Who inspects the inspectors

Basically the Code Enforcement Director for the City of Kenner also works for the building inspector that he outsources his department's work to. That is supposed to be fine because the work he does for the inspector doesn't happen in Kenner.  It happens in New Orleans and in Jefferson.  The "gotcha" in this story is that some of those New Orleans jobs might have been fraudulent (or just sloppy mix ups, you will have to decide) but it's the obvious conflict of interest that is the problem. 

Surely we wouldn't let anything like that happen in our city.

Air tax

It's fun when we get to agree with Owen Courreges about something. It doesn't happen all that often. In turn, Owen rarely agrees with VCPORA. And yet here we all are in agreement. Well, except for the mayor, I guess.

In an utterly unprecedented move, Mayor Landrieu recently began to require property owners to sign lease agreements for the “air rights” to balcony features that encroach on city property, leases that can cost upwards of $4,000 per year. The agreements are normally required before a property owner can obtain necessary inspections or building permits.

What this means is that property owners are confronted with two equally-perverse incentives: 1) to not build or retain their galleries; and, 2) to refuse to cooperate with the city in securing building permits for any work performed.

Predictably, advocacy groups and sundry neighborhood organizations are up in arms. “It’s part of the fabric of the city. It doesn’t make sense to penalize people for that,” said Meg Lousteau, head of the Vieux Carre Property Owners and Residents Association (VCPORA).

Although we’re rarely on the same side of any issue, VCPORA has a point here. Landrieu’s policy makes absolutely no sense, except in a single regard – it generates revenue. One of the first tricks Landrieu learned was to task his departments to increase revenues from fines and fees through creative means. Agencies have become less reasonable and more greedy under his direction.

In a way this is similar to the extortionate criminal justice system of fines and fees we just referenced in a previous post. It's less egregious in that it's aimed at property owners in historic neighborhoods but the principle is the same. The city is on the lookout for ways to squeeze money out of, literally, thin air. And why not? I mean isn't this more or less what the whole 21st Century economy is based on?

Nowadays, imaginary value conjured out of nothing via regulatory arbitrage is the just a fancy way of saying "entrepreneurship."  Besides tourism, the amazing resilience of the city's 'Treppin elite is the mayor's favorite subject.   It's hardly surprising that any of this would be right up his alley. Doubly so when someone finds a way to combine those two areas. 

A formalized proposal to legalize Airbnb-style rentals in New Orleans could face it first vote Tuesday (June 14).

NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune will be in the City Council auditorium to cover the City Planning Commission's meeting live when it begins at 1:30 p.m.

That's tomorrow. The rest of that T-P article is styled as a "primer" for those who may have come late to this. But here is the key bit about what tomorrow's meeting means.

In recommending the regulatory framework majority of the commissioners voted against legalizing principal-residential rentals. However, the City Council, at the request of Mayor Mitch Landrieu, then asked the commission draft a set of amendments codifying the planning staff's initial recommendation, which included them. 

CPC, following the concerns of many residents and wary of the negative experience of "destination" cities around the world, wanted to limit the practice of turning whole homes and apartments over exclusively to Airbnb. The mayor rejected their modest recommendation and is making them do it over.

The public meeting is sure to draw a lot of attention.  The pro-STR lobbying group with the Orwellian name "Alliance for Neighborhood Prosperity" is pretty good at turning out their membership to events like these when it counts. It helps that a lot of them are professional lawyers and lobbyists who can bill the time unlike the wage earning renters who have more trouble showing up in the middle of the day. So expect a lot of hot air in the room.  If only there were a way to tax it.

Update: Ah and CPC has postponed the vote. It looks like the topic is still on the agenda? Maybe? If so the meting might still be entertai9.

Shrinking the HDLC footprint

The mayor is going to cause some garment rending with this one.

Mayor Mitch Landrieu not only opposes expanding the Historic District Landmark Commission's remit to regulate building and renovations, his vision for the city's preservation regime would actually shrink the area where you are required to seek special permission before demolishing structures.

Property owners in Hollygrove, Gert Town, most of the Lower 9th Ward, and parts of Broadmoor, Central City and the 7th Ward would be allowed to demolish houses and buildings on their land with no sign-off from the city required beyond a regular demolition permit.

Well, you know how Mitch loves to "fight blight." But this is much more complicated as we get into the tricky boards and fiefs set up, ostensibly, to "preserve" neighborhoods.

Landrieu wants to get rid of the Neighborhood Conservation District and its committee tasked with assessing demolition applications. The committee lacks a technical staff and was, until a recent reform, considered to be represent a legally tenuous restriction on private property rights.

The administration would like to limit the area where property owners need special demolition permits to historic districts, which are governed by the Historic District Landmarks Commission (HDLC).

However, the few existing historic districts cover only a small part of the city, mostly around the waterfront from the Irish Channel to Holy Cross in the Lower 9th Ward. Others are in Esplanade Ridge, Treme and Algiers Point.

Apart from the French Quarter, which is governed separately through the Vieux Carré Commission, the rest of the city operates outside the HDLC's control. If the Neighborhood Conservation District disappeared today, developers and property owners would have a free hand to demolish at will in hot real estate markets like Uptown and Mid-City.

So, yeah,  as we've seen over and over again, in post-Katina New Orleans, the only motivation anyone ever has for clearing land use red tape is so that someone can build more nice things for rich people. It should come as little surprise that Mitch wants to expedite demolitions in "hot real estate markets" now.

But too often all these boards do is harass people.  An HDLC inspector notices a transom out of place and suddenly a homeowner is ordered to affect an expensive cosmetic renovation.  At a recent public forum on gentrification, LaToya Cantrell noted that "code enforcement" (she was politically careful not to use the words "historic preservation") may be a check on wholesale redevelopment, but it's also a pressure point on less wealthy residents.

While Cantrell — both as a Broadmoor neighborhood leader and a city council member — is an advocate for property maintenance (for example, as a proponent of stronger inspections of rental properties), she said that code-enforcement can also add to the pressure low-income residents feel to move out of gentrifying historic neighborhoods. As houses are bought up and renovated, new residents may complain about the conditions of occupied homes, and a visit from Code Enforcement officials could serve as additional pressure for the long-time residents to simply sell and move somewhere cheaper.

“All of a sudden, somehow code enforcement is on them a little bit strong,” Cantrell said. “The 70-year-old is getting fines for her shutters, because the paint is peeling. They’re feeling the pressure.”

So while Mitch's proposal is sure to generate a round of heated discussion between developers and preservationists, it doesn't really matter to residents squeezed for affordable housing who wins this particular fight. All they're arguing over is who gets to gentrify these neighborhoods and how. 

Sanitation Rangers

From this morning's Advocate on  the mayor's legislative agenda.

Landrieu also wants legislation to forgive the city $5 million a year in “GO Zone” hurricane recovery loan payments and to let code enforcement officers or sanitation rangers issue summonses for sanitation and public nuisance violations, freeing up police for “more serious issues,” according to the Mayor’s Office.

That's a friendly sounding name for a code enforcement unit empowered to walk around fining people for not cutting their grass and stuff.  (I guess "Mitchkateers" was already taken.) It could be worse, of course.  Last year, city council wanted to authorize the Rangers to enter your home and check that you hadn't illegally carpeted your bathroom.  So this is a more friendly approach.

Cow tipping

Mitch Landrieu has come to overturn your sacred cattle.

Landrieu vows to fight against ‘sacred cows’

The list of groups and individuals that Mayor Mitch Landrieu is feuding with seems to grow almost weekly: the sheriff, a pair of federal judges, the police unions, the firefighters union, the taxi drivers, the judges at Civil District Court, the clerk at Criminal District Court, the heirs of Edward Wisner, the local NAACP, etc.

 At a meeting of the local Rotary Club this week, Landrieu recalled that it wasn’t always this way.

 As a member of the state Legislature and then as lieutenant governor, he said, “My reputation was one of a guy who was really easy to get along with, someone that was a consensus builder, someone who always tried to get to ‘yes,’ no matter what.”

 Landrieu had to acknowledge though, “As mayor of New Orleans I have developed a reputation recently — evidently — for being a fighter,” adding, “I want to talk about that for a second.”

If the gathered Rotarians expected an olive branch to follow, they were disappointed.

“There are certain things that are really worth fighting for, and they’re fundamentally important to the future of the city,” Landrieu said. If he’s going to hand City Hall to the next generation of leaders in better shape than he found it, it’s going to require “slaying sacred cows — and there are many of them in the city of New Orleans.”

So, to be clear, police, firefighters, cab drivers, these are all, in the Mayor's mind,  "sacred cows" he will have to "slay" (cows apparently need slaying now... like dragons)  in order to protect The Future. 

Know, also, that if you are believed to be harboring any cows in your home, Mitch may send his knights in there to slay them too.

The rules give code inspectors the go-ahead to be on the lookout for structures with rodent infestations, tall grass, rotting wood and defective plumbing. Efficiency rental units that don’t include cooking appliances and refrigerators, bathroom floors that aren’t made of a “smooth, hard, nonabsorbent surface” and properties with “substantial” peeling paint and cracks can also draw citations.

The ordinance gives inspectors with the Division of Code Enforcement the ability to enter any land, structure or premises they have “reasonable cause” to believe is in violation of the code and it empowers hearing officers to order demolition at an initial hearing.

“These revisions are long overdue and will allow us to increase efficiency and create stronger, more flexible enforcement options for all properties, including substandard living conditions in occupied properties,” Landrieu said in a statement. “My priority is to provide a strong quality of life for all New Orleanians as we continue to make progress toward reducing the number of blighted properties in the city.”

Poor orelderly homeowners can't always afford to keep up with the "peeling paint." And there are, of course, scores of quirky apartment buildings in New Orleans that still offer affordable rents.  But these are sacred cows now and the Mayor's Boutique Strategy dictates that we have them at least put out to pasture if not "slain" altogether.

Anyway there's bound to be a glut of ground meat on the market soon. 

Distinction without a difference

Being hauled before a Kanga-Kafka court for no discernible reason (other than, perhaps, the padding of blight inspection statistics) doesn't really amount to "more courteous" treatment even if they don't yell at you as much.

One cited citizen showed up to testify that not only were renovations under way at the house in question, but he no longer even owned it, having sold the place 10 months ago. Fearing he’d be fined anyway, he brought along photographs documenting the new owner’s rehab work.

Another property owner came in wondering why his $400,000, fully-tenanted house had been cited. Was it because his renters were messy? The case manager scratched her head as she looked at photos snapped by the city’s inspector. Wasn’t that a television in one of them – a television in a house that was supposed to be empty? And the code violation? Good question.