The First News Article

This is the alarmingly condescending piece of trash article that took Gordon Russell more than 1 year to write. Does he think this story is acceptable? Does he honestly take his readers for fools?

Get your house in order, city blight-fighter told
Her rundown home yet to be renovated
Tuesday, July 05, 2005
By Gordon Russell
Staff writer
The house in the 1700 block of Clio Street is in many ways like thousands of other dilapidated structures in New Orleans.

It dates to the 19th century. At 4,000 square feet, it's big and rambling, with two porches and multiple galleries, a classic example of the Greek Revival style.

What sets the Central City house apart is that it's owned by Lisa Mazique, director of the New Orleans Redevelopment Authority, the quasi city agency charged with seizing and selling blighted housing. And although the building isn't legally blighted, according to the city's definitions, it would certainly meet that description in the eyes of most any passer-by.

The redevelopment authority requires those who buy rundown properties from its inventory to renovate them within nine months, but Mazique's property has been sitting in its current state for twice that long.
In part, the delays are be due to circumstances outside her control. Mazique has had to negotiate a maze of bureaucracy and regulation that has delayed her renovation plans.

But critics, some of whom have tangled with Mazique over past neighborhood issues, said the problems are of her own making. Mostly, they stem from a single mistake: She moved the house from a nearby location to a lot that was not legally large enough to hold it, an error some say a city official should not have made.
No one is more aggrieved by the situation than next-door neighbor Sean Clark, who moved into a forlorn structure seven years ago and turned it into a home. The proximity of Mazique's building, along with its apparent precariousness, has thrown a wrench into Clark's plan to take out a traditional mortgage on his place.

But first, he must obtain homeowners insurance. And no right-thinking insurer would take on the liability, given the circumstances, said Joanne Hilton, Clark's aunt, who holds the current mortgage on the property but would like to shed that responsibility. "It's a fire waiting to happen," Hilton said.

Mazique understands the criticism, but said she has been trying to lead by example. Things just haven't gone as smoothly as she hoped.

"I saw this as an opportunity to put my money where my mouth is with respect to redevelopment," she said. "I regret more than anyone the time it has taken to get the appropriate approvals and permits."

Neighbor eyed lot

When Clark bought his house seven years ago, 1731 Clio was an empty lot. The neighborhood was iffy, but Clark, a drummer, decided to take the plunge. Lacking a full-time job, he couldn't get a traditional mortgage, so his aunt offered to underwrite the deal by taking out a second loan on her own home.
The idea was that he would pay a third party the amount of the note each month, building up his credit rating and eventually helping him qualify for a mortgage. Meanwhile, as a further cost saving, the property would be uninsured. After a few years, he'd get a normal mortgage, which would require him to get insurance, and Hilton would be freed from responsibility.

Things went according to plan for about five years. Clark paid the note on time, and he renovated his home. Meanwhile, he said, he was taking care of the lot next door, hoping eventually to claim title to it. Clark said in a letter to the city that he contacted the redevelopment authority in hopes that the lot would be declared blighted, allowing the agency to seize it and sell it to him. But that process, which Mazique's agency does not control, never occurred, perhaps in part because Clark was maintaining the lot.
What Clark didn't know was that Brown's Dairy had secured an option to purchase the lot. The company wanted to expand its parking area, and two houses on Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard were in the way, including the one that Mazique eventually moved to 1731 Clio.
Demolition was not an option because the house had been nominated for landmark status. Mazique and Kennon Davis, general manager of the dairy, both serve on the board of the nonprofit Central City Economic Opportunity Corp., and Davis mentioned to her that he had a house he'd give away to anyone who would move it.

Mazique, who lives nearby, was interested but had no place to put the house. Davis let her take over the dairy's option for the lot on Clio Street, and the deal was done.
Davis had to move another house that stood in the way of the parking lot expansion. So he paid for the cost of taking down the power lines and other impediments to moving a house. In the end, Davis said, he paid about two-thirds of the cost of moving the two houses, and Mazique paid for one-third.
Some of Mazique's critics have questioned whether it was appropriate for a public official to accept a such a valuable gift -- one worth thousands of dollars, perhaps tens of thousands of dollars -- from a private company.
But experts in Louisiana ethics law said such gifts are forbidden only when the person or company giving the gift is regulated by or has other contact with the agency that the public official works for.
There's no evidence that Brown's Dairy has ever had any dealings with the redevelopment authority, although both the dairy and the authority have been active in the Central City neighborhood. That mutual interest led to the gift, Davis said.

"Lisa's position in the city has got nothing to do with me donating her the house," Davis said. "Her position doesn't do me any good, necessarily."
Actions criticized

Moving a house requires two city permits: one to move the house, and one to set it down. Mazique didn't have the second permit. And had she applied for it, presumably it would have been denied because of the lot's small size.

Mazique said she was not aware of the need for the second permit. And a city official familiar with the process said the problem was "really a mistake on Safety and Permits' part." The first permit shouldn't have been granted without the second one, the employee said.

Immediately after the move, workers began pouring a foundation. From his vantage point next door, Clark could see immediately that the house was too big for the lot and complained to City Hall. The law requires a 3-foot side setback; Mazique's house is flush with the property line. Safety inspectors ordered Mazique to stop work until she secured a variance from the Board of Zoning Adjustments.

That wasn't easy. Word had gotten around about Mazique's blunder, and some board members, as well as audience members, chastised her for being a city official and not knowing, or at least not following, the rules.
Board member Errol George made an unsuccessful motion to deny Mazique's request for a variance. Instead, the board approved the variance in April 2004. George is still irked.

"I think moving that house in that condition to that location showed a flagrant disregard for the public interest, especially the neighborhood residents that were directly affected," George said. "And I think it's unconscionable that the property hasn't yet been rehabilitated."

Unstable condition

When the redevelopment authority sells a blighted property to a private buyer, it requires that the blight be eradicated, whether by renovation or demolition, within nine months.
Mazique has owned the Clio Street property for about 20 months, although she has been hamstrung for some of that time by permitting problems.

In December, leaders of the Felicity Street Redevelopment Project, a neighborhood group, decided they had had enough and hired a structural engineer to look at the building. The engineer found that the house, still on the cribbing towers erected at the time of the move, had shifted.
"I believe that this condition is very unstable and could result in further movement and collapse of the house," wrote the engineer, Ashton Avegno Jr., in a letter that the Felicity Street group forwarded to City Hall.

The house has not fallen, but if it were to do so it could hit the Felicity Street group's headquarters, a stone's throw in the opposite direction from Clark's house.
That would have done nothing to smooth relations between Mazique and the Felicity group. They have tangled in the past. In particular, the Felicity group has been upset that Mazique declared off-limits certain properties in the neighborhood that the group had targeted for purchase through the redevelopment authority.

The properties in question were held for authority's "land-banking" program, through which groups of properties are marketed in bulk to groups that build clusters of low- and moderate-income housing.
Mazique's placement of a dilapidated house near Felicity Street's headquarters has only soured the relationship further.
"
It's awful, and a moral outrage, that the woman in charge of the agency that is charged with eradicating blight has allowed a piece of property that she controls to remain in the condition that it's in," said Owen Kendrick, director of the group.

Getting her footing

For her part, Mazique said she takes responsibility for the errors and said she believes she has cleared all of the remaining hurdles. She got the variance more than a year ago, and more recently has applied for and received permits. Last month, concrete footings were poured and piers were set, and Mazique hopes to lower the house soon and begin repairs.
"It's been a very intricate process, and we have complied with every step," she said.
She said she didn't want to predict when the house would be renovated, but said it would be "within a reasonable amount of time."

"We're going to start immediately on making the improvements," she said. "I'm looking forward to the rehabilitation process."

Once things get going, Mazique said she hopes the criticism will die down and everybody will be happy with the result. Meanwhile, she said, she has gained new perspective into what renovators face.
"I do think it's going to be a good project, and the neighborhood will be very pleased," Mazique said. "While there have been a host of unforeseen delays, this has been an eye-opening experience. It's been a lesson well-learned."
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Gordon Russell can be reached at grussell@timespicayune.com or (504) 826-3347.