Bob The Builder Takes A Ride On The Banana Boat

Andrés Duany pens an article proposing an idea that certain areas of New Orleans be exempt for current building codes in order to maintain the Caribbean lifestyle present in pre-Katrina New Orleans.

It was possible to sustain the unique culture of New Orleans because housing costs were minimal, liberating people from debt. One did not have to work a great deal to get by. There was the possibility of leisure. There was time to create the fabulously complex Creole dishes that simmer forever; there was time to practice music, to play it live rather than from recordings, and to listen to it. There was time to make costumes and to parade; there was time to party and to tell stories; there was time to spend all day marking the passing of friends. One way to leisure time is to have a low financial carry. With a little work, a little help from the government, and a little help from family and friends, life could be good! This is a typically Caribbean social contract: not one to be understood as laziness or poverty—but as a way of life.

This ease, which has been so misunderstood in the national scrutiny following the hurricane, is the Caribbean way. It is a lifestyle choice, and there is nothing intrinsically wrong with it. In fact, it is the envy of some of us who work all our lives to attain the condition of leisure only after retirement. It is this way of living that will disappear. Even with the federal funds for housing, there is little chance that new or renovated houses will be owned without debt. It is too expensive to build now. The higher standards of the new International Building Code are superb but also very expensive. There must be an alternative or there will be very few “paid-off” houses. Everyone will have a mortgage that will need to be sustained by hard work—and this will undermine the culture of New Orleans.

What can be done? Somehow the building culture that created the original New Orleans must be reinstated. The hurdle of drawings, permitting, contractors, inspections—the professionalism of it all—eliminates self-building. Somehow there must be a process whereupon people can build simple, functional houses for themselves, either by themselves or by barter with professionals. There must be free house designs that can be built in small stages and that do not require an architect, complicated permits, or inspections; there must be common-sense technical standards. Without this there will be the pall of debt for everyone. And debt in the Caribbean doesn’t mean just owing money—it is the elimination of the culture that arises from leisure.

To start I would recommend an experimental “opt-out zone”: areas where one “contracts out” of the current American system, which consists of the nanny state raising standards to the point where it is so costly and complicated to build that only the state can provide affordable housing—solving a problem that it created in the first place.

However it may sound, this proposal is not so odd. Until recently this was the way that built America from the Atlantic to the Pacific. For three centuries Americans built for themselves. They built well enough, so long as it was theirs. Individual responsibility could be trusted. We must return to this as an option. Of course, this is not for everybody. There are plenty of people in New Orleans who follow the conventional American eight-hour workday. But the culture of this city does not flow from them; they may provide the backbone of New Orleans but not its heart.

It's true that many homes were built in ways not meeting current building codes building them the same does not equate to building inexpensively. Unfortunately, people will still need a mortgage. Asking people to live in housing that is both structurally unsound and energy inefficient does a disservice to both the homeowner and the other residents of the city.

Oh Lift Me A Home...

Grad students from MIT and Oxfam America have collaborated to created what they refer to as the Lift House.

Designed to Last The design for the house reflects both the local style and the need for the structure to withstand the assault of howling winds and hurricane flooding.

"They look like they belong down here," said Peg Case, TRAC's executive director. "We took great care in making sure MIT understood that outside is important." People in the south do much of their living outdoors on their decks.

"I assume this house will be here and that won't," added local architect E.A. Angelloz, standing on the site of the new house and pointing at its neighbor, a low-to-the-ground bungalow of indeterminate age. "Another thing people don't take into account is shifting debris. By being up, you avoid the debris. The stuff will move underneath it as opposed to through it."

And the piling foundation, designed by local engineer Joseph Kowle, will ensure that the house stays put when all that water and debris does slop by.

Materials specified for the Lift House include a cladding of Hardie Board—a (sp) fiber board impregnated with cement that is water proof and won't dent when projectiles come hurtling at it. A broad deck that wraps around the house and a roof with a generous overhang provide plenty of outdoor living space and a comfortable amount of shade.

"We're very sensitive to making sure we don't waste energy," said Goethert, who directs MIT's Special Interest Group in Urban Settlement, or SIGUS. The house will be well-insulated, well-ventilated, and made from durable materials constructed in a way that will help them last, he said. That overhanging roof, for instance, not only protects people from the sun, but it will protect the exterior walls from heavy downpours.

Some of the ideas incorporated in the design are indigenous to the area, said student Zachary Lamb, such as the large volume of attic space. The cushion of air inside serves as a natural insulator helping to keep the house below it cool.

Elevating houses was once more commonly practiced in the region than it is now, Lamb added, noting that many of the area's older houses were built off the ground. When slab foundations became the new hot thing half a century ago, Louisianans started to build them, too, setting aside their more sensible traditions—and paying the price.

Lifting it Later MIT's original idea was to build the Lift House on the ground where teams of volunteers could work on it easily, and then hoist the completed structure onto its pilings. Affordability is one of the key objectives of the design, and, to achieve that, construction will depend heavily on volunteer labor. Goethert also points out that building the house on the ground and lifting it later is safer for everyone who might work on it.

But with this first prototype, TRAC plans to hire professional builders who traditionally work from the pilings up. Volunteers will be recruited later to help finish the interiors.

Fortunately, this is not Modernists fantasy trip.

Last January, when Fugate visited Dulac, Louisiana, a poor bayou community in Terrebonne Parish, he was struck by how precarious the setting was for homes—low, muddy, and not far from the wind-whipped waters of the Gulf of Mexico.

“It’s a beautiful but not a gentle landscape,” said Fugate.

The students’ objective was to design a bayou home that would neither flood nor get blown away. They had to take into account the corrosive salt water, soggy ground, and winds tearing across the flatlands at hurricane speed—all the while remembering the admonition that “weirdness” could sink even the best of ideas.

Coupled with that warning was the students’ recognition that regardless of how hard they studied the place, they would never know it as well as the locals. When Fugate suggested that carpeting would make a good floor cover for a house lifted high above flood waters, he found himself corrected: In the muddy bayou, shoes caked with muck are a fact of life. Better to install easy-to-clean tiling than carpets.

“It’s a two-way learning street,”said Fugate.

The motto that the customer is always right will serve these vendors well and help ensure that flood-resistant housing takes root. Trying to create advanced housing concepts in a vacuum and then telling people they must adopt their ideas to survive is a quick path to failure.

Catch A Wave And Your Sittin' On Top Of The World

Unfortunately flood victims in south Louisiana are finding out that raising their homes is no day at the beach. Insurance companies are making it a cruncher and some may be headed for a wipe out.

Even before the storm, Fitzpatrick's Lakeview Drive house was shoulder-height off the ground.

To make it as resilient as possible against any future storms, Fitzpatrick is rebuilding with rebar and concrete pilings, and he is raising the house another two to three feet, as required by the new flood advisory maps from the Federal Emergency Management Agency to maintain flood insurance coverage. When he's done, the house will be eight to nine feet off the ground.

But Fitzpatrick is encountering opposition from an unlikely source: his insurance company. Allstate told him he's ineligible for homeowners insurance if he raises his home.

"I'm actually rebuilding higher than it was before, but now they're saying, 'We have a rule that if it's four feet above the ground, you've got to get the state plan, the Citizens plan, and it's always been that way,' " a dumbfounded Fitzpatrick said. "I said, 'Ya'll never had a problem with this before.' Of course the home has to be elevated: I'm trying to protect it from the storm surge."

In short, Fitzpatrick is trapped in a post-Katrina insurance conundrum that could affect thousands of people in south Louisiana if other insurance companies have rules similar to those at Allstate. Fitzpatrick is required to elevate his home to maintain flood insurance coverage, but if he elevates he won't be able to maintain a private homeowners insurance policy.

Allstate's excuse seems bogus to me.

Fitzpatrick said his Allstate agent told him that the rule started in 2000 because of concerns that if a house is too high off the ground, people might fall off of railings or try to barbecue under the house and catch the place on fire.

Current building codes require that decks/balcony's over 30" above grade be constructed with a minimum 42" high guardrail sufficient to resist at least 200 pounds lateral force. Besides, I don't believe homeowners insurance covers falls. I would imagine that is covered by ones' medical insurance.

Nonetheless, people in Lakeview are raising their homes and not bailing out. Awesome! My guess is that these people don't use dweebs for their insurance. Kowabunga!

Adam Smith, Call Your Editor

It's said that people in Louisiana do things a little different. Why even the laws of supply and demand don't always apply.

NEW ORLEANS - John Schaff, a New Orleans real estate agent, recently advised a property owner to lower the asking price of a condominium at 3915 St. Charles Ave. by $20,000.

Before Hurricane Katrina, the 1,000-square-foot condo would have sold for the original asking price of $329,000 — but not these days, Schaff said.

The growing condo glut in New Orleans has experts predicting prices will fall and developers will have to target a less-affluent market.

In Uptown and the Warehouse District, 349 condos were for sale from October through Tuesday, Schaff said. That’s a 112 percent increase over the 165 condos for sale during the same period in 2005 and 2006, and a 92 percent increase over the 181 for sale during the same period in 2004 and 2005.

“There are a lot of units on the market. You’re going to see asking prices start to come down more,” said Shaun Talbot, vice president of Talbot Realty Group.

Talbot described the downtown condo market as soft.

Fewer units are selling.

Condo sales are down from pre-Katrina levels, according to the New Orleans Metropolitan Association of Realtors.

In January, 50 condos sold in all of Orleans Parish, down from 88 last January and 81 in January 2005. Only January 2004 had fewer sales with 30.

“We’ve have a lot of people looking and not really acting,” Talbot said. “They know there are a lot of units on the market. But there doesn’t seem to be that same sense of urgency (as immediately after Katrina).”

Average selling prices are rising, according to NOMAR.

In January, the average price of a condo sold in Orleans Parish was $268,216, up 5 percent from $254,954 in January 2006, up 30 percent from $206,534 in January 2005 and up 12 percent from $239,310 in January 2004.

“It’s by no means a depressed market in terms of price. But you’re not going to see the incredible double-digit increases on a year-to-year basis that we’ve seen in the past.” Talbot said.

Six months from now, condos might command higher prices, Schaff said. But not now.

So, some developers are turning their attention to a lower price range in hopes of attracting buyers. New Orleans native James Huger is one.

Construction is wrapping up Huger’s $4-million Charlotte Commons, a three-story, 24-unit project on Carondelet Street one block off St. Charles Avenue near Louisiana Avenue.

Huger is selling condos for $197,000 to $325,000. They consist of a dozen 1,250-square-foot two-bedroom, two-bathroom units and a dozen, 875-square-foot two-bedroom, one-bathroom units. They all have wood floors and granite countertops. Some have views of downtown.

“We’re after the people who can’t afford the traditional Warehouse (District) stuff, who want something new, good location and secure parking. We try to price things a little bit under the market,” he said.

Huger calls his project the “canary in the cave” because the market’s absorption of the condos will show how much demand there really is for housing, he said.

“We’re just rolling the dice that we can sell them,” he said.

It’s too soon to tell how much demand there will be for Huger’s condos, which he plans to finish this month. Huger held his first open house Jan. 20.

“In a way he’s right. If there is that much demand for housing and he’s got a product that’s reasonably priced in an area that’s OK, not fantastic ... then that tells us that the market is not that strong,” Talbot said.

One thing going against Huger’s project, Talbot and others say, is that it’s on the “wrong side” of St. Charles Avenue because it is not on the river side.

But if Huger prices the condos right, they “should sell,” Talbot said.

“I think we’ve brought a product to the market at a price point that no one else is bringing to the market, certainly not for new construction,” said Larry Patterson of G&H Construction & Restoration, which is building Huger’s condos.

John Rareshide, a New Orleans developer, said the New Orleans condo market is healthy for units priced around $200,000.

“It’s a price point. That’s what’s selling right now,” he said.

Rareshide recently sold five, 425-square-foot, one-bedroom condos for $135,000 each at 1200-1210 Austerlitz St. The units were renovated, he said.

He also developed 12 condos at 3308 Prytania St. Those units hit the market roughly two weeks ago. Rareshide is selling the 531-square-foot, one-bedroom, one-bathroom condos for $179,000.

My own analysis of this is that those who could afford the pricy condos in the Warehouse District have already bought into the market. Those with a smaller budget, till now, have been left out. Whether or not they will buy into that market remains to be seen.

In the meantime, people are still waiting for their LRA money to rebuild the own homes.

Constrained By Reality

Some are criticizing Hurricane Katrina victims for rebuilding their homes without raising their homes above potential flood waters.

After Katrina, teams of planners recommended that broad swaths of vulnerable neighborhoods be abandoned. Yet all areas of the city have at least some residents beginning to rebuild. With billions of dollars in federal relief for homeowners trickling in, more people are expected to follow.

Moreover, while new federal guidelines call for raising houses to reduce the damage of future floods, most returning homeowners do not have to comply or are finding ways around the costly requirement, according to city officials.

"It's terrifying: We're doing the same things we have in the past but expecting different results," said Robert G. Bea, a professor of civil engineering at the University of California at Berkeley and a former New Orleans resident who served as a member of the National Science Foundation panel that studied the city's levees.

"There are areas where it doesn't make any sense to rebuild -- they got 20 feet of water in Katrina," said Tom Murphy, a former Pittsburgh mayor who served on an Urban Land Institute panel for post-Katrina planning. "In those places, nature is talking to us, and we ought to be listening. I don't think we are."

But someone injects a little bit of reality into this debate.

Mike Centineo, the city's building chief, said, "Legally and morally, we're doing the right thing," but he acknowledged that most returning homeowners are not raising their houses to meet the new flood guidelines. "You wouldn't want to put people through more than they can endure. It's a catastrophe that happened. No one wants it to happen again. But they're just rebuilding as best they can."

People need to realize that we live in a world of constraints. Architects have to live with the force of gravity, building and zoning codes and pain-in-the-arse owners. All of which are hindrances to what we may actually want to do. Rebuilding a city is no different. Many have been critical of Mayor Ray Nagin for having a hands-off approach to the planning process. What they don't consider is that Mayor Nagin is a politician. And as such, he is limited in his power by the City Council who in turn are accountable to their constituents. Thus, none are prone to make decisions that will anger their voters. And telling some voters that they can't rebuild a home that they own is simply political suicide. Ergo, it won't happen.

So where do we go from here? Since most homes and businesses will not be built above the flood level, the government will have to provide the levee protection that we as taxpayers paid for already and are paying for again. For if the levees had been built properly, I wouldn't be doing the blog.

Release The Architects

The LRA has submitted it's application to FEMA's Alternative Housing Pilot Program which is intended "to identify and evaluate alternatives to and alternative forms of FEMA Disaster Housing."

No conclusions are reported in this press release but it is interesting to note some of the participants involved.

Katrina Cottages & Carpet Cottages - Cypress Cottage Partners
This partnership of The Cypress Group, The Shaw Group, ICF International, Duany Plater-Zyberk, and Lowes with architect Marianne Cusato showcases both single-family models and a multi-family model. This project includes infill redevelopment housing in New Orleans in the historic Treme neighborhood, as well as at Jackson Barracks, the headquarters of the Louisiana National Guard. Additional project sites are infill locations in Lake Charles and Abbeville - addressing diverse housing needs, particularly elderly housing for rural aging populations.

Home at Last - Family Resources of New Orleans
This non-profit community housing development organization identified two sites in rural St. Charles Parish that will serve as transitional housing communities for displaced residents of New Orleans. Working in partnership with Skyline Homes and Champion Homes, Family Resources presents a project that is transitional, while also working with modular housing developers to design an alternative solution to group trailer communities.

The Phoenix Systems-Built Home - Fibrebond Corporation
This company is an established, high production capacity firm that builds concrete panel building systems. After Hurricane Katrina, they were essential in adapting their building designs to produce and build many schools throughout the disaster-impacted area. Fibrebond has developed a model home that applies their building system and capacity to the housing market. This home represents an affordable, easily produced and built solution to the challenges of critical post-disaster housing.

SmartPlus® For A Better Built Home - Palm Harbor Homes
This manufacturing company has significant production capacity and designs that have the flexibility to be applicable Louisiana and nationwide. The models in this project represent a cost effective, attractive alternative to the trailer.

Homes Now LLP
This firm is based in Louisiana and partners with Genesis Homes, Inc. a division of Michigan based Champion Enterprises, Inc. Champion operates 36 manufacturing facilities in North America and the United Kingdom. Genesis has developed a series of off-site built homes specifically for the Southern Louisiana market. They can produce 250 homes per month or 2,880 homes per year.

CORE - Plus One
The "CORE" concept from Plus One, an architecture and construction services firm, represents an immediate emergency concept for transitional recovery housing. This CORE is a module of essential services (bathroom, kitchen, utilities) that can be appended to a home being rebuilt for a temporary period. The module can be stockpiled for reuse in the next disaster.

Once FEMA announces a decision, the state will work with the parish and municipal governments or applicable jurisdictions to determine sites, where needed, for the placement of the housing units in the most heavily impacted parishes. The LRA will set the overall housing policy and guidance for the transitioning of displaced citizens into livable homes.

More than 200,000 housing units in Louisiana suffered major or severe damage as a result of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. Currently, there are over 85,000 occupied trailers in Louisiana and an estimated need of 96,000. Louisiana has the largest number of occupied trailers both individually and in group sites of any state impacted by the hurricanes of 2005.

Based on this list it appears that the direction that Louisiana is intended to pursue is for more permanent, modular housing be provided as opposed to the tin-cans we are so accustomed to. Also I like the fact that Marianne Cusato and Duany Plater-Zyberk are involved in in this project. From the beginning, they have demonstrated the ability to think outside the box while proposing designs that are architecturaly pleasing, but also popular with the general public.

Should FEMA adopt some of what the LRA is proposing, we may see in improvement in the appearnce, value and code compliance with these new homes as they will have some things much of the current housing stock does not: economically constructed and architect designed.