Wise allocations of public capital

Why does one city need to dedicate public money and tax privileges to two different golf arcades three miles apart from one another? Well, it's kind of an accident. Or a series of accidents. Not well-intentioned accidents, mind you. These are the kind of accidents that happen when all of your policymakers begin with the assumption that the only lever available to anyone in government is the one that gives nice things to the already wealthy. 

Xiao, a Denham Springs-based businessman whose interests include Airborne Extreme trampoline parks in Louisiana, has been working on the Five O Four project since he purchased it from developer Joe Jaeger in late 2022.

Jaeger and his partners bought the site, the former home of The Times-Picayune, in 2016 for $3.5 million. Originally, he had a deal with Topgolf to build an outlet there. In 2017, after Topgolf pulled out, he struck a deal with rival chain Drive Shack to build one of their facilities.

In 2019, a decision by the Convention Center board to quietly propose a Topgolf on the land they controlled prompted an angry response from Jaeger and questions about why the state-sponsored facility would try to compete with a private development nearby.

Then-Gov. John Bel Edwards said it didn't make sense for two such similar outlets so near together and the Topgolf project appeared to be dead. But the pandemic slowed — and eventually scuttled — Jaeger's plans at the Howard Avenue site until Xiao stepped in with Five O Fore.

Xiao has subsidy deals both from reduced local property taxes and from a deal to recoup an additional 2% sales tax to pay for part of its development costs.

The Topgolf project was revived last year by the Convention Center. Topgolf will pay for the development costs itself and will sublet the land from RDNI, which is a long-term tenant of the convention center on that plot.

Topgolf is not seeking any direct taxpayer subsidy, though it is within the River District economic development district, which means it would raise an incremental 2% sales tax that can be used for River District development costs.

The article could have also mentioned the separate $21 million tax break doled out to Shell as part of that same River District scheme.  But try not to think about that right now. 

Anyway one of the golf arcades is suing the other one now over "unfair trade practices." That's pretty rich considering how both of these businesses got here in the first place.

Commercial STRs in the queue now

After a decade of dealing with this, we have reached the point now where City Councilmembers can no longer pretend they do not understand the problem. But they can still pretend they are trying to do something about it. Until they don't. 

The New Orleans City Council on Thursday took another step to rein in short-term rental permits in commercial areas, passing a temporary ban along some busy corridors abutting residential neighborhoods.

The motion, which passed unanimously, aims to close a loophole that critics say lets investors build what are essentially hotel suites next door to full-time residents. It prohibits renewal for a more than one quarter of the New Orleans' 1,200 commercial short-term permits, although permitting officials said they will make exceptions for those issued within the past six months.

It's the same process as what is happening now with residential STRs.  The new regs will inevitably grandfather in everything that currently exists and create new language by which the problem can continue to expand even as councilmembers claim to be "reining it in." Then in another couple of years we will "discover" that the new system is still bad and tweak it some more.. but grandfather in the next batch, of course. Repeat forever. Or at least until nobody actually lives here. 

NORF

I remember noticing this thing gearing up some months ago around the time the Trump Administration was rolling out its new Opportunity Zone rules.

New Orleans Redevelopment Fund has launched its latest real estate investment initiative designed to provide tax benefits to investors with capital gains while helping fight blight in the area. The NORF 3 Opportunity Zone Fund wants to raise $30 million, a news release said. It would be the largest fund to date for NORF, a private real estate developer founded in 2013 that specializes in the adaptive re-use of historic buildings and urban infill.

The Opportunity Zone program provides tax incentives for investors to re-invest capital gains into funds that promote development in economically distressed areas of the United States. The program offers deferral of the original capital gains tax until 2026 if gains are invested within 180 days of sale; reduction of 15 percent for the original capital gains tax if gains reinvested in an Opportunity Fund are held for seven years; and permanent exclusion of capital gains for gains accrued after investing in an Opportunity Fund if the investment is held for 10 years.

Key details of the NORF fund include sponsor commitment of 15 percent of the fund up to $4.5 million. Investors must be accredited and must have capital gains in need of deferral. NORF has identified properties in New Orleans, Baton Rouge, Houston and San Antonio, Texas and is eyeing other areas of the Gulf South, the news release said. The sites will be mostly multi-family, mixed-use commercial and hotel/hospitality.

All I can find today is that short description from City Business in March which appears to be sourced to a press release. But I also remember there being a more glowing profile of the firm itself, probably in the Advocate, but I can't find exactly the article I'm thinking of now.  I think they're still having trouble with archives and link rot at the Daily Georges.

I noticed them again in May when it was becoming clearer that the Trump rules were likely to be conducive to parked money and/or land flipping schemes. The rush to figure out an angle was described by investors as being "like the Wild West." This NORF group continued to show up in several articles as a prime angler.  Already they specialized in converting government tax incentives into real estate profits. So this was really just the next evolution of that business.

The initiative by The New Orleans Redevelopment Fund aims to take advantage of opportunities created by last year's federal tax cuts as well as the Historic Tax Credits program, and represents a big leap for the local developers, who currently have a portfolio of about $40 million in properties. The new investment round is targeting $30 million in equity from existing and new investors, as well as $70 million in debt financing.

The group has plans for two commercial developments in New Orleans, said Cullan Maumus, director of development. One will be a conversion of a warehouse in the Tulane/Gravier area into retail space catering to the medical district. The second development, which the group expects to finalize in the second quarter of the year, would be a hospitality development in the Central Business District.

Most of the group's 37 projects to date have been residential, though it has had some larger conversions including a warehouse at 2740 St. Louis along the Lafitte Greenway, where the firm is relocating its main office from Tulane Avenue.

Among those 37 residential projects was this Mid-City condo development sold to the public as "affordable housing for teachers and nurses" garnering much well-deserved ridicule this spring. I can't confirm this is the same building they "evicted dozens of tenants" from, but it seems to fit.

Anyway, all of this is just background. Today we learn that the "hospitality development" referenced above is the Warwick Hotel on Duncan Plaza.

The former Warwick Hotel, a derelict building that faces City Hall across Duncan Plaza, is set for a $60 million makeover, the latest in a series of recent moves by real estate firms to redevelop properties on once-neglected blocks of the Central Business District.

The New Orleans Redevelopment Fund, a private investment group focused on property rehabilitation, purchased the 130,000-square-foot building in June for $8 million.

We learn also that,as expected, the project is funded the old fashioned way. On the backs of great big taxpayer subsidies geared especially toward helping rich people make more money. 

The Warwick building is eligible for historic tax credits, as well as the "opportunity zone" tax breaks that were part of 2017 tax package passed by the Trump Administration. These and other public incentives have been key to attracting developers for many of the properties in the CBD, Ragas said.

Indeed, NORF began a new fund in March to attract investors looking to take advantage of the opportunity zone tax breaks, which allow investors to put off and potentially sharply cut their capital gains taxes if they invest in designated areas.

Meanwhile, there is a major housing crisis in the City of New Orleans. You might have heard about it.  Errol Williams says there's not much our tax policy can do about that.

Errol Williams, Orleans Parish Assessor, attended the meeting to help clarify any concerns. Many people came to the front to ask questions.

“We applied the formulas equitably among everybody,” Williams said. Williams said if someone has an assessment increase that they feel is wrong, to bring it to his office. When asked about Smith's large assessment estimate, for example, though, Williams said he didn’t think the value increase was extreme.

“In the past four years there's been substantial increase in values in perspective neighborhoods.”

Williams said while people fear they are being pushed out of their homes this way, gentrification is “happening all over the country.”

“Gentrification is happening not just in New Orleans but all over the country and what you're seeing is people are buying in neighborhoods, renovating their properties and selling it for substantial more. So we can't ignore that. I can't treat them separately,” Williams said. Williams called said it is “a tough situation.” He also said it’s important for property owners to bring their issues to the Assessor's attention.

Not much tax relief for homeowners or the people they rent to who will surely see their costs go up as well.  Not unless they all go out and start their own investment funds first.

NIMBY Nation

This Huff-Po article about the increasingly reactionary nature of urban land use politics in major US cities got a fair amount of attention this weekend. I don't know exactly why the author insists on defining the backlash as a generational thing. I know "Boomer" is lately the shorthand for middle-class, middle aged conservatives.  But it confuses the issue for too many people. What we're really trying to describe here is the tipping point in urban politics that naturally follows years of policies specifically designed to fill the cities with nice things for rich people while everyone else is left to fend for themselves.  If only rich people can live in the city, eventually the city's politics will reflect the rich people's interests.

"We have mountains of data showing that cities need more housing and better transit and shelters for homeless people,” said Matthew Lewis, the director of communications for California YIMBY, a pro-housing nonprofit. And yet cities often give in to neighborhood groups opposing this much-needed infrastructure. The proposed homeless shelter booed by Salt Lake City residents in 2017 was canceled the next day. Schwartz’s lawsuit has succeeded in delaying the bus lane on 14th Street. The tantrum-throwing Seattleites eventually won the repeal of the tax they were shouting about.

“It’s frustrating,” Lewis said. “The people with the most privilege pack the meetings, shout over everybody else and get their way.”

These organized opposition groups could also, in the longer term, form a conservative coalition in cities and pull them to the right. This is already happening in cities with high rates of homelessness, where nominally progressive residents have formed interest groups that echo conservative talking points on personal responsibility and cracking down on drug users.

“This is not an anti-homeless march,” Barry Vince, an attorney, told reporters from the local television station as he participated in an “anti-crime march” in Long Beach, California. “We’re here to march against criminals, and we want the bad guys taken down.

Lewis said he’s seen similar rhetoric begin to appear in public hearings over housing and transportation.

“It’s a pretty short leap from ‘We don’t want homeless people living here’ to ‘We don’t want refugees’ or ‘We don’t want immigrants,’” Lewis said. “I’ve seen lifelong hippies who drive electric vehicles stand up at these meetings and say, ‘There’s too many people here already.’ It’s like you’re at a Trump rally.”

Maybe it's that thing about "lifelong hippies" that prompts the "Boomer" framing in the article.  But the critical dividing line isn't based in culture or age cohort so much as class. Didn't we already know hippies grow up to be yuppies the minute they get a hold of the slightest semblance of wealth?  The article alludes to that as well but quickly takes it in the wrong direction.

Cities can also redesign community outreach to encourage input from groups that have traditionally been excluded. According to a 2017 study, older male homeowners are more likely to participate in town hall meetings and other public participation processes than other demographic groups. Another, published this month, found that becoming a property owner motivated individuals to participate in politics and to express their views on housing, traffic and development to elected leaders more often.

This is followed by a consideration of whether or not cities should limit or deflect public feedback at government meetings.  But that's just more of the anti-democratic neoliberal impulse that got us here in the first place. The issue isn't really about process. It is about political power. And right now rich people have too much of it. That's not a new problem. Nor is it a generational problem the way the article wants you to think it might be. It's just the timeless process of wealth accumulating and then defending itself.

A proper analysis of this goes beyond simple questions of YIMBY vs NIMBY.  You can't describe the politics of who is allowed to live where by whom solely in terms of cold hard "supply and demand." There are real live power relationships to consider. In New Orleans, for example, big decisions are heavily influenced by real estate developers, of course. But also there are neighborhood organizations (dominated by property owners) and historic preservationists (property owners with the kind of money that gets you onto the "philanthropy" circuit) who have stifled equitable housing and transportation policies for ages. More often than not they operate with some sort of progressive sounding rationalization.

Under the pretense of "quality of life promotion," neighborhood associations hire private police with public funds,  shut down bars and music venues, shoo the homeless away,  and ensure that bus stations doesn't have too many public restrooms. When the City Council voted to demolish the Big Four housing projects after Katrina, we were told by NIMBY liberals the cause was humanitarian. 

“We need affordable housing in this city,” said Shelley Stephenson Midura, a Council member who proposed the resolution that was adopted. But, she added, “public housing ought not to be the warehouse for the poor.”

New Orleans's most prominent beneficiary of those demolitions was mega-developer Pres Kabacoff. Here is an article by Roberta Gratz who, even in an article critical of the displacement for which Pres is hugely responsible, can't help but give him props as a preservationist.

Ironically, Kabacoff and his company, Historic Restoration Inc., are responsible for some of the best of the preservation projects that have helped downtown retain its traditional feel.

There's nothing "ironic" about it, though.  Preservation and gentrification often align with the same policy agenda. Which is often carried, we were reminded again today, by high powered liberal politicians.

Warren will meet “with activists, influencers and community leaders,” a campaign spokeswoman said, but didn’t provide specifics.

One of her leading supporters in the state is Pres Kabacoff, a New Orleans real estate developer who said he reached out to Warren because of her support for well-regulated capitalism.

But most of the time these are battles fought out block by block and one planning meeting at a time. Recently this mixed use development faced a gauntlet of intense neighborhood opposition in Bywater. And the Touro-Bouligny association is currently stalling a HANO project Uptown aided, we should note, by the addition of the building in question to a list of "Endangered Landmarks" maintained by a local preservationist society.

Interestingly the mayor rarely weighs in on any of this.  Over the course of her first year in office she's been more focused on the tourism grand bargain, police affairs, the traffic camera controversy, and the Sewerage and Water Board follies than zoning and housing questions. That might change at any moment. The STR wars are moving toward a conclusion... of the current phase anyway.  We may see the mayor get involved in that at some point.  But whenever she does decide to put a thumb on the scale of one of these land use matters, surely the fact that she got her start in politics as a neighborhood association president will have at least some bearing on which way that scale might tip. Just something to watch for, anyway.

Free milk and a Brown's cow

A full two years after the announcement of its closure, the Brown's Dairy complex is going up for sale.  Does there go the neighborhood?

For decades Central City has been an affordable neighborhood for African-American residents. The NAACP has historic roots there. Dryades Street (now Oretha Castle Haley Boulevard) was a major shopping thoroughfare with dozens of bustling stores and an open-air market. The Brown’s Dairy redevelopment will create further gentrification and change the traditional residential mix. It could also drive out some long-time renters. The Muses, a mixed-income apartment complex, currently provides the highest concentration of affordable living units in the area.

Listing agents formulated two prospectuses for the site – one that highlights mixed-use redevelopment and a second prepared for hotel investors. Without a zoning waiver, the site could accommodate a 550-room hotel. There is already a successful Quality Inn less than one block from the site. Hospitality industry real estate broker Lenny Wormser believes the site is not appropriate for a major hotel chain such as the Marriott, whose development costs are in the range of $450 per square foot including land. More affordable hotel chains such as the Comfort Inn could build out the site for $150 per square foot or even less, Wormser said. Even at $150 per square foot, development costs could reach $30 million, a previously unheard of budget for any Central City construction project. The city could approve a height variance perhaps in exchange for new affordable housing offsite.

Why go "offsite"?  Is that even a thing being talked about or is Columbus just helpfully suggesting it?  These kinds of set aside deals are insufficient tokenism in the first place even when they're applied directly to the development in question.  Moving them "offsite" just cedes the question of protecting the neighborhood altogether.

And Central City is in need of protection.  According the most recent Data Center neighborhood profile, 67.6% of renters there are "cost burdened" (defined as households that spend over 30 percent of their income on rent.) The Brown's lots are also important in that they are on relatively high ground. Every land use decision that deliberately excludes poor and working class New Orleanians from the limited range of sustainable real estate is yet another missed opportunity to create an equitable housing policy.  When Brown's closed two years ago, it meant a loss of 185 working class jobs. It looks like the plan is to replace those with more nice things for rich people and more upward pressure on rents.

On the other hand, you could probably put like five Top Golfs on that property so, you know, best highest use, right?

Speaking of Top Golf, it looks like Joe Jaeger and Melvin Rodrigue have completely broken up now. Jaeger had been on board to develop the now green-lighted Convention Center hotel. But that changed after Rodrigue appeared to cut a separate deal to build a Top Golf on vacant riverfront land controlled by the Convention Center. Jaeger was already involved in a venture to open a competing golf arcade franchise on the old Times-Picayune property. The Top Golf plot prompted him to leave the hotel deal in a huff.

Jaeger told NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune he has no intention of returning to hotel project. He said he has deep concerns about Convention Center leadership. He declined to mention any leaders by name.

Jaeger said those concerns remain after seeing the lease terms revealed in the now-quashed Topgolf deal. The situation is baffling given the millions the authority spent on consultants to develop a master plan for the acreage it owns, he added.

The Convention Center leadership includes Michael Sawaya president and general manager of Ernest N. Morial Convention Center, and Melvin Rodrigue, president of the New Orleans Exhibition Authority. The 12-member authority board has a mix of business and civic leaders.

If the leadership remains the same, “I don’t want anything to do with anything on that property,” Jaeger said. “It just doesn’t work for me.”

Now, even though the hotel has been authorized and the Top Golf deal mothballed, neither side is interested in making up. Instead they are moving ahead to develop their adjacent properties independently of one another.  Thanks to LaToya Cantrell's embarrassing "grand bargain" with the tourism oligarchs, Rodrigue now has legal authority to treat the Convention Center pretty much like his own private development company. 

House Bill 617, passed by the Senate on a 33-0 vote on Sunday, authorizes the Convention Center to build and own the $550 million, 1,200-room hotel proposed for the upriver end of the giant exhibition hall. The bill also clears the way for the Convention Center to develop other vacant land it owns next to the site

He hasn't decided what to do with it yet. But whatever it ends up being, the hard part was making sure the taxpayers would back it. That's all done now, thank you very much, Mayor Cantrell.

In his email, Rodrigue admitted the vision is still being formed, though he expects convention center leadership to turn more of its attention to the future of those lands now that plans for a headquarters hotel are progressing.

“We know the type of programming elements needed to make it a successful mixed use development and have lots of ideas of what those look like,” he said.

"Mixed use," meaning some riverfront condos and retail, maybe.  There might have to be a little "affordable" set aside somewhere in there. Or maybe that can go "offsite" too. 

Jaeger is making plans for the Market Street power plant.  Or at least he would like to.  This makes it look like there aren't many solid ideas at the moment. But there are plenty of public subsidies available should any ideas emerge.

Jaeger intends to push Market Street forward starting this summer. His team attended the International Council of Shopping Centers conference in Las Vegas in mid-May. Market Street was among the projects they looked to chat up among investors. Jaeger said he and his team plan to revisit previous redevelopment ideas, including the possibility of an entertainment use for the space.

Redeveloping the century-old property will be costly. The work will likely involve environmental remediation. But developers would be able to leverage historic tax credits, Jaeger noted. The plant also sits in an Opportunity Zone, a federal tax break program that is spurring frenzied investment in real estate. That could attract investors, he said.

“It’s difficult, but it’s got some reasons why it could happen,” Jaeger said.

So here we are again with all this public money available to throw at all this vacant land on high ground.  Nobody really cares what gets built there, specifically.  Meanwhile, this city has a serious housing crisis.  Somehow, despite all the recent rhetoric about what constitutes a "fair share," nobody can figure out how to connect these two facts.  Maybe nobody wants to.

Heating up

It was surprising to learn from real estate professional Stacy Head that the Dew Drop Inn is "hot" now.

Through strategic, persistent and well-organized advocacy, long-standing neighborhood issues like blighted housing can be resolved. Just as Freret Street blossomed after Hurricane Katrina, Head considers LaSalle Street around the Dew Drop Inn as the next “hot” area for redevelopment.

It was just last month, however, that we learned that the latest attempt to develop the venue has failed.  Maybe Stacy means that makes it "hot" now for an opportunistic and well capitalized investor to swoop in now.  I don't actually think it would be Sidney in this case. But I did mention in that post that there is a "cultural overlay" district on LaSalle Street there. This is probably what Stacy is thinking about.  More importantly, though, the "opportunity zone" rules look like a tax shelter scam for parked money. 

So it's possible that we could see "investment" in the area that drives up land values without actually creating anything.  That's "hot" as hell.

This round goes to Motwani

The epic clash of New Orleans Real Estate Dickheads playing out on Frenchmen Street is not over, though. At least according to Sidney it isn't.

Motwani said the deal with Vaso calls for the club to buy the building and sell part of it back to the Motwanis. The club, he said, will remain.

Torres said he plans to appeal Bruno’s ruling. “We’re not backing down because we feel the law is on our side,” he said. “This whole thing is basically not over.”

Torres described the Motwanis’ effort to acquire the building after losing out in the bidding as “a snake move.”

When he had the French Quarter garbage collection contract, Torres was known for the lemony scent he ordered spread through the city’s historic core. He said he planned to evict Vaso in part over unsanitary conditions, including rats.

That's weird, though, because you would think the "snakes" would be ideal for helping to clean out the rats. Also this article conforms to the legal mandate that any story about Sidney Torres must include the word, "lemony." I suppose it is here in order to set this up. 

“I’m very anal when it comes to cleanliness,” Torres said. “Right now (Vaso) doesn’t fit with what I own.”

In which case I think we should amend the rule to now require this quote be added to the conditions. 

Update: Of course if Sidney does miss out on Vaso and is still looking to take over bars, then Parasol's should be available soon.

You'll be able to get a roast beef po-boy at Parasol's Restaurant & Bar this weekend, but after Friday night, the bar at the classic Irish Channel neighborhood joint will be dry.

Parasol's proprietor Thea Hogan said that a city lawsuit over unpaid taxes has left her unable to renew Parasol's liquor license, which expires Saturday. She is working to get the bar back to normal, but when or how that will happen remains an open question.

There are a bunch of rumors going around but the basic story is the bar owes at least two years worth of back taxes for some reason.  Unless the debt is paid and the license reinstated within six months, the building could lose its non-conforming usage status. At that point, nobody will ever be able to operate a bar there ever again.  Because this is New Orleans where we love our neighborhood bars so much we are always trying to kill them.

Anyway so the rumors are a bunch of people are "lining up" to buy the bar and pay off the taxes so they can take over Parasol's. That sounds like a Sidney move to me. But then I don't know if a dingy corner bar really meets his cleanliness standards.

Downtown land rush

After Katrina New Orleans received a lot of advice from urban planners about how to"shrink the footprint" of the city. We were told to be careful not to repeat the injustices of the past where the city was largely segregated by race and class according to elevation.  Build high, build dense, and build on high ground, we were told.  Of course it didn't work out quite that way, sometimes for good reasons and sometimes for bad reasons.

Because you can't mow down a whole city and start over with a "blank slate," the human beings who live there have real life stakes and interests to consider. In other words, there's politics to do. Unfortunately our politics is dominated by wealthy real estate people so most of the time the results are sub-optimal for most of us.

And this is still true now in the post-post-K era where we are finding out that even though we did go and build high and dense on our high ground downtown, it turned out we were just building more nice things for rich people. 

Domain Companies officials will meet with neighbors Friday, May 31, to explain a zoning map amendment for their South Market District properties including The Standard, The Beacon, The Paramount, and a 36,000-square-foot surface parking lot. They are asking to change the zoning from CBD -5 to CBD-1, which would allow for increased commercial use, including timeshares.

Domain liaison Christian Brierre says the company is seeking the amendment “solely for the purpose of our retail spaces” and that The Paramount and The Beacon will “continue to be market-leading multifamily apartment products.”


Some neighbors wonder if Domain or a future owner could embrace timeshare as the highest and best use for those properties. Already, The Saratoga, the Maritime and 144 Elks Place are being redeveloped as timeshare or extended-stay properties.

While there is general unevenness in real estate sales citywide, business-friendly zoning downtown — which has encouraged the proliferation of timeshares, hotels and short-term rentals — is keeping overall real estate sales strong. Also Trump-era opportunity zones will provide long-term financial relief to many developers, including those acquiring properties in parts of the CBD.

Back from the winter palace

Your City Councilors have returned from their tour.

We’re excited to announce that we’ll be back at City Hall for our meeting this Thursday, March 8th. Thank you to our friends at the @_OPSB for so generously opening your space to us for the first part of 2018. pic.twitter.com/uDytMDuwVE

— NOLACityCouncil (@NOLACityCouncil) March 6, 2018

On the March 8 Agenda:

The owners of some of these denied STR spot-zoning requests are appealing the Planning Commission's decision.

A proposal to limit "by attrition" the number of strip clubs allowed on Bourbon Street.

The "surveillance ordinance" is supposed to be on this agenda but I don't see it. Correction: Here it is   There were rumors it might be deferred again. Understandable given the significant amount of local and national pressure.

It hasn't stopped him yet

Sidney Torres is being discouraged from "investing" in New Orleans.

Torres is now raising holy hell about the Board of Zoning Adjustment's decision to uphold the zoning violations, which would prevent Torres from holding events at the church in the future. In a Facebook post announcing a temporary restraining order Torres has obtained that prevents the city from enforcing the zoning ordinance, Torres accuses city officials of political retribution, noting that he was critical of Mayor Mitch Landrieu after the city's floods in July and August.

"You are treated differently, shut down abruptly for political payback," Torres said. "This is why some business operators and investors raise an eyebrow before coming to New Orleans."

It's difficult to name a "business operator and investor" in this city who has benefited more by the special treatment he's been able to purchase from politicians over the years than Sidney.  If someone is out to get him they're doing an exceptionally bad job of it.

Torah Torah Torres

Sidney should just go the full nine and have Late Capitalism declared a religion.  It's where the world has been headed for quite a while now anyway. The trep who gets the early jump on the grift is automatically Pope or something.

After last year’s renovations, The Monastery was given a permit to operate as a religious facility. Justin Schmidt, Torres’ attorney, told the board that at the time he and Safety and Permits Director Jared Munster had agreed that they wouldn’t debate what constitutes a religion.

The initial discussions seemed to envision the site being used mainly for religious-related events such as weddings and associated receptions.

But Munster said the actual events — which included a multi-day vampire-themed party and other balls and galas — have gone far beyond what had been represented. And advertising that paints the site as perfect for corporate events and conferences of up to 1,500 people further showed a lack of religious leanings, he said.

Welcome to Kern World

Last week, Cousin Pat wrapped up a series of informative posts diving deep into the murky waters of zoning and land use. (Part 1 Part 2 Part 3)  If you're interested in knowing why this stuff is so important, here's what he has to say about that.

Now, if you ask me about this process, I would tell you there’s a difference between the letter of the law and the spirit of the law. My biggest problem isn’t in a “corrupt” system, it is in an obscure system where citizens and voters and taxpayers never really know what is going on in their community until it is too late to say anything about it. I personally find that incredibly undemocratic, and I believe processes like that tear at the fabric of strong communities. While that sort of thing is all technically above board, it breaks the public trust through omission and obfuscation, and citizens throw up their hands and take a fatalistic, disengaged attitude toward their own city government. Sound like any place you know?

I only differ with him here in that I'm fine with calling something "corrupt" if this is what it looks like. Deliberately obscure systems that steer policy choices toward the benefit of an exclusive circle of insiders meets that threshold for me. In any case, the only remedy is finding ways to facilitate greater transparency and participation.  That isn't easy, of course.  Mostly what happens is developers and oligarchs get whatever favors they ask for.

We're just now finding out what Barry Kern and Joe Jaeger are asking for with regard to their recent investments.  Imagine, for example, the Times-Picayune building as the new American Can Company.  It's beginning to look like Kern might.

The group of local investors who bought the former Times-Picayune building last year are requesting mixed-use zoning from the New Orleans City Council — suggesting yet another major redevelopment in the works along the Pontchartrain Expressway.

The 9-acre property at 3800 Howard Avenue housed The Times-Picayune from the late 1960s until printing moved out of state in 2016. It was sold in September to a development group called 3800 Howard Investors LLC, which included developer Joe Jaeger, Barry Kern of Mardi Gras World, and Arnold Kirschman who recently redeveloped the 4500 block of Freret Street, according to a report in the New Orleans Advocate at the time.

The group does not specify its intentions for the property in its application, but says that mixed-use zoning will help pave the way for the future project.

“This site is currently zoned BIP Business Industrial Park District, though it is unlikely that offices or a business will be the new use here,” according to a letter submitted with the application. “The owner has therefore proposed changing the property’s zoning to MU-2 High Intensity Mixed-Use District, which would allow for the site’s full redevelopment.”

According to Uptown Messenger, the CPC staff is recommending against this change saying, among other things, that the requested designation is  “too intense for this physically isolated site, given the limited surrounding infrastructure, and the fact that the site is not easily accessible for vehicles or pedestrians.” That seems reasonable enough.  But when Kern's group bought the building, they clearly understood that those circumstances could change.

Jaeger's group also includes float builder Barry Kern, president of Mardi Gras World, developer Arnold Kirschman, whose family operated furniture stores in the metro area for nearly a century, and Michael White, a businessman.

"They have no specific plans or projected uses," Aamodt said. "They just want to participate in the growing New Orleans economy, and feel like the neighborhoods surrounding that location continue to get better."

They're so high on the location, in fact, that they've also purchased a warehouse not too very far from there. (Although getting from one building to the other is a bit convoluted because... well... CPC is correct about the area, basically.)  Anyway, they want to make that into an "indoor trampoline facility" which is apparently a thing you can have.

Kern is planning “an indoor trampoline facility” inside a 51,000-square-foot warehouse at 3035 Earhart Boulevard, just off South Claiborne Avenue, according to the application he filed with the city.

“This facility would be the first of its kind in the city of New Orleans, and would represent a great addition to the family friendly entertainment options the city has to offer,” Kern wrote. “This request would not greatly alter the fabric of the zoning district, but, if granted, it would expand the options for families looking for a safe, supervised place for their children to play.”

Anyway, Kern's group obviously has plans for the area. And Kern and Jaeger being who they are probably means that whatever plans they have are probably going to be permitted with or without CPC's approval. Because that is how this works in case you haven't been paying attention.

This also means we get to add KernWorld to our ever-expanding NOLigarchs map.  It isn't fully developed yet. And it's also probably a lesser dependency of Jaegerton for now. But, well, we know where it is, rougly.

Trucking asbestos all over the westbank wilderness

These two recent AZ posts are intriguing.  You could ask a bunch of questions. One is, who had the asbestos abatement contract?

And your little dog too

The defendant, having just been convicted of witchcraft, howls a parting curse at his accusers.

Greg Collins, the hearing officer for the case, slapped Illies with a $150 fine plus a $75 hearing cost.

Both the fine and the hearing cost must be paid within 30 days of jackhammering the paving.

Illies said he plans to appeal and, in a parting shot, waved his arm toward the audience and warned that he is going to report unspecified code violations on his neighbors’ properties.