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remember those black countertops in science lab classes? i thought it might make a good alternative to $45 sf honed black granite or dark slate or black dupont corian. turns out its made for home applications already and is marketed as durcon a molded epoxy resin.
But New Orleans' poor homeowners will lose even more if they rashly invest in fixing up homes that will later be deemed uninsurable or are in neighborhoods so sparsely populated they can't get police, water or electricity service. If these residents hold out only a few months more, they can make better decisions about what to do.
Local and federal government, on the other hand, must move fast to make sure the city is inhabitable for low-income citizens. The federal government urgently needs to craft a measure like the one proposed by Rep. Richard H. Baker, R-La. Baker's proposal would allow homeowners to sell their ruined homes to a state development corporation and help them move to safer areas.
President Bush, in a speech from New Orleans' then-deserted Jackson Square, promised the nation that New Orleans would be rebuilt, but the White House has inexplicably withheld its support for Baker's proposal. Does the president intend for the federal government to finance the replacement of every destroyed house where it stood? If not, how will the rebuilding of New Orleans be accomplished?
New Orleans, meanwhile, needs to gather information. How many displaced people wish to come home? How many would live elsewhere if their old neighborhoods are unlivable or dangerously situated? How might they rebuild social networks? Gathering answers to these questions will jump-start the city's ability to offer utilities where needed and make crucial decisions about rebuilding plans.
Every day the line snakes down a spartan corridor on the eighth floor of City Hall here, as hundreds of people clutch a piece of paper inscribed with a fateful percentage that could force them to abandon their home.
The number is always over 50, and it means a house was so damaged in the flooding after Hurricane Katrina — more than half-ruined — that it faces demolition, unless the owner can come up with tens of thousands of dollars to raise it several feet above the ground and any future floodwaters.
But there is a way out, and that is why so many people stand in line every day, collectively transforming this half-ruined city. "What you need to do is talk to a building inspector and get that lowered below 50 percent," a city worker calls out to the crowd. And at the end of the line, in a large open room down the hall, that is exactly what happens, nearly 90 percent of the time, New Orleans officials say.
By agreeing so often to these appeals — more than 6,000 over the last few months — city officials are in essence allowing random redevelopment to occur throughout the city, undermining a plan by Mayor C. Ray Nagin's rebuilding commission to hold off on building permits in damaged areas for several months until more careful planning can take place. That plan, greeted by widespread opposition, including from the mayor himself, is now essentially dead.
House by house, in devastated neighborhoods across the city, homeowners are bringing back their new-minted building permits and rebuilding New Orleans. As many as 500 such permits are issued every day, said Greg Meffert, the city official in charge of the rebuilding process.
And there is no particular rhyme or reason to who gets a permit, or consideration of whether their neighborhoods can really support its previous residents. One city building inspector, Devra Goldstein, called the proceedings on the eighth floor "really fly-by-night, chaotic, Wild West, get-what-you-want."
The floor, she said, represents "a plan by default."
It is also testament to the fierce desire of many displaced New Orleanians to re-establish themselves, no matter the odds.