Story updated, One week after this story ran, the city cut the vendor a check. By Ariella Cohen, The Lens staff writer | With her worn straw hat and tiny home office, 33-year-old landscape architect Abby Feldman is an unlikely benefactor for the city of New Orleans. Yet she has become essentially that over the […]
Category: Land Use
Posted inGovernment & Politics, Land Use
He blew like a warm summer’s eve, but should we have preserved his home?
On Jan. 7, we learned the City of New Orleans tore down the childhood home of jazz great Sidney Bechet. The news disappointed preservationists and jazz enthusiasts, who believed the blighted house should’ve been restored and designated an historical landmark. The AP reported: Jazz lovers worry that the zeal to “renew” New Orleans is threatening […]
Posted inLand Use
Empty since Katrina, 233 HANO units to be torn down
The Housing Authority of New Orleans approved a deal today to demolish 233 empty scattered public housing units moldering since Hurricane Katrina. But while neighbors applauded progress in the battle against blight, questions remain about what HANO will do with its properties once the 99 doomed buildings are cleared.
Posted inGovernment & Politics, Land Use
2 council members frustrated with tear-down tendencies
The New Orleans Redevelopment Authority should be developing houses not demolishing them, said two City Council members this week, as they considered a demolition request from the agency and a potential new owner.
Posted inGovernment & Politics, Land Use
Auditor critical of demo plan
The state agency tasked with the maintenance of Road Home properties will be unable to meet its own deadline to end the program next year, according to a report by the Legislative Auditor.
Posted inGovernment & Politics, Land Use
Big Four redevelopments rise or fall on federal tax bill
Even as President Barack Obama agrees to keep Bush-era tax cuts, a consensus is still lacking on an extension of tax credits needed to rebuild New Orleans’ Big Four housing developments, as well as other Gulf Coast complexes.
Posted inGovernment & Politics, Land Use
Crash of property computers hurts city’s anti-blight effort
While city officials struggle to tame blight, a key piece of the administration’s strategy – selling seized property at sheriff’s sale – has been hampered by the Clerk of Court’s computer crash, now in its second month.
Posted inLand Use, Schools
Priestly Charter gets campus
Albeit temporary, the students at Priestley Charter School will have a home before the new Louisiana State University Hospital claims their current address for its own in January.
Posted inInvestigations, Land Use
Even with plenty of subsidized housing, most still clustered in poorest areas
Despite the demolition of public housing developments, New Orleans has more subsidized housing for its poorest residents now than it had five years ago.
Posted inGovernment & Politics, Land Use
Focus of Lens story gets demolished
The demolition of the Parc Brittney condo complex came after The Lens reported exposed the poorly performing nonprofit that owns most of it.