New Orleans Set to Raze Houses, but Faces Protest

This city is ready to demolish about 2,500 houses deemed threats to public safety because of damage from Hurricane Katrina, but opponents said Saturday that they would sue to stop the work to make sure homeowners’ rights were respected.

City officials said inspectors had examined about 128,000 homes on New Orleans’ east bank of the Mississippi River. About 4%, or 5,534 homes, were marked with red stickers, signaling that they are unsafe to enter and must be razed, said Greg Meffert, the city’s chief technology officer, who also oversees the department of safety and permits.

About 2,500 red-tagged houses that pose an imminent public hazard are to be demolished in the next few weeks. The others will get a second inspection.

City officials are trying to locate homeowners so they can remove belongings before the demolition, Meffert said.

However, a coalition of individuals and groups announced Saturday that they were preparing to file a lawsuit to block the city from bulldozing houses without legal due process.

“The city of New Orleans knows full well that they are bound by the constitutions of the United States and the state of Louisiana,” said Loyola Law School professor Bill Quigley. “Both constitutions require real prior notice and a meaningful opportunity to be heard before the government can take or destroy anyone’s property.”

The lawsuit probably will be filed this week, said Quigley, who, along with the Advancement Project of Washington, D.C., and the People’s Hurricane Relief Fund & Oversight Coalition, is seeking to protect residents’ rights.

“It is now nearly four months after the damage. No emergency exists that would allow the city to trample the constitutional rights of property owners without due process,” he said.

About 68% of the city’s homes were coded yellow, indicating they are sound but with structural damage. Green stickers were placed on houses with little or no damage. The largest concentration of red-tagged houses is in the Lower 9th Ward, which was inundated when Katrina smashed a wide gap through a levee along the Industrial Canal.

The red tags are mostly absent from historic districts.