Mid-City Neighborhood Organization

My part of Mid-City seems to have two types of absentee landlords: bad and worse. The worse landlords have not done much to their properties since the flood, except to gut them. They are nowhere near habitable. The bad landlords have “fixed up” their properties and rented them out. However, whether they are truly habitable or not is another question. The people across the street from me have no electricity. The people around the corner have no gas (and thus no hot water). Note that these tenants are paying rent, and at rates typically double what they paid pre-Katrina. Note also that these tenants are hard-working people without disposable income, and often without a strong command of the English language. Is it legal to charge rent for a place without basic utilities? What can we do to deal with these landlords and help out our neighbors?

I wrote the following letter-to-the-editor after readings John Pope’s article in Monday’s Times-Picayune (7-31-06):

Like approximately 1000 of my neighbors, my family and I attended the Unified New Orleans Plan meeting Sunday. However, our experience varied dramatically from the one reported by John Pope, who writes “participants sat on white folding chairs as they were told which technical assistance teams will be available, and they discussed criteria for working with these groups and the projects to be undertaken.” Instead, most of the people left early when they saw the lack of space, though we stayed and stood for five hours. We strained to hear our facilitator who knew less about the process than most in the audience, and the task that was allotted the most time was putting red dots on various maps to represent our houses. We were “helped” to formulate questions for the planners in a manner which would have insulted those with the IQ of a six-year-old. Our district was TOLD by our facilitator that we wanted one overall district planner. Then 48 hours later, after 10 minute presentations by the planners on Tuesday, we’re asked to choose a planner. It seems this “Unified” process, certainly one of the most important choices to be made in the long and storied history of New Orleans, is meant to have the veneer of having public input, though our voice is not being heard in the process thus far.

On Saturday, August 5th, 2006, Clifton James will present some ideas for Mid-City at Grace Episcopal Church, 3700 Canal Street [map]. The show starts at 10 AM. Please note that this presentation is not taking place on July 29th as previously announced.

These following notes were compiled by Bob Rivard at the Board Meeting of N.O. Community Support Foundation (Friday July 21st 2006)
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From the Housing Conservation District Review Committee:

Meeting Agenda
July 24, 2006
10 a.m., Room 7E07 City Hall

The owners of the properties listed below have made application to demolish them. Their applications will be considered by the Housing Conservation District Review Committee on the date described above. We invite you to attend the meeting to make your neighborhood’s position known. For more information about the proposed demolitions or to express an opinion, please call Maryann Miller at 636-3046 or email her at mmiller@prcno.org

Mid-City
134-36 S. Solomon St. Owner Biff Burk has applied to demolish this Neoclassical Revival shotgun double residence to be replaced with a vacant lot.

I believe this is the house at the corner of S. Solomon and Cleveland. A few months ago, a neighbor saw some guys taking the floors, mantels, doors and windows. When she inquired, he said he used to live there and the owner was going to tear the place down and said he could have the components. Now we have the application to tear the house down to be replaced with an empty lot which, I suspect, will become parking for Burk and Associates. We will see more and more of this.

Update: Map link

The Community Support Foundation is playing a key role in the unified planning process for the City of New Orleans. We need some Mid-City represntation at this meeting!

New Orleans Community Support Foundation Meeting

WHEN: Friday, July 21, 8:00 am to 9:15 am

WHERE: Greater New Orleans Foundation, 1055 St. Charles Avenue, 1st floor (K&B Plaza, Lee Circle)

MORE INFO: Call (504) 598-4663

I called the above number to try to get a sense of the agenda and was referred to Brenda Cho at Concordia (569-1818). I left her a voicemail. I will post more info here if and when it becomes available.

Thaks to Neighborhoods Planning Network for putting the word out.

Update: Here’s the agenda, via NPN:

I. Welcome
II. Approval of June 17, 2006 Meeting Minutes
III. Ratify Review Panel recommendations for City Wide Planning
IV. Team and Neighborhood/District Planning Teams
V. Approval of contract for project Coordination and Oversight Team
VI. Approval of contract for project website consultant
VII. Approval of contract for project communications consultant
VIII. New Business
Adjourn

Monday July 17th, 2006, 6:30-8 PM at Grace Episcopal Church, 3700 Canal Street

• Welcome & Why Being Here is Important (Wendy Laker, 5 minutes)
• History of the Mid-City Recovery Plan (Bart Everson, 5 minutes)
• Questions and Answers with City Council Members/Representatives and Mr. Clifton James (30 minutes)
  Note: Chairs and representatives of the committees met on July 16th and formed five questions which are listed below. These questions will be asked first, then questions will be taken from the floor. Please keep all questions focused of the recovery planning process. If you have other questions for your council rep, please write it on an index card provided at the back of the room.
• Committee Breakout Meetings (7:15-8PM)

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Schroeder of People Get Ready has posted notes on the July 12th NPN forum wherein a panel of key players answered questions about the city’s unified planning process. This is a good resource if you want to come up to speed on the process, but be warned, it’s a moving target and continues to develop even as I type.

MCNO has obtained a copy of Starting Point, a report from the Louisiana Recovery and Rebuilding Conference. Although the document is dated November 22nd, 2005, we’re only seeing it now. We believe it deserves wider distribution for the insight that it provides into the recovery planning process. The document was posted at LouisianaRecoveryAndRebuilding.org but that website isn’t working at the moment. Fortunately a PDF of the Starting Point report is available from the LRA website. We’re also posting a copy on our site just in case that one disappears.

The Mid-City Recovery Committees meet every Monday, 6:30-8:00 PM, at Grace Episcopal Church, 3700 Canal Street. Please join us and help create a Recovery Plan for Mid-City.

Liuzza’s on Bienville is now open.

Their hours are Tuesday thru Saturday 11 to 9.

The architect assigned to Mid-City, Mr. Clifton James, provided us with his powerpoint presentations. They have been converted to .pdf files and can be seen here:
June 10th (23 meg)
July 8th (16 meg)

Please come to Grace Episcopal Church (3700 Canal Street) Saturday at 10 Am for the Mid-City Planning Meeting. Clifton James, the architect assigned to our neighborhood, will be presenting his plan (based on our plan) for the recovery of our neighborhood.