[FoCHAT] CHAT News: State $ Shortages; RH Property & Lot Next Door
Melanie Ehrlich
mehrlich8 at yahoo.com
Mon Dec 22 23:36:31 CST 2008
Dear FoCHAT Members,
1. Our Dec. 10 CHAT meeting is being televised by Cox 10
Ø We thank George Blow and COX10 for their dedication to getting the facts about Road Home to applicants!
Ø The 2-hour CHAT meeting on Dec. 10, 2008 about Road Home Contradictions has been/will be shown on:
Tues., Dec. 16, 4 PM; Wed., Dec. 17, noon; Thurs., Dec. 18, 8 AM; Tues., Dec. 23, noon; Thurs., Dec. 25, noon; Fri., Dec. 26, 8 AM; Sat., Dec. 27, 4:30 PM; Sun., Dec. 28, 1 PM; Mon., Dec. 29, noon; Wed., Dec. 31, 2 PM; Thurs., Jan. 1, 1 PM; Fri., Jan. 2, 8 AM & 6 PM; Sat., Jan. 3, 3 PM.
Ø This filmed meeting includes discussion of the State Inspector General’s ex post facto approval of increase in the ceiling of the ICF contract.
Ø Featured on the filmed CHAT meeting (see Cox 10 schedule above) is a former ICF and Quadel housing advisor
His descriptions match those of numerous applicants
v about Kafka-esque treatment
v sometimes even when the housing advisors were as helpful as they were allowed to be
2. Please see our newly updated home page at http://chatushome.com
Short list of Road Home information in various places
http://road2la.org
Homeowner policies and faqs page: http://road2la.org/homeowner/resources.htm#policies
The current large policy document that you can link to from that page: http://road2la.org/Docs/policies/Homeowner_Program_Policies_070908.pdf
How to request a full copy of your file (ask for the JIRA record too): http://road2la.org/Docs/policies/req_copy_file_071708.pdf
Please tell us at chatlra at yahoo.com if you are waiting more than 30 days after contacting Brad Bradford for your file or if your whole file was not sent. Put “waiting for file” in the subject line.
The Road Home instituted a new procedure for getting a copy of your Road Home file on July 17, 2008. This procedure requires a homeowner to send a request letter to Brad Bradford at The Road Home. "The Road Home Program 8282 Goodwood Blvd. Attn: Brad D. Bradford Baton Rouge, LA 70806 Requests should include the applicant’s Road Home application identification number, the address of the damaged property and a current mailing address. All requests must be signed and dated by the applicant and you should request that there be no fee because you are requesting all documents, including JIRA notes, from your own file. Please allow 30 days to complete the request. All questions regarding the request of an applicant file should be directed to Brad Bradford at 225-248-4972 or Linda Bodker at 225-928-6659."
Information about the elevation program or other questions
General Inquiries: By phone: 1.888.ROAD.2.LA (1.888.762.3252) or TTY callers use 711 relay or 1.800.846.5277; 8 a.m. – 7 p.m., Monday – Friday
By e-mail: inquiry at road2LA.org
By mail (send by certified mail & keep your receipt): The Road Home Program
PO Box 4549
Baton Rouge, LA 70821
Form letters for appeal free online from the Loyola Law Clinic: http://justiceforneworleans.org/roadhome/index.php Click on template appeals on the left
3. Trouble with PAL? We were told:
If an advisor or PAL is not responding to an applicant, have them contact the housing section at OCD and someone will monitor the situation. The number is 225.219.9600.
Please tell us at chatlra at yahoo.com if you get no response. Put “No OCD response about PAL” in the subject.
4. Are State Money Shortages Driving Restrictive New Restrictive RH Policies (see NY Times article below)?
Such as:
houses no more than 10% larger than old house for HMGP grant;
the newly declared laborious face-to-face interviews to relay FEMA’s approval of HMGP elevation eligibility from months ago;
the slow rate of awarding elevation incentive grants and HMGP elevation grants;
no ACG for sold-home-at-a-loss applicants of low income;
the glacial pace of awarding sold-home-at-a-loss grants;
talk we hear of asking to use “extra” RH money for other purposes?
For Louisiana, Bons Temps Proved All Too Brief
By ADAM NOSSITER http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/19/us/19louisiana.html?_r=1
Published: December 18, 2008
NEW ORLEANS — Six months ago, it was springtime in Louisiana, dollars were raining in from high oil prices, and the tax cuts and highway spending couldn’t come fast enough in the euphoric Legislature.
Gov. Bobby Jindal has had to start making budget cuts.
But now oil has plummeted and the joy is gone in a poor state that for a time seemed insulated by natural resources from the national downturn. The budget cuts — big ones — are about to begin.
In Louisiana, the oil-drunk always ends badly. This time, though, the political stakes are bigger than in the past, as the Republican Party’s national pinup, Gov. Bobby Jindal, has to absorb the brunt of the state’s abrupt shift in fortunes. After glorying in the largess earlier this year, Mr. Jindal has gone to issuing sober news releases about hiring freezes and the new austerity.
His fate is tied as much as anybody’s to Louisiana’s overdependence on oil. Severance taxes, mostly from oil and gas, made up just over 8 percent of state tax revenue in 2007, according to Census Bureau data, much less than Alaska’s 64 percent, but higher than Texas’ 6.9 percent. The total take, including royalties and leases from oil, gas and other resources, accounts for just under 17 percent of the Louisiana budget.
But while the leading good-government group here, citing that addiction, warned last May against the Legislature’s plan for a $360 million income tax cut, Mr. Jindal called the tax break “terrific news” and happily signed it into law as legislators cheered.
Admonitions on fiscal prudence went unheeded, as they have so often here, and the bill is now due. Earlier this year there was an $865 million surplus; now Louisiana has a $341 million shortfall in its current-year budget, and next year the projected deficit is $2 billion. It joins 43 states with current and forecast budget gaps in the reckoning of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a Washington research group.
Health care and higher education will probably suffer cuts, the latter perilous in a state that regularly bemoans chronic white-collar outmigration, a trend that touched the governor’s own family when his brother moved out of Louisiana. Mr. Jindal recently pointed out that his state was the only one in the South to regularly lose more people than it gained. Now, in the universities that are supposed to be magnets and incubators, faculty positions will go unfilled; academic programs will probably be cut.
There could be some $109 million in education spending cuts alone, and an additional $160 million in health care cuts, much from Medicaid — unfavorable circumstances for the rollout of Mr. Jindal’s ambitious new plan to partly privatize Medicaid in the state.
“Anybody paying attention knew we were laying the groundwork for fiscal problems, as we cut taxes and raised spending,” said James C. Brandt, president of the Public Affairs Research Council in Baton Rouge, an independent group in Baton Rouge. “We hate to say, ‘we told you so.’ But unfortunately, we seem to be going right down that boom-and-bust cycle again.”
Although the Louisiana numbers are small compared with say, those in California, which is looking at an $14.8 billion gap, they have come as a shock in a state that was until recently patting itself on the back, not only over $127-a-barrel oil last spring (it is now below $40) but also big jumps in sales and income tax collections as a result of the post-Hurricane Katrina boom. In the year after the hurricane alone, there was a 19 percent increase in sales tax revenue, much of it from home reconstruction and replacements for lost household items.
Mr. Jindal entered office this year with the happy duty of spending a $1 billion surplus — and he and the legislators promptly did so, appropriating millions of dollars for highways, ports and a medical research facility, and widely dispensing tax breaks, including one to parents of private school students. The cheery mood in the state Capitol continued all spring, as the legislators then decided to roll back a much-hated income tax increase passed earlier in the decade, costing the state hundreds of millions in revenue in coming years.
“We had so many new members, and they were overwhelmed by the new dollars,” recalled State Senator Eric LaFleur, a Democrat. “They felt they ought to give some of it back. I think there was a euphoria on the House side: ‘Man, we ought to be giving this money back.’ Lot of those guys hadn’t been around long enough.”
Mr. LaFleur said he had had misgivings about the tax cut but had voted for it, as did every other member of both chambers.
James A. Richardson, an economist at Louisiana State University and a member of the state’s official revenue-estimating board, said legislators had been lulled by the post-Katrina revenue. “They felt they had the ability, because you had all this money coming in,” Mr. Richardson said. “We were chasing the dollars up the slope.”
Indeed, there was teeth-gnashing when Gregory Albrecht, the legislature’s chief economist, used what most felt to be a low-ball forecast for the price of oil, $84 a barrel, when forecasting the revenue the state could spend. “You can tell by the subtext of the questioning — ‘why are you so low?’ ” Mr. Albrecht recalled. “Money was coming in like crazy. Why worry about delaying a tax cut?”
The seasons have turned, and the mood here now is much darker. Now, it is the president of L.S.U. who is gnashing his teeth.
“If we have an open position, we have to stop that looking,” said John V. Lombardi, the university system president. Next year, he said, “we may have to confront the possibility of eliminating academic programs.”
The consequences are real in a state long ago overtaken by regional neighbors more tightly focused on educational institutions. “It reduces the state’s competitiveness in attracting new business,” Mr. Lombardi said. “This is a real economic development issue for the state.”
Mr. Brandt, of the public affairs council, said cutting education would only increase migration from the state. Louisiana, he said, has “gotten by with these resources others don’t have.”
“We’ve not made the decisions we need to,” he said, “to get us out of the high-poverty, low-education cycle.”
5. Were all relevant neighborhood/district groups involved in the RH lot-next-door policy making, as promised by NORA and LRA in their published guidelines?
Why will all lot-next-door homes be demolished?
CHAT members were told in late 2006 by Walter Leger that there would not be blanket demolition of Road Home Corporation homes.
Why can none of the lot-next-door acquisitions be used for home building since they are to be sold at fair market value?
What safeguards are there about any excess income from homes being used for purposes of the Road Home Program? That is what is specified in the RH legislation.
Are certified appraisers determining fair market value or is the program saddled once again by the inaccurate BPO’s or drive-by appraisals?
St. Bernard Parish getting smaller, but lots getting larger
by Chris Kirkham, The Times-Picayune http://www.nola.com/news/index.ssf/2008/12/stbernard_parish_getting_small.html
Saturday December 20, 2008, 9:40 PM
MICHAEL DEMOCKER / The Times-Picayune
Naomi Brining, who has rebuilt her Chalmette home, stands on one of the two properties which bookend her home which she would like to buy through the "Lot Next Door" program.From Naomi Brining's back porch in Chalmette, it's easy to reflect on the memories of a neighborhood that once was.
To the left were Jason and Jennifer, the young couple eagerly awaiting their newborn. To the right was Miss Angela with the accent, who told stories over the fence of working in a kite factory in Italy.
The affable neighbors are gone; vacant lots with concrete slabs remain.
But Brining and hundreds of other property owners across St. Bernard see new opportunity in the idle lots that pockmark the parish. In once-dense sections of this suburban enclave, homeowners soon could double or triple their lot sizes under a program where they get first crack at buying the adjoining Road Home buyout properties.
"This is how it is now, " Brining reflected. "I don't have neighbors now. This opportunity is here, so why wouldn't I?"
Search for available properties in St. Bernard Parish
Map showing where heavy concentrations of buyouts are located.
The Lot Next Door programs in St. Bernard and New Orleans have been touted as a neighborhood redevelopment tool to boost property values and avoid unkempt property that doesn't contribute to the tax base. They're also a symbol of the area's shrunken population, and an overt admission by government that many idle properties could remain vacant for years without such an initiative.
Homeowners in St. Bernard responded in droves after the parish created a call center this summer, with nearly 2,000 homeowners expressing interest in the 4,038 formerly flooded lots in the parish that were sold to the Road Home program.
The parish has signed its end of an agreement to begin transferring lots from the Louisiana Land Trust, the state holding agency for Road Home properties, to interested landowners. Michael Taylor, the executive director of the land trust, said his office has not yet received the paperwork but said there should be no delays in signing once it arrives.
St. Bernard Parish President Craig Taffaro said he expects some of the first property transfers to occur in January.
Prices aren't calculated
Still unknown at this stage is how much the lots will cost. The parish has to hire an appraiser to determine the selling price of each lot, a key piece of information for homeowners who have already poured thousands of dollars into rebuilding flooded homes.
"Everybody is sitting at the edge of their seats, biting their nails, wondering if it's going to be affordable, " Brining said.
According to the parish's Lot Next Door plan approved by the Louisiana Recovery Authority, the properties will be sold at "fair market value."
But pinpointing the value of a vacant lot can be difficult, particularly because Lot Next Door rules prevent a buyer from building a house on the land. Estimates would be based largely on how much value a homeowner could expect to gain by increasing lot size.
"What's the value of a piece of land that you can never develop for a house?" asked David Boehlke, a neighborhood redevelopment consultant with the Greater New Orleans Foundation who has worked with St. Bernard in developing the program. "It's difficult to put restrictions on land use and then expect to get any kind of market value for the land."
Most money from the property sales will go to the state Office of Community Development, which intends to funnel the proceeds back to the parishes. In St. Bernard's estimated budget for the Road Home property plan, the parish anticipates $61.7 million from property sales, but Taffaro cautioned that revenues could be much lower.
Country living in the city
Still, some residents are simply eager for the chance to spread out. Even before the Lot Next Door program was announced in St. Bernard, Charmaine and Richie Clements bought their neighbor's empty lot in the Chalmette Vista neighborhood late last year in a private sale, eager for their dogs to have more room to run. They're holding off on more ambitious landscaping plans, though, hoping to get first dibs on buying two additional adjoining lots through the program.
Though the cost is unknown, Richie Clements said it's hard to put a value on living in "a country house 6 miles away from Jackson Square."
"What we decided was that we would stay here and we would invest in the property, knowing we might not get our investment back, " Charmaine Clements said. "But that's OK, because this is where we chose to stay."
Based on the initial interest in the program, Taffaro thinks more than half of the Road Home properties in St. Bernard will be sold to private homeowners. Once the appraisals are finished, the parish will examine lists of interested buyers and proceed with the transfers.
The parish has no money yet to hire an appraiser or property manager, and is working with the land trust to identify financing sources.
Once the parish redevelopment commission approves the sale, title for the properties can be transferred directly from the land trust to the private homeowner, avoiding a scenario where the parish takes on the increased expense and liability of maintaining the lots.
Other uses are possible
There are no guarantees that next-door homeowners would get the properties automatically. Local government entities such as the parish or local levee boards get first preference on the Road Home lots, to be used for projects such as drainage retention ponds, parks or other green space.
Next-door neighbors are the second priority. In the event that two neighbors each want the vacant lot between their homes, the property would be split in half. In some cases, neighbors to the rear of a vacant lot could also be eligible to purchase.
St. Bernard is including a provision to entice new homeowners or former residents to buy in the parish and also have the chance to purchase the adjoining Road Home-owned lots. Remaining lots would be left to nonprofit groups and investors, with a focus on developing affordable housing.
Taffaro said the parish is also exploring programs to encourage Lot Next Door purchasers to talk with landscape architects or gardeners about how to best manage the new space.
"We don't just transfer ownership, we transfer it into a use so that neighborhoods begin to take on a different look and feel than they do now, where it's just abandoned lots, " Taffaro said.
Based on a grid of the Road Home properties, huge swaths of northern Chalmette and Arabi near the 40 Arpent Canal are or soon will be vacant lots included in the program. Twenty-five percent of the 8,365 eligible properties in Chalmette have been sold to the Road Home. In Arabi, it's 33 percent.
One key difference between St. Bernard's property program and the one run by the New Orleans Redevelopment Authority is that New Orleans is moving forward with both Road Home buyout properties and blighted properties that have been condemned and adjudicated. St. Bernard, for now, is focusing on the Road Home lots that have clear titles and don't have go through a time-consuming expropriation process.
The agreement between New Orleans and the state to begin parceling out Road Home properties is still awaiting approval from Mayor Ray Nagin but could be signed next week, said outgoing NORA executive director Joe Williams. NORA has already gotten appraisals for more than 500 properties, which can move toward sale once the state signs the agreement.
One other sticking point in St. Bernard is the pace of demolitions on Road Home properties. Of 4,000 lots in the parish, 1,500 still have houses on them that need to be demolished before a transfer can take place. Taylor, of the state land trust, said the state is finalizing another contract before the end of the year to demolish any remaining structures. Slabs also will be removed using land trust money.
Taffaro said the parish is designing an appeal process if prospective Lot Next Door buyers want to keep the slab for a patio or garage. In that case, the parish could require fences or other property improvements to ensure that the lot doesn't remain a vacant eyesore.
. . . . . . .
Chris Kirkham can be reached at ckirkham at timespicayune.com or 504.826.3321.
Have a happy holiday and a good New Year!
Melanie Ehrlich
Co-Chairman, CHAT
http://chatushome.com
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