NEW ORLEANS (AP) — New Orleans’ main redevelopment agency and Brad Pitt’s Make It Right foundation are working to rebuild more than houses in the city’s Katrina-scarred Lower 9th Ward.
Under an agreement described by officials Monday, the New Orleans Redevelopment Authority would use the proceeds from the sale of up to 50 properties to Make It Right for neighborhood improvement projects. While no decision has been made on how to invest the money, a grocery store — a need local residents have repeatedly cited — is near the top of the list.
“We’re trying to create a win-win,” said Ommeed Sathe, NORA’s director of real estate and development.
The Lower 9th Ward was devastated by Hurricane Katrina and the levee breaches in August 2005; by one estimate, just 17 percent of the pre-storm population has returned. Derelict houses and warped, cracked streets dot the area. There’s a school but few businesses or other amenities.
The agreement is unusual. Generally, developers pay appraised, fair-market value for properties, with NORA expected to reinvest the proceeds in such things as acquiring new properties or helping to make the homes built more affordable.
The idea behind this agreement is to help build up the neighborhood — allow Make It Right, which many see as an innovator of green, sustainable construction, to focus on building. For NORA, it frees the agency to make new investments to revitalize the neighborhood to improve quality of life.
Sathe wouldn’t say how much money the property sales to Make It Right would generate, but he said additional funds, secured by the city’s recovery office or other sources, likely would have to be rolled in to attract a business like a grocery store.
He said NORA has a year under the recently signed contract to invest the funds. If that doesn’t occur, the funds would revert to NORA for other program uses, though the intent would still be to focus on the Lower 9th, he said.
Make It Right has set an initial goal of building 150 homes near the site of the catastrophic levee breaches, and has received more than 200 applications. So far, eight homes have been completed, six others are being constructed, and the work is having a “catalytic effect,” causing other homeowners to rebuild, said Make It Right’s executive director, Tom Darden.
The organization hopes to purchase up to 50 properties from NORA, and Darden expects swift groundbreaking for a new round of homes. Many of the properties the group is getting are on lots that are already cleared.
The properties are among the estimated 4,450 the state bought from homeowners in New Orleans after Katrina. NORA plans transfers to other developers, nonprofits and individuals in other parts of the Lower 9th Ward.—-Contact The Daily Reveille news staff at [email protected]