News Roundup

New Office Boosts Blakely’s Fight Against Blight

City Business
by Jaime Guillet Staff Writer
December 20, 2007

NEW ORLEANS — New Orleans recovery chief Ed Blakely said his newly consolidated office will hasten the city’s recovery by arming him with more weapons to fight blight.

When city officials reorganized the Office of Recovery Management into the Office of Recovery and Development Administration, Blakely gained responsibility for the code enforcement and safety and permits departments — two catalysts for rebuilding. The departments have the power to cite negligent property owners for blight and provide permits for reconstruction, respectively.

Blakely vows to add inspectors, centralize data management and revise city strategy in battling blight. Blakely and ORDA Chief Operating Officer Ezra Rapport are proposing a code enforcement overhaul to the New Orleans City Council today.

“The advantage (of the reorganization) is we can target our code enforcement efforts more clearly, more specifically and to more zones and areas so that we get the follow-through on them of putting code enforcement, blight removal and new housing and development in certain areas,” Blakely said.

Rapport said ORDA will study only specific target areas and strategic neighborhoods rather than work to embrace all blighted city properties — estimated at between 20,000 and 30,000.

“Our strategy is to identify the target area neighborhoods, which are the 17 target areas, and the stabilizer neighborhoods and fully map those neighborhoods for each individual property and its condition so we can attack the problem from a data perspective and set up the plans so they can handle that volume,” Rapport said. “It’s not to go through the entire city overall because that’s what has led us astray in the past. Attempting to tackle all of the city’s problems has resulted in a very low number of successful outcomes. It requires strategic management.”

Rapport said some of the specific overhauls are simple streamlining.

“Enforcement ordinances will be simplified and strengthened to induce more property owners to comply with the city’s rules,” said Rapport. “All public nuisance and blight inspectors will be consolidated and placed on unified and compatible software that will account for all actions taken on specific addresses. This will speed the inspection process and provide notice to property owners as to the standards required for owning property in New Orleans. If property owners do not comply with code enforcement standards, fines and liens will be placed on the property and in some cases, blight expropriations will be undertaken.”

The departments have needed more money to hire additional inspectors to handle the volume of work, Blakely said.

The 2008 Safety and Permits operating budget has been increased to $5.8 million, the “highest it’s ever been,” said Director Mike Centineo. Safety and Permits 2007 operating budget was 70.5 percent lower at $3.4 million.

The department hired five new building inspectors for a total of 18, four new electrical inspectors for a total of seven and two architectural plan examiners, “which is where the big bottleneck was occurring” to a total of four. Centineo plans to hire four more zone inspectors.

“Things are looking up,” Centineo said. “The problems were the staffing so we’re ramping up constantly. We’re fully staffed and we’re providing inspectors 24 hours a day. Things look good for us.”

Code Enforcement’s 2008 operating budget of $2.9 million is the second-highest within the ORDA — a 472 percent increase from the 2007 operating budget of $426,096.

The department will add 11 inspectors this year for a total of 29.

The city is gathering blight data from strategic neighborhoods to help code enforcement.

The Lakeview Civic Improvement Association and the nonprofit Beacon of Hope will also provide information to the city, said LCIA Vice President Al Petrie. Beacon of Hope will partner with the LCIA to tally blighted properties in the area from the 17th Street Canal to the Orleans Canal between Robert E. Lee Boulevard and City Park Avenue.

“Our primary mission is to help Lakeview residents maintain the stability of the neighborhood,” Petrie said. “We’ve reached out to the city and they’ve reached out to us to help them be more efficient in its role in code enforcement by identifying the problem properties. It’s going to take some time but we’re probably the best source of data (for the neighborhood).”

LCIA and Beacon members will refine their database, updated quarterly, to properties with grass 18 inches or higher and note whether homes have been gutted or abandoned.

The Louisiana Recovery Authority last week promised to turn over $293 million to Orleans Parish in February. Rapport said the ORDA is preparing an action plan to allocate the money.

“(The action plan) requires public comment and internal meetings,” Rapport said. “We have to bring it for approval by the state and it has to be adopted by the budget (committee). It’s going to have to go to the state in January. It will be more detailed, specific allocations for the different projects and programs.”

“Now we’ve got our $300 million, there should be no more excuses,” said Councilwoman at-large Jackie Clarkson. “(Taking care of the number of abandoned homes has) been unacceptable. If it’s not improved we will be calling them to the table.”