A recent report discusses the recently elapsed New Orleans City Council Deadline and the feasability of enforcing the relative ordinances discussed here.

A city-imposed deadline to clean up blighted property has come and gone, leaving some wondering how much teeth the law has

Edward "Kidd" Jordan should have been a thousand miles away Saturday, clutching his saxophone and producing his particular brand of improvisational, avant-garde jazz.

But at just the hour he might have been taking the stage at the Chicago Jazz Festival, Jordan found himself garbed head-to-toe in a white custodian's suit, traipsing in and out of his flood-ravaged eastern New Orleans home, hauling memories to the curb.

"I'm getting ready to get on at the Jazzfest!" Jordan teased as he held aloft a sign with his name on it, an artifact of one of the local legend's many performances at the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival. "I'm getting ready to get on!"

Had Jordan had his way, he would have been uttering those very words Saturday in Chicago. But after putting it off for a year, the musician opted instead to gut his house, the chore spurred by a new law requiring New Orleans homeowners to clean, gut and board up their flood-damaged homes by last week or risk having them seized by the city. Similar deadlines also went into effect last week in Jefferson and St. Bernard parishes.

"I wanted to beat the deadline because I don't know what the consequences are," Jordan said, acknowledging that he already was five days late. "I know you've always got some kind of consequences in the city of New Orleans."

Indeed, under an ordinance approved unanimously last month by the City Council, property owners had until Aug. 29, the first anniversary of Katrina, to mitigate storm damage to their homes and businesses or risk triggering a series of legal moves that could result in demolition. The law was a revised version of a similar, more nebulous ordinance passed in April.

Although the deadline has passed, it is unclear whether enforcement has begun. Mayor Ray Nagin declared his support for the original ordinance, even dispatching inspectors in mid-August to tack "courtesy notices" onto houses that appeared untouched since the storm and to take a citywide inventory of the blighted-housing stock.

The Nagin administration also endorsed the new version of the law, which passed Aug. 25, but a spokeswoman did not respond last week to questions about the progress of the inventory or when officials plan to begin advising owners that their buildings are considered blighted.

Low-grade panic

Nevertheless, neighborhood leaders across New Orleans say the deadline has sparked action, especially among do-it-yourselfers who had planned to haul away their own decaying furniture and rotting drywall but simply hadn't gotten around to it.

The date's passing also has provoked a low-grade panic among the poor and elderly who cannot complete the arduous, expensive task themselves, the civic leaders said.

Those residents worry that even if they are on a monthslong waiting list for free house-gutting by volunteers, the city will knock them down if the work is not finished sooner. The ordinance indicates that the city will not demolish homes of residents who can prove they are in queue with a nonprofit group or a contractor.

"People are fearful," said LaToya Cantrell, president of the Broadmoor Improvement Association. "I've received calls mainly from people who are displaced . . . wanting to know: Has the city cited any properties? Have they starting demolishing properties?

"You have to put those fears to rest," she said.

30 days more

According to the ordinance, the city on Aug. 29 "may begin the inspection process" and start mailing notices to owners that their buildings violate city rules. The notice would give the owner 30 days to remediate mold and clean, gut and secure the home.

If after 30 days the property still violated the rules, a second notice would be mailed and posted on the property, informing the owner of the date and place of an administrative hearing. It also would warn that the city could enter the property, gut and remediate it, then issue a lien on the property for reimbursement.

To avoid that outcome, an owner could ask the hearing judge for a hardship exemption by showing proof that a contractor or nonprofit agency had been enlisted for the job but hadn't done it yet. In that case, a 60-day grace period would be allowed. Exemptions also would be given to owners who had applied to the city's voluntary demolition program and to residents of the entire Lower 9th Ward.

After the 60 days, the hearing officer could give the owner even more time to comply or order the property demolished, in which case the owner would have 30 days to appeal the decision to Civil District Court.

In Gentilly, concern about the gutting law has run "about 50-50," with half of residents terrified that the city will take their homes and the other half unconvinced that city officials -- mired in post-Katrina issues ranging from fixing roads to fighting crime to providing drinking water -- actually will enforce it anytime soon, said Scott Darrah, president of the Gentilly Improvement Association, an umbrella organization for 20 civic groups.

"People who were of means were doing it in a fair amount of time before the ordinance, and then when the ordinance came into play, they kind of stepped it up a bit," he said. "The people who were not of means, they started getting on these free waiting lists, but now the waiting lists are so long. It's got people a little on the panicked side."

Idle threat?

The deadline, Darrah said, has sparked discussion on his group's Web site, much of it focused on the unknown element of enforcement.

"What are they going to do? You have people who can make a strong, compelling case for why they couldn't get it done before Aug. 29," he said. "Are they going to take their houses? (Residents' response) depends on how the city handles it from here."

Meanwhile, in Lakewood North, only about 5 percent of 400 homes remain in their immediate post-storm state, and at least four of those are scheduled for demolition, said Susan Revels, a spokeswoman for the Lakewood North Beacon of Hope, one of several recovery centers in lakefront neighborhoods.

"As far as the deadline, it has come and it has gone, and we have a couple of those homes that are" still untouched, she said. "Those people think there's no teeth to it and don't think anything is going to happen."

Revels said that despite the few holdouts, the low rate of blighted buildings in her area owes to neighbors helping each other contact contractors and faith-based groups.

She added that though residents don't want to be "tattletales," they intend to forward addresses of decaying homes to code enforcement officials if they believe a property is not being tended. She said they hope the city will enforce its law in a timely and fair manner.

Meanwhile, Cantrell said that of about 2,400 properties in Broadmoor, 473 have not been touched since Katrina, down from about 900 as recently as May. The progress is encouraging, she said, but the remaining ruined buildings serve as a constant harbinger of blight that could stifle the neighborhood's resurgence.

Lecturing laggards

As a result, when residents call Cantrell to ask about Broadmoor's recovery as it relates to their own houses, she reminds them of their idle properties' effect on their neighbors, a concern that prompted the council to consider enacting a deadline.

"I make a point to remind residents of the health hazards and to look out for the homeowners who have started the rebuilding process, people who have returned to their homes," she said. "We try to make a point to put it on people's minds."

Similar problems have been weighing on Lawrence and Glenda Newton, who gutted their house in March and are due to move back to Afton Drive, next door to Jordan's property, in October.

Though they understand the difficulty some of their neighbors face in gutting their houses, Glenda Newton said visiting her home -- which has new tile floors and vibrantly painted rooms but still no furniture -- bothers her allergies. And she's disturbed by the silence in the once-bustling hamlet near Crowder Boulevard just blocks from Lake Pontchartrain.

"What we worry about mainly is who's going to buy the property," Lawrence Newton Jr. said. As blighted homes in the area continue to decay, he said he worries that property values will plummet, attracting far-flung developers to restore houses on the cheap and rent them to less-than-desirable tenants.

"They should have done something about it a long time ago," Glenda Newton said, adding that she supports the ordinance with its allowable exemptions.

"It's terrible," Lawrence Newton Jr. said. "It's been a year.

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