A Letter from the Advisory Council

The Lens unearths a letter sent from the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation (ACHP) to the City of New Orleans regarding the treatment of the moved VA houses.

As someone who's been both a long-time supporter of the house moving alternative - a majority of the moved houses are secured and re-roofed - and someone's who's concerned about the failure to get the remainder back into some semblance of order...I can say that I have seen the letter and thought about it a bit.

A key problem with the letter is this: the Programmatic Agreement (PA) that the ACHP cites as it chastises the City...doesn't actually address the house moving that the Landrieu administration ultimately pushed for in response to the calls made citizens and preservationists.  That's not meant as an excuse, just a hard look at the text.

The PA only contained stipulations that addressed a much more modest house moving effort that the VA agreed to fund at the outset of the hospital project - and only 3 houses ultimately moved under that program (with owners, with roofs intact).  The 72 additional houses moved as part of the effort that materialized in summer of 2010 (covered extensively on this blog - without owners, without roofs) are not envisioned in the PA.  Thus, for better or for worse, the PA proper, as governing document for effects on historic resources, arguably has nothing to say about the vast bulk of the houses that moved off the site - the City effort that came after demolition had started was and is entirely "extra-PA."

A somewhat better hook - and the one that the ACHP probably should have used in its letter - is a provision in a letter from the State Historic Preservation Office that's constitutes part of an appendix to the PA (below in blue).  In the letter, the SHPO makes it clear that the "Area of Potential Effects" for the project would have to be expanded if any houses moved off site.  In other words, it's likely that more process would have been required to address the potential effects of the moved houses on the historic neighborhoods where many of them landed (and possibly the effects of roof removal, etc. on the moved houses themselves):

To my knowledge, the SHPO understanding  in 3(c) has never been been realized despite the moving of many houses into different locations, as I've mapped here.  I know of no extension or change to the "APE" that would serve to acknowledge that more historic buildings and neighborhoods were being affected by the project.

Finally, the piece in The Lens notes the handful of houses that moved into Historic Treme.  Of all the houses that moved off site, these really are the most incongruent with their new surroundings in terms of historic and architectural context (parts of Hoffman Triangle come close, but the existing neighborhood was not as deeply historic as Treme).  That's why I was fine with the article employing the photo from this blog.

In the end, I remain hopeful that the house moving effort will succeed.  Many of the properties continue to creep forward toward better condition, and I still say that even if only 2/3 of them ultimately come back in commerce with historic character intact, it will be better than the alternative faced in June of 2010 - mass demolition of all 72 houses along with the scores of other structures that were in fact demolished.

"We're gettin what they promised. They said we'd be last. And we are last."

At the most recent VA neighborhood meeting, I noted that the ongoing work on streets like S. Rocheblave, Palmyra, and Cleveland - the streets immediate above the VA Footprint - is being done explicitly in furtherance of the VAMC project.  Some seemed to take umbrage at that assertion, but I think it's relevant given the problems the street work has been causing for residents for months and the constant attempts to shift blame.

The title quote comes from Mr. Leon, a resident on S. Rocheblave, who has been facing tumult on his street, the lakeside boundary of the VA site, since the fall of 2010 - dust, digging, mud, vibration, sudden lack of access, etc.   He's been at almost every VA neighborhood meeting since they began early last fall to discuss the issue.  And, as he noted, it's still not over.

A look at a 2007 letter from the City of New Orleans to the VA Administration, incorporated as Attachment B in the 2007 Memorandum of Understanding between the City and VA, shows that the street work is very explicitly being conducted in furtherance of the VA project:

The text reveals that the VA, even if it is not conducting the street improvement work on the adjacent and feeder streets, was very much involved in the planning of what the reasonable improvements would consist of...

....which, one would think, would entail some planning to ensure that the work was conducted in a manner that reduced impact on the peripheral neighbors.

At any rate, the VA's construction contractor has at least made greater outreach efforts to address existing and potential damage to homes than the City of New Orleans has - or the City's contractors.

On a different note, the meeting also revealed that VA had consulted with the State Historic Preservation Office regarding Dixie Brewery to see how much of the building can be saved, the 1907 portion being the part VA wants to save.  A VA rep said that VA was seeking ways to stabilize some of the weaker external wall bays from the inside.

The City's take on HCR-59

Here's how the Mayor's communications staff characterized the measure to provide greater legislative oversight and a fiscally responsible approach to the UMC project:

"The City and delegation also lobbied successfully against a series of bills and resolutions designed to strip New Orleans of resources and funding. Chief among them were efforts to slow down the $1.2 billion University Medical Center project in Mid City. The delegation fought off House Concurrent Resolution 59 by Rep. Cameron Henry which would have require full legislative approval of the UMC business plan, significantly slowing down the project’s start date."

Again, the rabid attempt to push the project forward at all costs strikes me as irresponsible.

If the city was truly worried about slowing down the project's start date, it would have long ago supported the FHL study's recommendation to build new within the existing Charity shell - a process that would certainly have been a faster way to bring healthcare back online - rather than razing a neighborhood into submission and wading into a legal morass.

City of New Orleans to use additional federal dollars to fund moved VA house rehabs

Per a notice in the Times-Picayune, the city's Office of Community Development is amending the Consolidated Plan of 2008, which, as I understand it, governs the use of Community Development Block Grant (CBDG) monies in the city, to add the following moved VA houses to the Neighborhood Stabilization (NSP) Program, thereby providing funding to move the properties back into commerce:

613 N. Rocheblave
619 N. Rocheblave
627 N. Rocheblave
631 N. Rocheblave
633 N. Rocheblave
635 N. Rocheblave
1718 Bienville
1722 Bienville
1726 Bienville
1730 Bienville
1803 Bienville
1833 Bienville
2010 Bienville
2224 Bienville
2410 Bienville
2310 Iberville
2630 Palmyra
220 N. Derbigny
421 N. Miro
3000 Conti

These are the destination addresses of the houses in questions.  Significant amounts of work have already been done on many of these.  The total amount of funds involved is $2,302,208, but there are other properties involved that are not moved VA houses or Builder of Hope sponsored.  Builders of Hope is the sponsor for the houses listed above.

Congress for the New Urbanism sends letter to HUD about UMC design

The Loss of Banks Street, Visually

Photos in this post courtesy of Sandra Stokes.

Why did the City of New Orleans permit the VA to take out Banks Street between S. Rocheblave and S. Galvez?  It really makes no sense at all - it's not like the VA's design really requires the land; it's a mid-rise hospital that could and should have been a high rise hospital on a much smaller footprint.  As you can see above at left, one of the longest contiguous avenues of live oaks, planted as a World War I memorial, has been broken, the street itself torn out and plowed over.

The City's failure to attach any meaningful design-related strings to its approval to close the streets in the VA Footprint leaves the city with one of its significant secondary corridors (one lined with mature live oaks) snapped at a key point.  The street no longer serves its overall function of funneling traffic off Canal and Tulane from near downtown to points far up in Mid-City, of reducing congestion on those larger thoroughfares and providing a neighborhood alternative.

The ill-conceived change has also led to unintended consequences, as I myself have found - like increased pressure on capillary roadways in the area, like the often-overlooked Manassas Place, shown here in red:

Loss of a key part of the street grid didn't have to happen.

Here's the view from overhead:

How Things Stand - Visually

View Status of Structures in LSU/VA Footprint in a larger map

Or, to speak more accurately, here's a map that shows how things no longer stand in the footprints of the proposed VA Hospital and proposed University Medical Center.

It's pretty rudimentary at this point.  There's a lot more data to add to each icon ( for now, red = demolished, blue = moved, etc.), but the icons should give you a rough idea of the fate of many of the structures in the site.

Possible Funding for LSU Footprint House Moves

Here's a way for you to help.

In the middle of the above image, you'll note a public meeting notice.  It's set for tomorrow night:

Monday, November 29, 2010

5:30 - 7:00 p.m.

City Council Chambers, City Hall

The City is looking for public input on how to use $1.9 million of CDBG money for housing, economic development, and infrastructure, with a focus on eliminating blight and slum, urgent need, and benefit to low and moderate income people.

*Please attend this meeting and call upon those present to use a portion of the funds to move historic homes off the UMC (LSU) Footprint.  The rehabilitated moved homes from the VA Footprint, now found in various neighborhoods thanks to Builders of Hope, demonstrate the positive impacts of a house moving effort - one that falls squarely within the goals of the funding grant.  House moving is certainly better than demolition.

Unlike in the VA Footprint, there is still no concrete house moving plan in place for the UMC Footprint.  Over 50 historic structures are at risk of demolition, and seven structures have already been demolished.  Please attend tomorrow evening's meeting to help make the house moving effort a reality.