Thursday, April 21, 2011

Law suits filed against LSU challenging Footprint expropriations

I know of at least two suits that have been filed recently by property owners in the LSU Footprint that challenge not merely the amount of compensation for expropriated property, but other aspects of the takings as well.

For example, here's the opening of The Blood Center's attempt to impose a Temporary Restraining Order (TRO) and obtain injunctive relief:
















Somewhat ironically, I know that a number of former residents of the LSU Footprint saw the Blood Center take over properties in the neighborhood...removing houses from two full squares of the neighborhood, making part of it "green space," and doing little with much of the property after Katrina.  As with just about any aspect of activities and controversies in the Footprint, things are complicated.

Additionally, a property owner on Cleveland Avenue has filed a suit that directly challenges the legality of the government taking, the expropriation by the LSU Board of Supervisors.  The City of New Orleans is also named as a defendant.

Here is a sampling:


1 comment:

Anonymous said...

LSU has not acted alone.

Under the Community Improvemnt Agency, the Moon Landrieu adminstration created the Core Area Development District (CADD) which worked closely with a state DHH group known as HEAL to assemble and promote a biomedical corridor below Galvez, across Tulane Avenue and in Downtown New Orleans near the former Eye Ear Nose & Throat Hospital. At the time, the magnitude and nature of the land assembly, which was undertaken largely without public input, elicited public criticism. CADD changed its name to the Downtown Development District while HEAL quietly faded from public memory.

Although expanded, renamed and and repackaged as a post-Katrina recovery project, the current biomedical development project remains recognizable as the 1970s HEAL land acquisition plan.

Early last year, Governor Jindal appointed the DDD's Kurt Weigle to head HEAL.