[LittleOldLady]

Many people in Lakeview and Gentilly desperately want to rebuild their properties and neighborhoods exactly as they were before the storm. To that end they are appealing their damage assessments to get them below 50%, so that they don't have to elevate. This makes no sense to me. Why do they want to rebuild at a level which will leave them vulnerable to ordinary street flooding without any assurances that the problems with the canals will be fixed properly? The flooded neighborhoods now have contaminated soil, and while the houses can be gutted and treated for mold, who knows what harmful material is left in the walls and ductwork? The idea of bulldozing and redeveloping is anathema.

I think, however, that the city will be redeveloped. Various plans have been floated, all of which have as the end result people losing their property which will then be made available cheaply to well-connected developers. First some "housing activists" came up with the idea of usufruct in which the owner retains title to the property but the city repairs it and rents it out to whomever for however long, at the end of which time the property owner must buy back his own property or lose title to it. Other ideas include allowing the free market to determine what gets rebuilt where. After a period of time (both one year and three years have been mentioned), the powers that be will determine which neighborhoods have come back enough to be viable (the powers that be get to decide what constitutes enough). Those neighborhoods will be supported with services. Those deemed not to have come back enough will be abandoned and the property seized (even the property that has been repaired). This latter idea comes from the likes of the big developer Joe Canizaro who, no doubt, already has his eye on what he wants when the land is seized and sold cheap. Now that land can be taken by eminent domain for private purposes, if one's land is coveted by a developer, one can kiss it goodbye. True, the owner must be compensated at fair market value, but what is fair market value for New Orleans flooded property? Not a whole heck of a lot.

Under these circumstances, whether an owner does or doesn't repair his property, he runs a real risk of losing it. I own what was once a nice 11-room, 2400 sq ft house one block from the London Avenue Canal smackdab in the middle of the two breaches. I am not putting a cent into my property under the current circumstances, thereby causing a problem for any of my neighbors who do want to rebuild. Given the location of my neighborhood, I can see Canizaro or someone like him getting control of the whole subdivision cheap and redeveloping it as high-rise condos and retail space aimed at the university personnel and the people who work at the tech center, since neither of those entities suffered major damage.

Katrina and her storm surge were bad enough, but the problems have been compounded may times over by foot-dragging insurance companies, bumbling bureaucrats, and well-connected self-servers with an eye on the main chance.