Cottages may sprout at former FEMA trailer site

• By CHRIS GAUTREAU
• Advocate business writer
• Published: Jul 19, 2008 - Page: 1B - UPDATED: 12:05 a.m.

• Print
• Email
• Save
• Reprints
• Twitter
• Share

• Del.icio.us
• Digg
• Facebook
• Reddit
• 

Renaissance Village, the Baker trailer park set up as temporary residences for hurricane evacuees, could become the local site for “Louisiana cottages” — the custom-designed homes for victims of both hurricanes Katrina and Rita in 2005.

In the state’s latest chapter in its efforts to get the housing program off the ground, the Louisiana Recovery Authority said Friday it signed a preliminary contract with Cypress Realty Partners, the private company that won a $74.5 million grant in December 2006 from the Federal Emergency Management Agency to build 550 of the cottages throughout south Louisiana.

LRA and Cypress Realty initially had considered building about 80 of the homes in two areas — a 20-acre tract north of the Bon Carré Business Center on Florida Boulevard and a 6.8-acre site at the corner of Prescott and Plank roads.

Christina Stephens, an LRA spokeswoman, said Friday that officials began considering about 85 cottages for Renaissance Village for several reasons.

“There’s some pre-existing infrastructure there,” she said. “There’s also a lot of evacuees who settled in that area. This is a way for some (evacuees) who’ve kind of put some roots in that area to stay by moving into cottages.”

Stephens said several steps remain before a site is chosen, including a routine contract review, environmental studies and public comments from some of the area residents. But construction on the first units could begin as soon as this summer or early fall, she said.

She said LRA will consider other Baton Rouge area sites as the program begins, but Renaissance Village is now top priority.

The cottage housing program has been hampered by numerous delays that have, at times, tested the patience of state officials, beginning with former Gov. Kathleen Blanco’s administration.

The delays also reinforced — rightly or wrongly — public perception that Louisiana’s storm recovery has been too slow. Nearly three years after the storms, Mississippi has used its FEMA grant to build more than 2,700 cottages.

Louisiana, meanwhile, has formally chosen only one site for cottages — the former Jackson Barracks in New Orleans — but has yet to build any.

In March, Gov. Bobby Jindal moved control of the program from the Louisiana Housing Finance Authority to LRA.

The agreement with Cypress Realty comes less than five months after the switch, but LRA still garnered complaints from Andres Duany, a prominent architect who helped organize a 2005 brainstorming session from which the cottage design emerged.

Duany said that FEMA smartly decided to fund different kinds of cottage projects in Louisiana and Mississippi based on their different needs. But he blamed Louisiana’s delays on staffing.