Benefits for Who?
A Critique of the ‘Community Benefits Agreement’ initiative for Iberville peddled by real estate lawyer David Marcello
Jay Arena, C3/Hands off Iberville
C3/Hands Off Iberville has worked for years, both before and after Katrina, for ‘Community benefits’ by defending all 800+ public housing apartments at Iberville, those throughout the city, and the communities that reside there. We have consistently fought against any destruction of public housing and have instead demanded that the government undertake a massive expansion of well built and maintained public housing in New Orleans and throughout the country as part of a new massive, direct government employment public works program.
Now real estate lawyer David Marcello has come upon the scene posturing as friend of the community and public housing by touting a so-called ‘Community benefits agreements’ in which everyone—including PH residents and developers-- win. Below are three important issues that should be raised with Mr Marcello regarding his initiative and purported benefits at the Thursday, Feb 9 ‘information session’ he will be holding on CBAs at the Candlelight Lounge at 925 North Robertson, from 3-4:30 PM.
I. On May 11, 2011 the New Orleans area chapter of the Urban Land Institute (ULI) hosted a meeting at Dillard University where David Marcello, director of the Tulane Public Law Center and lawyer with the real estate firm of Sher Garner, led a workshop on community benefits agreements (CBAs), entitled ‘Win Win Win: The Advantages of CBAs for Community, Developers, Government and You.” The origins of the forum lie with the local ULI’s recently formed “Cross –Reach Committee”, designed, according to committee coordinator Steve Bingler, an architect and head of Concordia Architecture and planning, to link real estate players and architects with community people “so they can learn from each other”. Appropriately, Bingler, representing ULI and the committee, was the MC of the CBA forum. Others supporters and sponsors of the event included Joe Canizaro’s Columbus properties, Pres Kabacoff of HRI, and the McCormack Baron and Salazar firm (who along with HRI has the contract to ‘redevelop’ the Iberville public housing development), among others. One of the Cross –Reach Committee’s first public events was at the Ashe Cultural Center, graciously hosted by Carol Bebelle. At the meeting Marcello intervened and said ‘we don’t have CBAs in New Orleans, but we should’. He then began working, according to Marcello and Bingler, with the ULI to organize and hold the forum at Dillard.
Marcello views on CBA’s are outlined in his article “Community Benefits Agreement: New Vehicle for Investment in America’s Neighborhoods,” published in the Urban Lawyer (Summer 2007). He touts the benefits of CBAs for the community, developers, and government, but he places special emphasis on the benefits that accrue to developers. “A successful CBA negotiation,” he emphasizes, “wins support for a proposed new development from community groups that might otherwise challenge the project.”
Yet, while he sings the praises of CBA’s, and the “win win win” provided for all sides, the supporters and sponsors of the CBA forum have created only “lose lose lose” results for working class communities in New Orleans. The Urban Land Institute, of course, worked with Joe Canizaro at the St Thomas public housing development to cook up a privatization and demolition deal that, importantly, was crucial in getting residents into negotiations and away from protests where they would have some power. The results were “win win” for real estate sharks like Kabacoff and Canizaro, their allies in city government, and some payoffs for co-opted tenant leaders, while it was ‘lose lose’ for most residents and others in need of public housing.
ULI was also the outfit that came out with the infamous green spacing plan for New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, that was all win for developers, and lose for low income folks. The outfit, which was brought to town by Joe Canizaro of the BNOB, cooked up a ‘redevelopment’ plan that proposed green spacing-demolishing—mostly black neighborhoods.
In his presentation at the May 11, 2011 forum (see the link below) Marcello emphasized that with a CBA agreement “peace and harmony go up, creating a partnership among developers, city government, and community groups,” which he emphasizes “ is a good step, with value to all three communities.” Yet, the record shows that when working class communities cooperate with the ULI, developers, and local officials, “peace” has certainly been created, but not any justice.
(May 11, 2011 forum at Dillard on CBAs: http://www.law.tulane.edu/tlscenters/PublicLawCenter/home.aspx?id=3906)
II. The fried of the community that wants to demolish their homes: More reasons to be wary of Marcello’s seemingly good intentions.
In an article entitled “Housing Redevelopment Strategies in the Wake of Katrina and Anti-Kelo Constitutional Amendments: Mapping a Path Through the Landscape of Disaster,” published in the Loyola Law Review (2007), Marcello outlined a method for the city to more effectively condemn and appropriate the properties of low income people in New Orleans. He bemoaned the fact that in 2005 Louisiana voters approved a constitutional amendment that restricted the powers of state and local governments to appropriate private properties. He sees this as a major problem in condemning ‘blighted” properties in post-Katrina New Orleans, which are overwhelmingly inhabited or owned by low income folks.
In the article, Marcello, the CBA advocate and self-proclaimed friend of the “community,” recommends using aggressive enforcement of health and environmental code violations to ‘fast track’ the demolition and acquisition of blighted properties. Instead of a plan to help poor communities rebuild, he instead advocates a strategy to more easily take properties from, in practice, working class communities . He explains that “Code enforcement offers the best mechanism for processing tens of thousands of noncompliant properties within a reasonable time and for a reasonable cost. Code enforcement will also maximize private recovery responses by creating incentives for individual owners to repair their own properties or by allowing new purchasers to obtain the properties at auction.”
Marcello, as co-chair of the Landrieu administration’s transition task force on blight, outlined a plan to put his ideas into practice. The task force report (Blight Strategy, City of New Orleans, September 30, 2010) identified some 60,000 blighted structures in the city. He set an ambitious goal of demolishing and expropriating 10,000 structures over the first three years of the Landrieu’s first term. As in the Loyola Law Review article, the report called for using stepped-up health and other code enforcement to condemn, demolish and acquire properties and get around the obstacles created by the 2005 constitutional amendment protecting homeowners. “In order to streamline code enforcement hearings and increase their capacity,” the report explains “all hearings will be managed and staffed by the newly consolidated Department of Code.” (p.30). After this the cases pass through the administrative hearings they would be moved to the sheriff for sale.
The report also makes clear that developers, not low income folks , will be prioritized in the eventual return of the acquired properties to ‘commerce”.
“The City [through NORA]’, the report explains, “will need a means to take control of properties, cluster them, and package them with subsidies in order to make them more
attractive to developers” (p. 32).
III. A third basis for concern is Marcello’s employment with law firm of Sher Garner.
The firm specializes in assisting developers getting around regulatory hurdles and community protests that block their projects and the realization of profits. The firm has been, in particular, a big promoter of public housing demolition and privatization through HOPE VI. As Rich Richter, a lawyer with the firm complained, “We cannot have a HOPE VI project bogged down for years and years in a political process,” i.e. community resistance.
http://www.allbusiness.com/north-america/united-states-louisiana/1136469-1.html#ixzz1l3LGX63N
