Acadiana’s architectural heritage is an endangered species. Old houses, barns, businesses and farms are regularly torn down, either for the cypress they contain or at the direction of city and parish councils who put sagging structures on their demolition lists. Leveled houses leave inner city lots like gap teeth in the fabric of neighborhoods. Often it’s too expensive to build new on a lot with little property value, and for the most part, mobile homes are prohibited in city limits.
Fortunately, a threesome of non profits in New Iberia is contrarian when it comes to old houses in need of major overhauls. Rebuild Iberia, Iberia Habitat for Humanity and Southern Mutual Help Association, reports the Daily Iberian, have snapped up an entire block of houses, many of them on the city’s demo list, located in the historic West End. SMHA’s and Habitat for Humanity’s mission is to help low income families purchase homes. Rebuild Iberia was born out of hurricanes Katrina and Rita, to help hurricane victims find places to live. Teamed up, they are using grants and volunteers to rehab some of the finest cottages in the West End, built in a time when craftsmanship delivered sturdy and beautiful structures meant to last a century. With the help of Lafayette architect Steve Oubre, who will provide technical support, seven old houses will be rehabbed. Nine more houses are in the sights of the group. As a unit, they will restore the neighborhood fabric of a once vital area of the city, and provide much needed low income housing that comes with historic charm, architectural quality, and reuse credentials.
Other towns should keep an eye on this project. It’s a great way to reinject life into rundown neighborhoods, show respect for low income families who deserve good housing, and show that we can do more than just pay lip service to our cultural history.
... written by Julie Calzone , March 17, 2009 - 05:09 pm
How do we get the Downtown Development Authority in Lafayette to embrace this kind of thinking?
... written by Jason D. Faulk , March 17, 2009 - 07:51 pm
Julie, Not only the DDA, but the city as a whole which often demolishes a home somewhere, and then through it's funding allotment within a particular housing agency within the city, rebuilds a simple structure of modern chemical laden materials in existing neighborhoods. There is also a landbank starting for McComb Veazey which may be interested in this kind of thinking. The important element though....Who are the non-profits in Lafayette willing to do what SMHA is doing? And is our government willing to build complete streets (peds, bikes, etc) and will our government do away with our oldfashioned car-age zoning rules and institute a more sensible, context-sensitive land use plan? Without this, neighborhoods will remain unfunctioning pieces, with residents still driving to the big box store (and if you're in Broussard, it won't be located next to a pipe-yard!) for regular needs. This is not what we can afford for our future with energy supply becomes more lean, and the costs of that energy shoot back up. Most low income folks are pressed to afford a used car much less a high tech one with high mpg. Walking, cycling and public transit are the only options for the future. This requires better land use planning. And the willingness of the citizenry to make some concessions as it relates to the use of their land. If we act only in our own interests, then likely the common interest will not be served.
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David Calhoun and Elizabeth “EB” Brooks are the first two employees of Lafayette Central Park Inc., the nonprofit charged with turning Lafayette Consolidated Government’s 100-acre Johnston Street Horse Farm property into a passive public park. Calhoun was named executive director, and Brooks is director of planning and design.
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A shelved ordinance transferring $200,000 from a northside drainage project to a south Lafayette development may not break any laws, but it stinks to high heaven.
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