More than two years after hurricanes Katrina and Rita left thousands of Louisiana residents homeless, the Louisiana Housing Finance Agency approved a contract late this past month with Cypress Realty Partners to build 80 federally funded “Katrina cottages” in Baton Rouge.
“It’s a pilot to help investigate the feasibility of these quickly assembled homes as an alternative to FEMA trailers,” said Jeff DeGraff, LHFA public information director.
Cypress Realty Partners, the developer, won a competitive contract with FEMA worth $74.5 million to build hundreds of houses across the state.
In late October, the LHFA gave preliminary approval of three sites in Louisiana – including the Baton Rouge development located at the intersection of Lobdell Boulevard and Florida Boulevard near the Bon Carre Business Center. The other sites are located in New Orleans and Lake Charles.
The 80 homes to be built in Baton Rouge are part of the FEMA’s alternative housing pilot program, which seeks to explore new disaster housing options.
Ben Dupuy, a partner in Cypress Realty Partners, said the homes are paving the way for future disaster relief housing. He said the new style of disaster housing could be applied to disaster victims across the nation – such as those whose homes burned in the recent wildfires in Southern California.
Dupuy said the houses provide permanent, dignified and affordable homes for people displaced by disasters. He said the cost of deploying a mobile home for 18 months can be as much as $90,000. The cost of the permanent housing option is close to $120,000.
“What we would argue is a huge life cycle savings,” Dupuy said. “[We can] spend $120,000 once for a permanent home that can be used for many, many years versus $90,000 for a shelter that really is supposed to be used for only 18 months.”
DeGraff said the homes are typically 800 to 1,100 square feet and house different sized families based on the number of bedrooms. He said he is unsure how large the houses in the Baton Rouge development will be.
Dupuy said the homes will have steel frames and cement-fiber siding, allowing the homes to withstand the damages of 140 mph wind. He said it can take as few as eight weeks to build a single house.
Dupuy said the homes – called Cypress Cottages and Carpet Cottages by his firm – reflect a “temp-to-perm” model of disaster housing. He said the homes may be built and used first to temporarily house response teams – such as contractors and recovery workers. After recovery workers move from the area, the houses could be sold as permanent homes. He said disaster victims who lose their homes could also move into the houses as a permanent option.
Dupuy said the homes are stick built, meaning all of the assembly occurs on-site. Past housing options have been manufactured – built off-site and shipped to location – or modular, meaning components are assembled off-site, but the pieces are constructed on-site.
DeGraff said there is no official time estimate of when construction will start at the Baton Rouge site. He said only preliminary approval has been given by the LHFA, and the project is awaiting further approval from the LHFA. He said the project could be in full swing as early as the next LHFA board meeting, which is scheduled for Nov. 14.
Dupuy said the LHFA will decide who can live in or buy the 80 federally funded homes.
“Louisiana will be helping create a new national model for disaster housing through this [project],” Dupuy said.
——Contact Nicholas Persac at [email protected]