Will the Obama administration be able to fulfill the broken promises of the past?

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development embraced the trapezoid, dubbed Iberville-Treme, along with an exhaustive New Orleans plan that called for 2,314 apartments constructed within 54 months. Yet after 48 months — four years — the work in New Orleans is far from done. If construction continues at the same pace in coming years, the promised 2,314 apartments won’t be complete until 2026. (via Archinect)

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To date, only 167 of the promised off-site 1,493 apartments have been completed and only a handful more are in the pipeline. Also, the newly created apartments are not spread throughout the trapezoid, to prompt the neighborhood-wide transformation envisioned in the proposal. Rather, the bulk of the off-site apartments, 112 senior-living apartments on Canal Street, are one block from the Iberville site.

In fact, it now looks as though most of the 2,314 apartments may not happen at all. Gone too are the hopes for revived neighborhood streetscapes bursting with cafes and retail stores. “That original plan, you can throw it out the window,” says Gregg Fortner, the housing authority’s new executive director. “We only care about the 821 subsidized units. HUD will not bother us if we get to 821 replacement units.”

But HUD spokeswoman Patricia Campbell says that the 821 replacement units — which must be affordable to extremely low-income renters — are only a portion of HANO’s commitment. “In addition, HANO committed to develop 1,493 additional non-replacement units in the designated Choice Neighborhood,” she wrote in an emailed statement.

Now it will be up to New Orleans officials to figure how to make good on the promise.1

  • 1. http://nextcity.org/features/view/10-years-after-katrina-new-orleans-public-housing-still-in-limbo-iberville