"Make It Right" Plans 150 New Homes for New Orleans' Lower 9th Ward

The following article in New Orleans' Times-Picayune today is posted at http://blog.nola.com/times-picayune/2007/09/lower_9th_ward_project_to_buil.html

Lower 9th Ward project to build 150 homes
By Michelle Krupa Staff writer

In a novel and ambitious effort to return New Orleans homeowners to their own neighborhood, an international consortium of architects led by film star Brad Pitt announced plans Wednesday to develop at least 150 storm-safe, environmentally sound houses in the section of the Lower 9th Ward reduced to rubble by a massive levee breach.

Working lot by lot instead of amassing huge development tracts, the project, dubbed Make It Right, will take applications from homeowners who want to rebuild their own properties with model homes now being designed, said Virginia Miller, a New Orleans spokeswoman for the project.

"Make It Right isn't buying big parcels of land," she said. "We don't have an interest in being a developer. We have an interest in building houses for people."

Unlike other plans, including recovery director Ed Blakely's $1.1 billion blueprint to rebuild the city starting in 17 target zones, Make It Right is not designed around a traditional commercial center, nor does it aim to expand an area already beginning to thrive.

Instead, it focuses squarely on a neighborhood that has become an icon of New Orleans' destruction: the blocks just east of where a powerful storm surge crashed through the Industrial Canal floodwall during Hurricane Katrina, obliterating dozens of homes and reducing hundreds more to piles of splintered rubbish.

Miller said the project area will extend across the 11 blocks between North Claiborne Avenue and the Florida Avenue Canal, and several blocks to the east, though precisely how far is in flux.

With the average home expected to cost between $100,000 and $174,000, planners anticipate most homeowners will be able to contribute some cash for construction but that most will fall about $70,000 short of paying off their new homes, according to a program dossier.

As a result, Make It Right plans to offer forgivable gap loans of as much as $100,000, with the caveat that applicants must have owned a home or lot in the Lower 9th Ward before Katrina. No homeowners who participate in the program will pay more than 30 percent of their gross monthly income on house payments, documents show.

Homeowners will be expected to contribute money from insurance proceeds, savings and Road Home grants, and to investigate their options in the traditional mortgage market. But Miller said a large loan reserve will be available, financed largely by contributions of $5 million each from Pitt and Steve Bing, a film producer and philanthropist who inherited his family's real estate fortune.

In an effort to bolster that initial investment, Pitt went to New York on Wednesday to solicit donations at the official unveiling of Make It Right during a meeting of the Clinton Global Initiative, an endeavor by former President Clinton to engage world leaders in tackling environmental problems.

Pitt asked participants to match his and Bing's contributions in hopes of raising $20 million for the project, Miller said. She did not know whether they managed to reach that goal.

Like another Lower 9th Ward project that Pitt has spearheaded -- the Global Green USA contest to develop "green" housing and community/retail space in the Holy Cross neighborhood -- Make It Right is rooted in principles of environmentalism, including using solar power for heat, installing energy-efficient appliances and allocating space for recycling and composting.

Home designs for the project also will include features to keep residents safe in a hurricane, including waterproof building materials, roof-level patios that can serve as safe havens and attic storage space for emergency equipment such as food and rafts, documents show.

At the same time, the homes will reflect traditional New Orleans architectural styles, such as shotguns, camelbacks and Creole cottages, and will incorporate high ceilings, front porches and gingerbread details.

Thirteen architects, including five local firms and others of international renown, are working now to develop prototype houses that will vary in size and include yards and parking areas, Miller said.

Though she did not know when designs are due, Miller said project directors will begin working with applicants to begin construction as soon as blueprints are complete.

"One of the missions is to be quick about this," she said, adding that substantial progress should be under way within a year.

In conceiving Make It Right, Miller said Pitt and others sought advice from Lower 9th Ward residents, in part by attending meetings of nine community organizations, including ACORN, Common Ground Relief and All Congregations Together.

Among the chief recommendations they adopted was to work directly with homeowners to rebuild on their own lots, rather than recruiting a major developer to erect new houses or apartments to sell to residents, Miller said. The latter model has driven fears -- so far unsubstantiated -- that large builders will take advantage of the absence of thousands of homeowners to gobble up vacant neighborhoods cheaply, then erect substandard housing.

"They didn't want developers coming in," Miller said.

Tanya Harris, a community organizer with ACORN, said members of the project team, including Pitt, began attending community meetings in March and asked residents to help spread the word about the project to their neighbors.

However, Harris said representatives offered scant details of their plans, one reason she refused their request for a copy of ACORN's contact list.

"They didn't tell us much except that Brad Pitt had a vision," she said. "I'm an organizer, so I need to see numbers in black and white."

Harris said residents were not apprised of the project before it was announced Wednesday in New York. Nevertheless, she said she would not oppose efforts to revive the Lower 9th Ward in ways that respect residents' wishes.

Though Make It Right is not technically part of the Lower 9th Ward target zone identified in Blakely's plan, it was included, though under a different name, in a draft plan created by city's Office of Recovery Management, Miller said.

In the draft, a project called Cherokee Housing would receive $250,000 of $117 million in federal community development block grants that the Louisiana Recovery Authority has earmarked for infrastructure improvements in New Orleans.

Miller suspected the project was given that name because one of the Make It Right partners is the Cherokee Gives Back Foundation, the nonprofit arm of Cherokee Investment Partners, a firm that specializes in remediation and sustainable redevelopment. She stressed that Cherokee is among a cadre of participants that also includes William McDonough, a pioneer of environmental engineering based in Virginia.

Though Miller said she was not aware that project leaders had been in contact with the city or the LRA, City Hall spokesman James Ross said staffers with the recovery office "included $250,000 for site preparation for the project after developers indicated they might need that amount."

Ross said the money can be allocated only after a public bidding process and it is not guaranteed until the award is made. If the sum is not spent for the project, it will be directed to another recovery need, Ross said.