NOLA Defender Covers the Kennedy Talk

Here:

After several years of working within the confines of a plan that called for a 424-bed teaching hospital on a stretch of Lower Mid-City land that is currently a residential neighborhood, the three Republicans' alternative appeared to indicate that consensus on the project had eroded. But Kennedy said the idea that there was political backing for the single proposal all along was a facade.


"We have been allowed to discuss one plan, and one plan only," he said.

Unnecessary Costs - Because the state went with Lower Mid-City instead of using the Charity building it already owns

$46.3 million - land acquisitions


$4.1 million for legal services related to buying or expropriating the 244 parcels on the Mid-City footprint


$2.6 million on relocation programs, including $721,805 of that on professional services contracts


$284,581 on demolitions

The other costs listed in the Times-Picayune article may or may not have been similar for a retrofit of Charity Hospital.

But the bottom line remains valid: The UMC site, as proposed for Lower Mid-City, has resulted in the project costing much more than it needed to cost.  The choice has also significantly delayed the return of care.

The state is missing out on the ability to use historic tax credits in any way by refusing to go into Charity.  It has also spent over $50 million more than needed because it chose the Lower Mid-City site as opposed to a viable alternative - at a time when it remains hundreds of millions of dollars short of the funding necessary for the Lower Mid-City option, and when the Charity retrofit would have been less expensive overall.

The LSU Footprint

[Click to enlarge any photos]

Note the several functioning businesses remain active in the site - Southern Electronics (set to move this month), The Blood Center (final photo at left), and Mid-City Automotive (barely visible in the distance in the center shot). The towering Grand Palace Hotel still stands off in the first shot above, as does McDonogh No. 11 School in the final shot.

Approximately 15 historic homes remain after dozens have been demolished in the past 9 months.

Not a single building has been moved off the site since site preparation started.

Tulanian Story on House Moving

Here.

There are also stories in the publication about the S.W. Green Mansion, as well as some Lower Mid-City photography by Stephen Hilger.

#1

New Orleans isn't the #1 dying city in America.  Not by any means.

But New Orleans has permitted parts of itself to be killed off following Katrina...like Lower Mid-City.

I wonder what the mayors said yesterday when they visited the site of the proposed hospitals, as they surveyed the devastation:

'At Dooky Chase's in the 6th Ward on Monday morning, iconic chef Leah Chase gave them "instructions" on their work before they walked from the first phase of Faubourg Lafitte, the remade Lafitte public-housing development, to the LSU-VA hospital footprint in Mid-City. Along the way, they made several stops to discuss the Lafitte Greenway, the Claiborne Avenue Corridor and the possible removal of the elevated expressway, a renewed Canal Street and new streetcar lines."

Night Lights

One of the last houses on its city block - a block which used to have 22 primary structures and many more individual addresses (many were shotgun doubles) - the top floor of 223 S. Galvez sits awaiting a move off the site to be rehabilitated elsewhere in New Orleans.  Moves for this week are set to start tomorrow, Thursday.

Off in the distance on the left, you can barely make out a few lights in two houses that are still occupied - Ms. Gaynell's place and Robert's house.

All told, about 6 houses and one business remain at least partially occupied in the site, even at this late hour.

UN Advisory Group Finds Human Rights Violations in Lower Mid-City

The Advisory Group on Forced Evictions, an advisory group to UN Habitat, released a report today that finds what it determined to be human rights violations in the forced displacements in Lower Mid-City:

"The AGFE mission uncovered five instances of forced evictions and displacement in

violation of human rights..."

"Instances, Causes and Effects on Residents of Forced Evictions and Related Human Rights Violations"

"In November 2008, the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs and Louisiana State University announced the selection of the Lower Mid-City community for the site of their new hospital system. If built, the new hospitals would destroy the historic neighborhood around Charity Hospital, where residents have been rebuilding and restoring their homes and community since Hurricane Katrina.  During the tour of Lower Mid- City, AGFE mission members met with several homeowners who had spent their life savings restoring their houses after the storm.  These residents are now facing displacement through eminent domain as the city moves forward with plans to destroy their homes and turn their community into a medical corridor.  The residents, along with a majority of New Orleans citizens, have been urging city officials to reopen the pre-existing Charity Hospital instead.  The community hired an independent architecture firm, RMJM, to evaluate their proposal to reopen Charity, which the firm hailed as a viable option.  The city has yet to meaningfully engage the community on this issue. 
 
The AGFE team attempted to discuss the decision-making process around the displacement of the Lower Mid-City community and continued closure of Charity Hospital with city officials.  A representative from the New Orleans City Council refused to discuss the matter with AGFE and instead had the City Council attorney provide us with a formal email that provided the team with no information on this matter (see Appendix 4)"

As the Sun Goes Down

Across the no man's land of the VA Footprint, in a drifting cloud of dust, workers remove the last of the debris from what used to be the second story of 2310 Palmyra Street, the artist's house.

"robbing and pillaging"

A flyer in the doors.

BioDistrict Public Meetings this Week

If you live in the VA or LSU Hospital footprints, you also reside within the much larger footprint of "BioDistrict New Orleans" planned for a 1,500-acre campus in Mid-City and Gert Town.

Several public meetings are scheduled for this later this week:

If you're not familiar with the project, which is overseen by an unelected board, you should attend...if only to see whether your home or business falls within an "opportunity zone" proposed by the project.

On the Radio

Jacques Morial and Brad Ott took to the airwaves this morning to discuss the hospitals project in Lower Mid-City, focusing on the healthcare aspects of the issue.

"The state's own study projects that the UMC...will lose up to $100 million per year for several years..."

"The resulting design plan envisioned a footprint that would fit nicely in Glendale, Ariz., or any American suburb where the unifying design element is the surface parking lot."

John Maginnis talks Lower Mid-City hospitals in today's Times-Picayune.

He rightly praises Mayor Mitch Landrieu for taking a more constructive and engaged approach in the matter than predecessor Ray Nagin.

However, this statement - "But he felt community pressure not to allow LSU and the state to have their way razing and replacing everything on 70 acres in the middle of town" - reveals the real problem. 

Even if Landrieu does force LSU to come up with a better design for the LSU side, even though he did support the house moving on the VA side, 70 acres in the middle of town will still be razed and replaced.  The state and LSU will still ultimately have their way even if the window dressing is shifted slightly.  Landrieu felt the intense community outcry, but he didn't respond and act with similar intensity on the leadership side. 

I'm sure he and his staff view his responses as the "reasonable, middle ground" solutions - and the house moving, for example, is admittedly a major undertaking.  I'm sure they're tired of "obstructionist" advocates who are never seemingly satisfied with any measure.  But here's the thing: a mere "balanced" response by the city's leader is not a sufficient response when the harm he seeks to redress or avoid is dramatic, long-lasting, avoidable, and clearly wrong in many ways.  It requires more than we've seen thus far.

There are no plans to move the over 50 historic homes in the LSU Footprint at this time.  Even if the design on that side of the project is superior, it's still slated to involved outright demolition of many properties that contribute to the Mid City Historic District.

Additionally, the solid VA Hospital building "island" out in the Mid-City neighborhoods will still break up the street grid and distort the neighborhood even if the LSU Footprint's design is revised to avoid those problems.

In short: Yes, Landrieu has reduced the pain in a number of ways - and he should be recognized for it - but that's little consolation when the city is still having a major surgery performed in the wrong location.

Coming Soon

To an historic home near you.

Brought to you by: Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act

A Shift Inside the Footprint - and Outside as Well

I've been off studying for and taking the Bar, and it's good to be back.

In the roughly two weeks I've been gone, the overall picture of the prospects for the Footprint have changed.

While it's unfortunate that Louisiana and the nation are suffering through a period of economic uncertainty, that black cloud may have silver lining as it relates to the people and the historic architecture of the neighborhood.

In this week's edition of The Louisiana Weekly, Christopher Tidmore takes an in-depth look at the politics and players involved in the controversy and makes a rather significant finding.  The headline of the lengthy feature article sums up the new atmosphere that surrounds the project:


"Delays, Cost Overruns May Save Neighborhood"

Here's the introduction to the piece:

What had seemed impossible only a month ago, suddenly entered the realm of reality over the last week.  The news that the new LSU Medical Center would take at least another six months over its original estimated opening date, and cost millions more than was originally proposed for its construction left some senior state officials wondering if the demolition of a historic, 19th-century neighborhood in Mid-City was the best answer.

The article goes on to outline the grim fiscal realities that may ultimately save the neighborhood - the parts that weren't already demolished.

It's unfortunate that dedicated medical care has not yet been restored to the community as anticipated.  But the new fiscal climate makes even more apparent what many, myself included, have been arguing all along: a more limited footprint and the inclusion of the existing Charity facility in the plans is the faster, cheaper, and more responsible way forward.

Sandra Stokes of the Foundation for Historical Louisiana does a great job of outlining the details of those arguments in the body of the Tidmore article linked above.  Be sure to read the whole thing.

"Resident"

Photo courtesy of Prof. Stephen Hilger, from his Lower Mid-City collection.

A Different Perspective on the Footprint

Yesterday, I had a chance to chat with Stephen Hilger, a professor of photography at Tulane.

He has a series of photos from Lower Mid-City at his site, and some of his images do a much better job than mine of capturing the humanity of the place.  It's a less harried look than mine.

His evocative shots of the people of the place provide a different perspective, and he also homes in on the vacancy at the fringes of the neighborhood.

The Street Closure Ordinance Passed

Yesterday, after minimal input and debate.

Council Meeting Tomorrow

Thursday, April 22

10:00am

City Council Public Hearing

When: Thu, April 22, 10am – 12pm

Where: City Hall, 1300 Perdido St, New Orleans, LA

Description:  For the first time, the City Council is holding a public hearing that addresses the proposed LSU/VA medical complex. At issue, is whether or not to allow the closure of streets on the VA footprint, despite the fact that most residents still live in the neighborhood.

ht/SaveCharity

My Letter to the Editor of the Times-Picayune

Pared down by the editors, here's how it appeared in today's paper:

April 13, 2010, 1:11AM

I moved to New Orleans in the summer of 2007, in large part because I find this place unique. A significant part of that uniqueness stems from the city's distinctive architectural jumble that has emerged after nearly three centuries.

I object to the plans to demolish a sizable swath of the city's architectural heritage in lower Mid-City to make way for the proposed LSU and VA hospitals. While the return of medical services is an admirable goal, the plans are an assault on what sets New Orleans apart. The use of expropriation to seize properties is also disconcerting.

In the past nine months, I've spent a good deal of time "inside the footprint" of the proposed hospitals. I've seen every single camelback, shotgun, Creole cottage, raised basement home and hybrid. I've talked with many of the residents who returned post-Katrina, only to face a moratorium on repairs and ongoing uncertainty about demolition.

The mitigation factors U.S. District Judge Eldon Fallon raised, which The Times-Picayune cited in its editorial, are laughable. Taking photos, salvaging a few architectural elements and moving eight to 12 homes still permits destruction of hundreds of historic properties.

Destruction of the neighborhood lakeside of Galvez Street is completely inappropriate.

As seen after the razing of local federal housing complexes, areas cleared optimistically for major development using expropriation sometimes end up sitting vacant. It would make more sense, as has been suggested all along, to locate the VA Hospital riverside of Galvez Street and reopen the LSU facility within the existing Charity Hospital building.

I'm not suggesting New Orleans put itself in a glass case, preserved for all time. But we need to recognize when changes are too extreme. When a proposed change stands to alter a fundamental characteristic of the city, it needs to include recognition of its harmful impacts and a meaningful effort to mitigate them. That's never been present in the LSU/VA Hospital push. Instead, there's been a consistent attempt to get away with as little effort at historic preservation as permitted by law.

My Response to the Times-Picayune's Editorial in Favor of Destroying Lower Mid-City

Here's my point-by-point response to the Times-Picayune editorial board's piece today praising a ruling in favor of building hospitals in Lower Mid-City:

Rebuilding of streets, police stations and other public spaces is finally in full gear almost five years after Hurricane Katrina and the levee breaches. But one of the most vital construction projects for the city's recovery has remained on hold.

That's odd.  If getting the VA and Charity hospitals back on line was a vital construction project, you think the people in charge, to start, would have rebuilt in the existing Charity Hospital building - something that was feasible structurally, would have cost less money than the Lower Mid-City option, and would have been completed more rapidly.

It's also interesting that the paper's desire for rebuilding and renewal didn't extend to those who live in or lived in Lower Mid-City.  A City Council moratorium barred residents and owners inside the footprint from even effecting simple repairs to their properties for months.

It may at last get back on track, though. A federal judge's ruling last week rejecting preservationists' arguments against two proposed hospitals in Mid-City is a significant victory for New Orleans and the rest of the metro area.

So, a significant victory includes destroyed a swath of homes built of first growth cypress with distinctive, endemic New Orleans architectural characteristics that are easily movable?  Victory is forcing people out of their homes after they returned following Katrina and restarted their lives?  Victory is further reducing the city's already shaky tax base?  Victory is employing state expropriation (eminent domain) against private property owners when alternative sites are available?  Victory is thrusting a peninsula of development appropriate to the CBD north of South Galvez Street into what is a National Register Historic District and what is clearly neighborhood?

The decision, by U.S. District Judge Eldon Fallon, removes an obstacle to construction of a new 200-bed Veterans Affairs hospital and a nearby 424-bed state teaching hospital near downtown New Orleans.

If LSU can even pay for its portion, as the folks at Save Charity Hospital have pointed out repeatedly.  And Judge Fallon forgot to mention just how much of the roughly 70 acres of land will be used for surface level parking lots wholly inappropriate to New Orleans.  Getting the hospitals back on line is an admirable and worthy goal.  But the good that will come from the endeavors is not the only factor worth weighing in the balance when arriving at a way forward.  Throughout the process, the absurdly inflexible insistence on the Lower Mid-City site has been baffling.

The long-planned hospitals are urgently needed to treat veterans, as well as the sick and the indigent, and to train new doctors and health care professionals. Just as important, the facilities are expected to anchor a biomedical district that could attract thousands of jobs and become a vital economic engine for our region.

The key word there is "could."  Destroying all of the projects in New Orleans and replacing them with lesser quality buildings could improve New Orleans.  Or, as we now see, they may never be replaced because times change and funding realities can worsen.  If you want to see the devastating effects of "could" in a situation similar to the one in Lower Mid-City, see how New London, Connecticut looks after it used eminent domain to eliminate homeowners like Susette Kelo for development by Pfizer...that never materialized.

Preservationist groups have said that instead of building a new teaching hospital, the state should rehabilitate the old Charity Hospital building. The ruling this week came on a lawsuit filed by one of those groups, the National Trust for Historic Preservation, which argued that the fast-tracked planning process for the new hospitals violated the National Environmental Protection Act. That law requires a complete vetting of construction projects financed with federal money but gives agencies some leeway on how they set up the planning process.

Building in Lower Mid-City also leaves the existing Charity and the VA campuses in the CBD vacant...even more vacancies in an already drafty downtown.

Judge Fallon concluded that months of planning meetings and the documents produced in that process satisfied the federal requirements. He noted that the government satisfied requirements to consider various sites early in the process and that it evaluated the project's environmental impact. Significantly, the judge noted that "had the agencies been required to wait for all relevant information, the (preliminary environmental assessment) would not have begun until recently, thus further delaying the return of medical services to the New Orleans area."

The federal requirements, the laws in place related to historic preservation-based objections to development, have no teeth.  They are blatantly, by design, toothless when it comes to stopping projects, especially those initiated by unelected federal agencies.  There is process, yes, but meaningless process.  Fallon's concern reveals the Catch-22 that often serves to defeat attempts at preservation: the judges note that construction couldn't get underway if all parties waited for the outcome of the full, unsegmented studies.  But then, once construction has progressed far enough, it would be inconvenient to stop the project.  Effectively, the judge chooses development, normatively, as his preferred outcome.

Considering that more than four years have passed since Katrina hit and the floodwalls failed, additional delays would have been a harsh blow to our region.

And again, if the delay in providing services was such a hassle...why didn't the powers that be go with the old Charity renovation option, as State Treasurer Kennedy suggested?

The necessity of these hospitals does not negate their disruptive impact on residents who live in the area where they will be built. That's especially painful for property owners who rebuilt after Katrina and are now having to relocate. But the broader public interest in developing a new medical district clearly justifies the construction of the hospitals. As they acquire property for the project, government officials need to make sure residents are treated fairly and are adequately compensated. In his ruling, Judge Fallon said the government made adequate plans to mitigate effects on residents, businesses and historic structures -- and that's important.

The broader public interest?  Public interest, perhaps.  But since expropriation (eminent domain) is in play, the U.S. Constitution is in play, specifically the 5th Amendment: "nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation."  Public use got stretched to public purpose, and then the Kelo case weakened the protection even more, by essentially permitting a government entity to engage in a taking for the benefit of a private entity.

While the state and federal entities pushing the hospital plans appear to be public entities, the Constitutional provision on takings highlights just how fundamentally takings can harm individuals - it shows why expropriation should not be used if there are alternatives available (and if it's unclear that the fiscal picture will even permit the proposed project to be built).  Government shouldn't use a bunker buster bomb if negotiation will do the trick, so to speak - even if a few holdouts raise the price, let them.  Or build in a smaller footprint to begin with!  Build vertically instead of horizontally.

"These" hospitals?  No, just hospitals.  The proposed hospitals in these particular locations are not the crucial aspect, it's just hospitals of some sort - veterans and indigents would get care just as well if the hospitals were located elsewhere.

I also question whether the compensation to be provided to those whose property is seized (like the owners of the Pan-Am building that was already seized via expropriation even as price negotiations were underway) will even be just.

And finally, adequate plans to mitigate harsh effects on residents, businesses, and historic properties?  I'm sorry, that's rather ridiculous, especially when it comes to historic properties.  The mitigation measures that Fallon outlines are laughable: taking digital photos of the properties to be demolished and providing a pittance of cash to move homes (only eight homeowners even considered it due to the conditions and there was barely enough allotted to move 20 homes out of over 100 historic structures in the VA footprint alone).  Destroying over hundreds of properties eligible for listing on the National Register, many of them quintessentially New Orleanian is a travesty that the city will likely look back on with sorrow some day when it realizes the joint hospitals project was in part yet another pie in the sky panacea.  Lower Mid-City is a motley jumble of architectural styles and densities - the kind of thing residential developers try to recreate in new urbanism developments.  It exudes the one-of-a-kind feel that makes a person know he or she is in New Orleans, not somewhere else.

The Veterans Administration, which committed to building a new hospital in New Orleans shortly after the storm, welcomed the court's ruling. Many New Orleanians are thankful for the federal government's resolve in that project.

Yes, the VA.  What if the VA builds at its site...only to have LSU fail to procure sufficient funding for its site, which is closer to the CBD, the essential part of the plan that would make the VA hospital part of a peninsula of inappropriateness out into Mid-City instead of an island.  What if only an island comes of this?  It's great that the VA plans to continue to call New Orleans home.  But the lure of economic lucre - and jobs for private companies, a key reason that many government leaders support the plan (not really a public purpose for takings analysis, it seems) - should, again, not be the only consideration.  And there has been little consideration throughout this process for keeping a valuable, if intangible, part of New Orleans intact - a part of its imperfect, unique, indomitable soul.

The state also has been working toward the new teaching hospital, and that effort has overcome several obstacles recently. An impasse between Louisiana State University and Tulane University over governance of the new facility was resolved in August. In January, a federal arbitration panel awarded $474 million for storm-related damage to Charity Hospital. The money will go toward construction of the new hospital and will greatly reduce what Louisiana will need to borrow to complete the estimated $1.2 billion project.

One more time...if this whole push was truly about getting a hospital re-opened to get care to indigents and veterans, why not use the arbitration award the moment it came down to refurbish the existing Charity Hospital?  The Ahab-like obsession with staking out an incongruent white whale in Lower Mid-City smothered all other efforts at compromise.

Now Judge Fallon's ruling puts New Orleans "one step closer to re-establishing a system of first-class health care for all its citizens," as Mayor Ray Nagin said.

C. Ray Nagin, font of all wisdom.  Quoting him, a public official with "worse than Bush" poll numbers, apparently lends an extra note of credence and gravity to the op-ed.

That's a major -- and long-awaited -- development.

It is a long-awaited development.  One that could have come sooner had thoughtful minds prevailed.  One that can still happen without destroying Lower Mid-City and using the weight of government to force people from their homes.