By Karen Gadbois, The Lens staff writer| The list of Road Home properties at risk of demolition is nothing new. It appears on the website of the Louisiana State Historic Preservation Office, and is updated from time to time by CDM, the contractor that manages the demolition process. The Miro Street property is slated for […]
Category: Land Use
Posted inGovernment & Politics, Investigations, Land Use
Copter man wants to add aviation school beside contested Gert Town helipad
By Karen Gadbois, The Lens staff writer | Jonas Johnson has a vision for Gert Town’s Zion City neighborhood. Seeking city permission to continue using a vacant lot as a helicopter pad, Johnson on Thursday said he would like to reinvigorate the area by creating an “aviation school” for underserved children. That would mean expanding […]
Posted inGovernment & Politics, Land Use
It’s a bird, it’s a copter, it’s a zoning violation! City vows to cite Gert Town helipad
David Johnson’s reaction to a helicopter landing in his neighborhood was a mixture of profanity and incredulity. “My first reaction was, get the h…, get outta here! … Unbelievable!” A Gert Town resident his whole life, Johnson dwells next door to an increasingly A wind sock marks the site of a helicopter landing pad in […]
Posted inLand Use
Rock 'n' Bowl demolitions are put on hold
By Karen Gadbois, The Lens staff writer | City officials this week delayed for a month a decision on whether Rock ‘n’ Bowl’s owner can demolish two nearby homes he recently bought. The Neighborhood Conservation District Committee told owner John Blancher to spend the time talking to the area’s neighborhood organization. Jenel Hazlett, president of […]
Posted inEnvironment, Government & Politics, Land Use
Rock 'n Bowl seeks tear-down permits
By Karen Gadbois, The Lens staff writer | To paraphrase the golden oldie: “Rock ‘n Bowl is Here to Stay” – the trendy bowling alley and live music venue, that is. Not only has Rock ‘n Bowl survived its 2009 move to the corner of Carrollton and Earhart, it seems to be taking over the […]
Posted inGovernment & Politics, Land Use
Recovery projects are progressing, but half are not yet under construction
By Ariella Cohen, The Lens staff writer | In the nine months since Mayor Mitch Landrieu’s administration took over City Hall, long-delayed capital projects have made steady, if slow, progress. Even so, don’t expect to see too many cranes in the sky just yet. More than half of 210 planned projects remain in pre-construction phases. […]
Posted inInvestigations, Land Use
Transplanted medplex houses in need of life support
A $3.2 million effort to preserve houses that once stood at the site of the planned Veterans Affairs hospital has left them open to the elements and shorn of the detail that made them worth saving.
Posted inEnvironment, Land Use
Despite 8 deaths in abandoned warehouse, city has done little new to fight vagrancy
By Ariella Cohen, The Lens staff writer | Six weeks after eight young people were killed by a fire in the fallow 9th Ward warehouse where they were living, the city has not taken new substantive action to reduce vagrancy or shut down unsafe squats. “We just don’t have the manpower,” the city’s newly appointed […]
Posted inLand Use, Schools
Ghost schools haunt New Orleans neighborhoods
Five years after the Orleans Parish School Board shut down dozens of hurricane-damaged public schools, New Orleans residents continue to live alongside the wreckage.
Posted inLand Use
New HANO site lets Section 8 residents, landlords better find and manage apartments
This map shows, by ZIP code, how many Section vouchers are in use across the city. By Ariella Cohen, The Lens staff writer | Three months after The Lens reported that Section 8 units managed by the Housing Authority of New Orleans remain primarily clustered in the poor neighborhoods the program intends to deconcentrate, HANO […]