Mid-City Neighborhood Organization

The Zoning Committee of Mid-City Neighborhood Organization (MCNO) is holding a meeting on Monday, July 28th to consider a requested variance for the Office Building at 3400 Bienville (Bienville and N.
Jefferson Davis Pkwy) to:

1) Reduce the required off street parking from 17 to 14.
2) Reduce the required set back from 20 feet to 0 feet on the front
3) Reduce the required set back from 10 feet to 0 feet on the sides
4) Reduce the required set back from 10 feet to 5 feet in the rear

There is a sketch of the proposed building.

[click to enlarge]

More detailed plans will be available at the meeting.

The architects will present the plans for the building at the meeting. Neighbors are encouraged to attend and express their opinion.

The meeting is Monday, July 28th at 6:30 pm. Location is the Bayou Coffee House at 326 N Jeff Davis.

If you are unable to attend or if you want more information, you can leave a comment on this post.

For more information about what’s happening in your neighborhood, contact the Mid-City Neighborhood Organization at www.mcno.org or come to the monthly meetings on the first Monday of each month from 6:30-8:30 at Grace Episcopal Church at 3700 Canal St.

On Friday, July 11, MCNO Housing attended a briefing regarding the Lot Next Door (LND) program. At this time, we only have the information in hard copy format, but as soon as we get a digital version we will post it on the MCNO Web site.

In the meantime, here is the synopsis:

NORA has identified over 2000 homeowners, citywide, who are eligible to purchase Road Home Buyout (RHB) or previously blighted, expropriated properties through the LND program. Only those residents on either side of a property will be eligible – you will NOT be notified or be eligible to acquire RHB properties behind you.

Letters will be going out to those homeowners this summer. If you receive a letter and are interested, please contact NORA as soon as possible and copy housing@mcno.org with your email so we can update our database. There is also a “Letter of Interest” you must send to NORA via email or regular mail within 30 days of receipt of the letter. We will post that document on MCNO.org as soon as we have the digital file. We will also have copies available at the next neighborhood meeting on August 5.

You MUST have a current homestead exemption to be eligible, so if you have lost yours since Katrina but are now eligible and have not refiled, you should do so immediately. Also, notify NORA of that fact when you send them your letter of interest. If you have purchased another property and are taking the exemption there, you will not be eligible for the LND program. You also must be up to date with any taxes and code enforcement fines/liens for all properties you own – anywhere in Orleans Parish – to be eligible. If you are behind and pay these taxes or fines this summer, keep your receipts to show NORA as the records may not be updated right away.

If you purchase a property, you must file with the city to alter the dimensions of your property (and pay associated fees) and hold the property for a minimum of five years before you can resell it. If there is a home on the property, you will need to renovate it or be prepared to face code enforcement fines from the city. If you take possession of one of these properties, you may be eligible for greening and fencing credits to offset the cost of beautification and site improvements.

If you wish to tear the property down, it will have to go through the normal demolition review process unless you can prove that it is in imminent danger of collapse. If you renovate it, you can make it a rental. However, be aware that if it was originally zoned as a double or single and was converted into a multiplex before Katrina, it will now have lost its non-conforming use and NOT be eligible to be renovated as a multi-unit property. (This is true for all abandoned properties. Please inform MCNO Housing and the City of New Orleans Safety and Permits Department of suspected non-conforming renovations ASAP.)

These properties will be sold at fair market value (FMV), and the new owner will be required to pay $1000 in closing costs. Upon receipt of your letter of interest by NORA, the agency will order an appraisal and send it to you. At that point, to reserve the property you must pay a 20% deposit within 60 days. (You can also release your interest if the appraisal is higher than you want to pay for the property.) As soon as NORA acquires ownership of the property, you will pay the FMV of the property, less any credits you receive.

If you are interested in acquiring a property you believe is blighted and you do not receive a letter, please send the information and address to housing@mcno.org. We are currently amassing a list of properties that we want NORA to expropriate. Provided the property meets the city’s blight criteria, we will include your request in our list. Also, if you know ANYONE who is interested in acquiring an abandoned or blighted property, please encourage them to email housing@mcno.org. NORA has a very limited budget and will be more willing to acquire a property for resale to a resident if it has confidence that it will be able to recoup its outlay quickly. WE NEED RESIDENTS TO GET THE WORD OUT ABOUT THE ABILITY TO PURCHASE BLIGHTED PROPERTIES SO WE CAN GET THESE HOMES BACK INTO COMMERCE!!!!!

If you have further questions specific to the Lot Next Door program, please direct them to lotnextdoor@noraworks.org. This is all the information MCNO Housing has at this time. If you have any other questions related to MCNO’s housing recovery programs, or want to notify us of problem properties in your area, please feel free to contact us.

The July 7 general membership meeting had a main agenda to address housing issues. Virginia Blanque, VP of MCNO effectively facilitated the meeting. The valuable content and contact information as provided by the several speakers is herein summarized for the benefit of people who were unable to attend. (The equally important topics of the security district work midcitysecuritydistrict.org by Angela Brenneke and reports of armed robberies are not covered as this summary is only on housing.)

Speakers and Topics

Jennifer Farwell –MCNO Housing Chair: The MCNO housing survey–Progress and call for volunteer surveyors

Carla Gendusa—office of Stacy Head: New measures to return abandoned/blighted property to commerce by fining property owners

Margaret Doyle-Johntson –Office of Arnie Fielkow mdjohnston@cityofno.com: The resource of at-large council as a route for enforcements of code and housing laws

Darren Martin — HANO Community Relations damartin@hano.org: The “Housing Choice Voucher Program” rights, rules and responsibilities of tenants, owners, HANO, and neighbors.

Miles Trapolin: New approaches to force landlords to shut down rental properties that house criminals

The MCNO housing survey is a comprehensive evaluation and photographic record of all 3700 residential properties in our boundaries. It is creating a database that will eventually monitor and track progress and problem resolution for a variety of quality of life issues. Its first “task” is to help us identify blighted and/or abandoned housing that is adversely impacting resident’s quality of life. For this project, having all the properties documented helps put the blighted properties into context so that we can determine patterns of both blight and recovery and target heavily the recovering blocks where people working to rebuild. The MCNO housing program is connected to the efforts of the City Council on code enforcement sweeps, the New Orleans Recovery Authority (NORA) and real estate development and marketing of properties. We believe that we (MCNO) offer a path to collectively access city resources and prioritize code enforcement efforts, to collaborate with NORA in marketing property they now own and to encourage home buyers to move into Mid City. The MCNO housing survey sets criteria for volunteers to record the condition of houses in Mid City. Coordinated follow up activities to contact owners and apply code laws will follow from an accurate neighborhood-wide database. WE NEED MORE SURVEYORS. We also need better sources of owner addresses as some tax records are not reliable. Contact info is housing@mcno.org.

Ms. Margaret Doyle-Johnston spoke on behalf of Councilperson Arnie Fielkow on the importance of using the office of Council at Large to support our housing recovery efforts. The city employees and elected officials are all accessible by their Internet connected BlackBerries and that is the best way to get a response. Follow-up and action are enhanced by contacting the appropriate District Council Person and the Councilperson at Large. Every person at the meeting was given Ms. Doyle-Johnston’s business card.

Carla Gendusa from Councilperson Stacy Head’s Office spoke about the recently passed ordinance which created a legal process to “return abandoned housing to commerce”. The approach is for a citizen or MCNO to report houses that are abandoned, the code enforcement office will contact the owner and schedule a hearing. The hearing will result in either 1) a resolution of the code violation within 30 days or fines up to $500 per day, 2) assessment of the fines on the property tax bills, and 3) eventual liens on property and judgments that can lead to Civil Court auctions of property.

The speaker from HANO seemed to draw the highest level of response from our members in attendance. Several persons commented on rental houses that they believe are a problem and they suspect that the renting of the houses is through the Housing Choice Voucher Program. Darren Martin effectively described the “partnership” nature of the Section 8 housing program. The agreements between the tenant, landlord, and HANO are designed to 1) “train” tenant applicants on what the community expects from residents living in their neighborhood, 2) set lease agreements that prohibit sub renting or voucher use while residing in another place, 3) require property owners to provide rental units that meet minimum defined standards for human habitation, and 4) provide a path to remove tenants/landlords from the program who violate the agreements. Much more information should be read at hano.org or hud.gov for people who believe that problem houses in their neighborhood should be reported. Since the addresses of all property under the HANO Voucher program are confidential, the best approach is to report ALL problems—calls to police for suspected tenant criminal activity, code violations/blight conditions, and suspected violation of lease agreements to HANO, just in the event that these properties are Section 8 rental units. Mr. Martin agreed that he would acknowledge the emails and his intended follow up if the reported addresses were under the voucher program. damartin@hano.org

Miles Trapolin reported on his extensive work with the City Council that has led to a means to remove rental property from the neighborhood if neighbors can demonstrate a history of criminal activity at an address. A group of 7 neighbors can now file a civil suit against an owner who has a history of renting to persons engaged in drug or other felony crimes. The key to success is that neighbors get documentable evidence of reports of criminal activity on or immediately near to an address—police reports, arrest records, complaints. The group of 7 neighbors who feel that the property is adversely affecting their property can file a suit and the owner can suffer the consequence of a penalty that includes removal of the property from rental use for six months and a day to longer. The six month penalty will end the non conforming use on many problem properties presented rented as 4 plexes or even 8 plexes in areas where two family zoning applies. Ms. Trapolin provided copies of the types of letters that she has sent in documenting property with a history of criminal activity.

In conclusion, this summary is very much abbreviated and is best used as a guide to sources of more detailed information. In one sentence, we the residents must exercise our power to keep problem housing out of our neighborhood by hitting at the wallet those property owners who have either abandoned this neighborhood or are using their substandard properties as income sources and harboring illegal activities. We have the power to stop their violations of laws and rules and improve our quality of life.

[Thanks to MCNO Board Member Ben Claassen for compiling these notes.]