr. to uphold fines imposed on a taxpayer financed developer who has failed to bring a lakefront strip mall back into commerce years after Katrina damaged it. The city lauded the ruling as […]
Posted inLand Use, Squandered Heritage
Wrecking ball for Booker T, but auditorium to be spared
“Selective demolition” lies ahead for a school with a storied past. photo: Karen Gadbois Demolition of Booker T. Washington High School, on Earhart Boulevard near the B.W. Cooper public housing development, is now under way, but plans call for preserving the school’s storied auditorium. The auditorium, in ruins since Katrina, will be refurbished. photo: Andy […]
Posted inInvestigations, Land Use
Discovery of human remains delays Iberville redevelopment
Charmaine Williams, second from left, goes for a walk with her grandchildren Keah Williams, 15 months, left, and Richard ‘Ricky’ Farrell III, 3; and daughter, SaYann Williams, 16, right, in the Iberville public housing development. They can see St. Louis Cemetery No. 2, in the background, from their front stoop. Archaeologists have confirmed that part […]
Posted inLand Use
Company late on repairs to public housing damaged by Isaac
Three months after Hurricane Isaac drenched New Orleans, some rental units damaged by the storm remained unrepaired at The Estates, the housing development on the site of the old Desire housing project. All 425 units at The Estates suffered water and other storm damage. The Housing Authority of New Orleans gave the management company, Interstate […]
Posted inSquandered Heritage
Concrete lawn gets grass, but illegal driveway remains
One step forward, another step back. Back in September, The Lens wrote about the unpermitted paving at this house on Burdette Street in Carrollton after reader Kurt Buchert submitted a photo. It appears the owner has mitigated the sea of concrete in the front yard by replacing some of it with grass, as shown by another […]