Good morning.

I think we're ready to go, y'all.

Did you roll call?

Councilmember Willard.

Here.

Councilmember Morell.

Councilmember Harris.

Councilmember King.

Council Member Green.

We have three members.

We have a quorum.

Thank you, Anita.

Now we have to take up the approval of the minutes from the December 8th meeting.

So move.

Green.

Move by Councilmember Green, seconded by Councilmember King all in favor.

Aye.

Aye.

Next up.

Were you going to take um presentation from Office of Housing and Community Development or Yes?

So Director Davis, if you want to come up.

Before we get started, I just want to say a couple of things.

This is the first meeting of the community development committee.

In this new term.

It's existed for about 12 years.

Consolidation of three previous committees.

Some of our responsibilities are looking at state and federal housing laws, looking at how infrastructure projects will affect the quality of life in our neighborhoods, reviewing Nord programming facilities and how we can improve them.

And really just providing a place for the community to share some of their resources and ideas related to recreational, educational opportunities, uh health opportunities for the people in the city of New Orleans.

So I certainly look forward to working closely with the departments of code enforcement, safety and permits, community development, health and human services.

So for the next few meetings, we'll have some of the directors of those departments come before us to give us a little bit of information about their department, make introductions for their staff members who we'll be working closely with, and just to really understand what you guys are working on and how this city council can be a better partner to you.

So, Director Davis, um, I want to thank you for coming down and bringing your staff here.

So before you get into your presentation, um, can you just do introductions for your team?

Yes, sir, absolutely.

Good morning, uh honorable city council.

I'm Director Davis, Department Director for the Department of Code Enforcement to my immediate left is the chief of staff for the Department of Code Enforcement, Miss Ariane Patton.

To her left is our council liaison, Miss Ashley Givens, and then to my immediate right is my assistant council liaison, Mr.

Shia Norris.

Thank you, Director David.

Um you want to get into your presentation?

Yes, sir.

Again, good morning.

Thank you all for having us today.

So the Department of Code Enforcement, our mission is simple.

Our mission is to eliminate blight and to enforce the minimum property maintenance code for uh the city of New Orleans and to ensure that all buildings are in compliance.

Our vision is is that we hope to help improve the quality of life of every new Orlean.

Uh we're going to do that by educating them on the ordinances and the requirements, enforcing those standards and mitigating any hazardous hazards that may exist that adversely affect the quality of life of New Orleanians.

Our departmental overview, our structure, obviously the executive team consists of myself, the chief of staff, and we do have a deputy director position that's unfield, but our job obviously is to coordinate with the leadership and to ensure that we do all that we can to maintain the operations of the department and work with the community to educate citizens on code compliance.

Our office consists of, as you can see from the slide, 11 divisions and three sections in the department of code enforcement.

Next slide.

Next slide.

So this is just a small example of the difference between the Department of Code Enforcement and the Department of Safety and Permits.

We handle things like high grass, excessive weeds, uh missing doors, or things that are out of minimum property maintenance codes, graffiti, and of course, healthy homes enforcement.

The Department of Safety permits, they deal with construction issues, short-term rentals, zoning violations, a legal property use, and they are responsible for healthy homes registration.

I'll go very briefly over the code enforcement process that we have aligned in this in the department.

A complaint is received, and we call that intake.

That information is put into the system.

After that, an inspection is performed on the property.

The property then goes through what we call title research to find the rightful owner or owners that are tied to that property.

And here you see a 5A and a 5B.

In 2026, the Department of Code Enforcement has instituted a department, a division of noncompliance.

And what we hope to achieve by doing that is to help our citizens abate their property without even coming to a hearing.

We often say when we go to community meetings that we are not punitive, and so this is our examples to show them that we are willing to go above and beyond in terms of trying to help them come into compliance.

Until you know that it's going to get demolished.

Or it could be pursued through potentially a tax sale as well.

So there are several outcomes that can come through the process, but I would like to inform people that this process does take a little bit of time.

And title research can last anywhere from a day all the way to a couple of months.

It depends on the number of owners that are tied to that property, but we do try to work through the process as quickly as we possibly can.

Next slide.

Chapter 26 cases from the city code of New Orleans, minimum property maintenance and healthy homes is what we enforce.

Minimum property maintenance deal with external violations to the property, and obviously healthy homes which are occupied properties deal with the internal violations and sometimes external on a piece of property as well.

Again, the case outcomes depends on the judgment that's been rendered by the administrative hearing officer.

If a property is deemed to be egregious at an administrative hearing, and if the hearing officer believes that the property owner uh needs some significant time to come back to see if they've abated those violations, they will order daily fines to bring that same property owner back in a couple of weeks, a couple of months to see if they've adjudicated their property.

And uh we don't one of the things that we did in 2025 was because we had such a backlog with cases coming to hearing, we did our best to reduce the number of daily fine hearings in the department so that we can bring forth more original cases, and so we only went after properties that was really egregious to see if those property owners was going to continue to do something with the property or not do something with the property, but it has paid huge dividends for us in those daily fines hearings.

I've enjoyed working with you over the last few months and just from our conversations.

I know that title research is oftentimes sort of a bottleneck in the process.

Um are you performing that in-house or are you contracting that out?

No, sir.

So in 2025, we did have a contract with an external vendor.

That external contract ran its course.

Simultaneously, while that contract was in process, we did hiring in the department to beef up our research division.

So we went from uh four researchers to total, we now have nine title researchers on the staff.

And so we are no longer in a backlog, and they was able to keep up with the number of cases that was being brought into the department, and so that is now an internal capability that is forever and permanently on the staff going forward.

No need for external vendor services going forward.

Okay.

Yes, sir.

In terms of the case outcomes when it comes to fines and lien reductions, obviously after a judgment is rendered, there's a 30-day period for which constituents have to appeal the judgment through civil district court where they could either ask for a fine reduction at the after after abatement, then they could ask for a fine reduction, and more than likely we will either reduce the fine because they are doing things to abate the property.

If the judgment is not satisfied, and if the judgment is recorded, then we will file that in lean uh land records and place it on the tax bill or lien on the tax bill for that property.

And then we will work with them to try to get that case resolved as quickly as we possibly can.

Chapter 66 cases, next slide.

A lot of abatement cases and what we're currently doing through graffiti.

Obviously, you all have heard me come before this council before.

Chapter 66 gives the city of New Orleans the authority to go on private property to abate uh lots and other things that uh have been neglected for quite some time, but it was never intended for it to be a long-term capability and for the city of New Orleans to provide long-term maintenance for a private owner.

And so, going forward in 2026, we're making some significant changes to how we go about chapter 66 and a lot of abatement because we was on a pass that was unsustainable, and we were averaging around $2 million a year abating private property, and we was getting about $1,000 or less in return.

And so, what we did in 2025, in addition to opening a chapter 66 case, we started opening minimum property maintenance case so we could have an enforcement arm to go after those private owners and hold them accountable for taking care of their own personal property.

And so that has paid huge dividends for us, and we're able to reduce that workload and trying to uh get folks to take care of their own property and not the city of New Orleans and free up the little resources that we do have to take care of other emergent requirements and and priorities that the council sends us and the administration.

And so we look forward to it being a very productive year in 2026 with chapter 66 cases, and in terms of graffiti, we were able also in 2025 to successfully work with a lot of owners to get them to abate their own property.

But we did abate um I forgot uh over 100 and some properties in 2025 with graffiti and uh had a very successful year, and we look forward to doing that in 2026.

Our vendor, we were able to work with our vendor to work with private owners to make them do more to take care of their own property, and so we found that to be a very successful approach, and we will continue to do that in 2026.

In terms of our strike team, as you all know, we created an internal capability in the department of code enforcement because we needed something that could respond rapidly to immediate requests that we were getting from the council and from the administration because working with contractors, they're not as flexible, they have a set schedule and they can't respond very quickly.

So we've created an internal strike team that are able to go out on the bait right-aways immediately for public safety, and that paid huge dividends for us in 2025.

Uh, we hope to grow that in 2026 so that we can add more laborers and equipment operators, and the ultimate goal is to get a team uh per district as we go forward into the future for our internal capability on our strike team, and uh, and so we think that that uh again will pay huge dividends, not only for the citizens of New Orleans, but also for us in government in trying to provide immediate services to the people.

Next slide.

So, in terms of demolition, we have two terms how we define demolitions in the department of code enforcement.

Obviously, emergency demolitions fall under what we call imminent danger conditions, and I need to be crystal clear that on imminent danger conditions, it doesn't mean that a building needs to be falling down or that a building is should be is about to collapse.

In the department of code enforcement, we don't use the term imminent danger of collapse.

That is a term that is specifically used by the HDLC and the VCC.

We don't use that term in the department of code enforcement, but rather we go by conditions because we know that there are properties that are in communities that uh uh have a drug problem.

Uh uh they uh they are prone to possibly being set on fire and burning somebody else's property because it's it's been forever neglected and things of that nature.

So if it fits a certain amount of conditions, then we will certainly classify that property as meeting imminent danger conditions, and to get that declaration, it requires the department, the director for the department of code enforcement, the director for the department of safety and permits, and then and the chief building official for the city of New Orleans to sign off on that to get that declaration on those properties.

And so we also have what we call non-emergency demolitions.

Those are demolitions that were ordered through an administrative judgment by an administrative hearing officer.

And so we continue to abate those properties in how they were ordered to be demolished by uh the administration, how we were able to schedule them with our demolition contractor.

I will tell you, in 2025, there were 196 demolitions that were ordered by an administrative hearing officer and by the ordinance that was passed last year.

We know that by 2027, all 195 or 96 of those properties will have to be demolished if they have not been abated.

So between the demolition being ordered and then the time of us getting that property scheduled, property owners still have time, the opportunity to abate their property or do something about the property to get to put it back in to commerce.

And then lastly, again, this is new for us in 2026.

We are creating this code compliance division, and again, in just an effort to educate the constituency and property owners on all of the violations, what it takes to abate a piece of property, and how to avoid penalties by going through administrative procedures.

Uh, and to achieve this compliance before an administrative hearing is scheduled.

We know that uh that there are a lot of things that can be abated before you even go through the administrative hearing process.

And so we hope to help as many constituents as we possibly can, particularly those who are elderly, and then people that have minor violations that we could avoid the adjudication process.

We certainly want to do that, and so we are we are all in on trying to help the people as we go forward into 2026 and to making sure that they come into compliance.

So that's the overall brief.

Uh subject to any questions or comments that you all may have at this time.

Uh thank you, Director Davis.

That was a good presentation.

Councilmember Green.

Yes, that was a very good presentation.

I appreciate it.

You all have heard me say this before to you all, how appreciative I am in the community is of the work that you've done.

Many times there aren't going to be headlines when a demolition is done of a property that has been falling around and that people are being allowed to go into because owners, for one reason or the other, and sometimes it's because the owners are not interested because you have multiple parties that own it and the like.

But working with you all over the last four years, especially, we've done over a hundred and plus demolitions in the district.

And that's demolitions that on Piety Street and Louisa Street and on Metropolitan Street and on Montague Street in the Ninth Ward, don't get a lot of attention, but they serve a very extremely important purpose for the residents of those communities.

I focus on demolitions a lot because you can see that, but I appreciate also the letters that you send along with the letters that my office sends, telling people and reminding them that they're going to be fined if their overgrown lot is not taken care of, that they're gonna be fined if they don't board up the property.

It's made a tremendous difference in my district, especially in areas that have long been neglected.

Yes, sir.

So I just want to tell you all that when I look at the redevelopment of Piety Street and the new community center that is near there, the demolitions that have taken place on Louisa Street have made people feel better about it.

They talk about it at church, they talk about it at community meetings.

I appreciate the work that you've done.

I do have a message to those who are criminal vandals who write on any building that they can wherever they are.

To those who are the private property owners, I want to say to them, thank you for putting up with criminal vandalism that cost you money.

Because your office has worked with private property owners who have had to remove graffiti from buildings that shouldn't have had graffiti on them at all.

So anybody who is out there tagging buildings, thinking that that's cute, going on social media and telling people what you've done, you've done a real disservice to this community and to the private property owners.

And I'm asking you to stop.

Yes, sir.

It's as simple as that.

Stop writing on buildings that um you don't own, stop writing on NORD facilities.

You go up the interstate at Clayborn Avenue, and you see a beautiful brown wall that's tagged with foolishness right now.

At the end of the day, please stop that if you're interested in the city.

There's a way to do art, such as B.

Mike does it, and there's a way to be a criminal vandal, such as some of those people do it at two and three o'clock in the morning.

But in a nutshell, I just want to say thank you for the work that you all do.

I look forward to continuing that process of getting rid of some of the blight that will exist in our community.

And I'll close by saying this.

The most important thing that I've been able to see over the last four years has been demolitions have taken place, in some instances, new properties get built.

Because the owner then recognizes that they need to sell that property, that they just can't sit on it forever, and new construction is going on on Frenchman on a Legion field.

I could go through a number of properties that have been rebuilt.

So continue that work, and I just appreciate the work that you all will do that you do and your responsiveness to our request.

Yes, sir.

Thank you, Councilmember Green.

Councilmember King.

Thank you, Council Member Willard.

Thank you, Mr.

Davis and Code Enforcement Team.

I think you are one of the most important departments in the entire city, no matter where you live, East Bank, West Bank, you're going to have to deal with code enforcement at some time in your life.

And I also I just want to say that you are one of the most responsive and professional departments in this city.

So hats off to you, Mr.

Davis.

I don't reflect reflects leadership.

About the vegetation, the empty lodge that the owners sometimes don't cut, and you you know you don't want code enforcement to be a private law and care service for some of these homeowners or property owners.

I understand you all it may not be beneficial for you all to cut those lots, but what does that leave the neighbors when the trees or the weeds or the grass is overgrown?

You all can't cut it.

You'll be cutting grass all day and not doing it.

Demolitions and other things.

So what does that leave the property owners who live around that property?

So those property owners, obviously, who have neglected those lots, Councilman King, we are trying everything that we can in the department to go after them very aggressively in terms of the neighbors who are having to deal with those unsanitary and terrible conditions.

We will do all that we can in our department to a bait property for public safety to the maximum extent possible.

So we we this past year we deployed our strike team on multiple occasions to take care of neglectful property that was just left on a den care.

And so we've uh done everything that we could possibly do.

I do think uh we may have to come up with some more legislative penalties uh for people who just refuse to uh to do the right thing amongst their neighbors.

Um we'll we'll just continue, but we'll work with our partners.

Uh uh if if we can't get our contractor to do it, uh uh I'm I'm constantly communicating with other departments in the city to see if we could collectively come up with a solution to give people relief.

And I think at the end of the day, that's what we that what they want, and that's what we want to provide.

So we'll we'll cut through the red tape and figure out whatever we can uh to give people relief.

But we will continue to try, number one, to be very aggressive with uh people who just have this don't care attitude or just think that they could just you know just buy your property across the city and do nothing with it.

And so we'll just try we all we can to hold them accountable.

All right, and uh thank you for our response.

One one more question, if you can just expound on this.

We talked about it in the past, but it's a new new year, new council, and sometimes we need to refresh the audience.

Yes, sir.

Um, where historic preservation and and code enforcement sometimes clash uh because the property, like you say, may not be falling down, but it presents a serious criminal risk and health risk to surrounding neighbors.

Uh but you also have those who who don't want to see the property go, which which I understand.

So, what is can you take through the steps or lay out the steps for our uh listeners?

What do you all do when you have that property that is becoming a nuisance to the community, but is also historical?

Yes, sir.

So we work very well with HDLC, VCC, you know, and let me just say this up front.

We we understand the value of maintaining history.

We're we love history as well, and so we're it's not like that we're anti-history, so we understand that we've worked with PRC and others, and their job is preservation.

And to uh, but what we have discovered is is that uh, as you stated, Council McKing, that sometimes we have a disagreement between the Department of Code Enforcement and preservationists, and so what we look at is Department of Code Enforcement will always follow the evidence.

We'll we'll follow the facts of the case.

And so what we look at is so if the properties is in a in a historic location, what we look at is how long that property has been there.

That property has been blighted, not one brick in 10 years has been applied to that property.

The property is occupied by vagrants, the property is a drug house.

Uh the property is just a it's been declared a blighting public nuisance over and over and over again.

And HDLC and VCC has issued numerous demolition by neglect notices that the owner didn't take heed to.

And so we we tell them that.

We'll present it to HDLC.

HDLC more than likely is not going to concur.

They're not going to give us a certificate of non-compliance.

And so those are the ones that will advance to the city council to get approval to uh from regardless of what the commission say, they are come before the council.

However, for those properties that have been deemed as meeting imminent danger conditions, we will demolish the property because it's been decades in the making, uh, and it's just nothing is happening with the property.

And the owners of the people in the community are coming to the Department of Code Enforcement saying, uh Department of Code Enforcement, nothing, we we can't live like this any longer.

The property is a nightmare for us, and I don't think any citizens in the New Orleans wants to have to deal with human feces outside of their front door or the potential of something happening to one of their loved ones because of the crime and the illegal drug use that's happening in the community because of that one piece of property.

And so we look at all of those conditions, we make our case, we work well together, I think, and then we just come to some type of resolution in terms of that property.

But the focus will always be the people that live in that community.

We hear you loud and clear, and we're gonna do all that we can to take sure to take care of the community.

Well, I I just want to thank you for that.

Uh I want to just highlight one two instances, one in Tremay where there was a house that was uh the owner didn't do anything with it for a long time, and he had received several notices.

Nothing happened.

The residents, some of them didn't want it to be touched because it was historical, and the house caught on fire because it had people living in it trying to stay warm or grill took over.

House caught on fire and and and could have been a lot worse, but thankfully it wasn't.

Um that's one example where sometimes action is needed in those historical neighborhoods.

And I've seen you also say, hey, we're gonna hold up to the owner some time to get the Rs and business and their business R's together.

And I've seen um owners take advantage of that that time and come in compliance.

So just thank you for your time uh today, and thank you for the work you've done and your entire staff since you came to office.

You're welcome, sir.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember King.

Uh Director Davis, thank you for coming here.

You certainly have a challenging time.

Um, you know, I I have a couple of questions.

One of the things that I really want to focus on, and I'm sure it's shared by my colleagues up here, is really moving the needle on blight across the city of New Orleans.

And um, so I just wanted to, and you talked about possible legislative solutions.

I think it was two, maybe three years ago I worked with the city on a bill to allow you to abate graffiti in blight enforcement measures.

So I'm certainly interested on any other avenues that you feel uh would enable you to do a better job leading the department of code enforcement.

But uh right now, what do you see as your biggest barriers to addressing blight um in the city?

Thank you for that question, uh Council Vice President.

So uh I think just about what has affected every department across the city, number one is funding, uh, lack of people.

Uh so but what we've done is we have an all-hands on approach philosophy in the department of code enforcement.

We adapt and overcome, and we do the best we can with the people that we have.

And we just uh I think if we can just get to the point where obviously you know the funding situation has balanced out, and then we're able to bring on more people.

Uh we know that that's a good idea.

Where would you where do you think you need more people?

Is it we need on the inspection side?

Yes, sir.

So we need we need more laborers uh to add to our strike team and equipment operators.

We certainly could advocate for more inspectors because uh right now in some areas we only have one inspector, and at a minimum, we know definitively that in some areas it requires two to three inspectors, just given how large that area is.

For instance, in New Orleans East, we have two inspectors.

It's broken up into, we broke it up into districts and in department, but we know that we need a third inspector in New Orleans East.

And so we are stretching thin with the two inspectors that we have trying to cover the entirety of New Orleans East.

Same thing in the lower ninth ward.

Uh we have, I believe we have one inspector in the lower ninth ward, and the goal would all to them be to have a minimum of two inspectors per code enforcement district throughout the city.

That way we can constantly be uh going after blight abatement, working with constituents.

We started also in 2026 uh blight patrols where we're just actively going into communities seeking out blight to see what we can do to help neighborhoods and communities move forward in the absence of blight.

Uh so I I would say that that's our biggest impediment right now is just funding in terms of trying to get quality people on the staff that want to make a significant contribution to the city of New Orleans.

On the inspector side, are they specialized or do they cover everything related to code?

They cover everything related to code enforcement for everything from healthy homes uh to uh minimum property maintenance, uh same thing all the way through demolitions.

We are in the process of getting all of our code enforcement inspectors certified through the International Code Council this past year.

They received their training, and so this year we're going to get all of them international code council certified uh in the department, so they will all be well rounded and full verse to be able to perform any form of inspection in the department of code enforcement.

Okay, that sounds good.

Any idea on how many inspections you did last year and if you have like a if you set a metric for this year on how many you want to perform?

Yes, sir.

So in totality on last year, the department of code enforcement in total performed 8,934 inspections.

5,600 of those were for minimum property maintenance, 211 was for healthy homes, and then another 3,000 was for chapter 66 inspections last year.

So the goal every year is to uh obviously raise the bar, and so we hopefully this year we'll attain 10,000 inspections throughout the city.

We've we've set a mark that uh at a minimum inspectors in the department at a minimum every single day.

You must perform 15 or more inspections at a minimum every day, every inspector.

I I look forward to the year where you tell me the inspection number is gonna go down because we've cleared away so much blight in the city of New Orleans.

Um any idea of how many issues are in your backlog currently?

So, in terms of backlog, I will tell you in terms of complaints.

I will say that the initial backlog, when I became the director of the department of code enforcement, the problem was with title research.

We had over 5,000 cases that were in title research and the backlog in the backlog.

So that's why we made a very concerted effort to focus on title research, hire people, get more researchers.

We was able to reduce that backlog so we no longer have a backlog.

But in terms of complaints, I will tell you that uh in 2025, code enforcement received over 6,000 complaints through 311.

Uh, we also had another several hundred that came in through our organizational mailbox in the department, as well as countless number of phone calls that various people took throughout the department.

I will say that we uh we hope to going forward and to address the situation is we want to establish an uh uh office of uh uh of excellence in the department of code enforcement in terms of trying to handle complaints.

We know that we need more administrative personnel to take that task on because right now it is overwhelming and consuming for the department with the number of people that we have trying to record all of those complaints.

And the interesting thing is, councilman, is that we know that every complaint is uh does not necessarily lead to a case, but it requires us to investigate it.

And so that takes a lot of resources effort, time and energy to put into some of those things just for to turn out that you know it wasn't legitimate.

And so we need more people, and that's why we could benefit from more inspectors as well as more administrators who are able to document those when they come in and see them through from beginning to end to be uh ensure that they are resolved.

Okay.

Um you and your team have a very important job in the city of New Orleans.

Um I want to continue this this work in relationship to help you better do your job.

Obviously, you know, finances are tight right now.

Um, but doing more with less, like you were talking about earlier, uh, certainly is refreshing for me to hear.

So uh if you ever need anything from me uh as it relates to your office and your team, um please let me know.

The last thing I wanted to touch on is the plaza tower, um, which you know, before before I came here.

Um I recall hearing in the news that maybe we were gonna demolish the building, and then all of a sudden, maybe there was a purchase in the works, somebody was gonna buy the building, but then all of a sudden that went away.

So, do you have any update on the status of the plaza tower for us?

Yes, sir.

So, very briefly.

So we know that it costs 27 million dollars to demolish Plaza Tower.

Uh and so we certainly don't want to uh uh we won't we wasn't going to advocate using taxpayer money to pay for that, which would take us decades to get back if we ever got it back.

So what the city did was we went into a contract with a company called Renaissance Incorporated to make the place safe.

That was a 2.7 million dollar contract that was established with them.

They did make the place safe.

It was phase one of what we were looking for long-term plans and trying to was that the netting and everything that we have.

That was the netting, yes, sir, everything uh to try to so they completed that work uh late last year, so that situation is done.

In the midst of us being in the contract with Renaissance, it was my understanding through economic development that a buyer did come uh and they were working on a deal uh for a buyer to potentially purchase uh plaza tower.

That just continued in the background from my understanding while we were still performing phase one of making Plaza Tower safe.

But I do I don't have any updates in terms of where we are with that development.

I just know that the demolition the phase one is done with Renaissance, and and so now we're kind of back to now what do we do with Plaza Tower going forward.

Okay, thank you for that update.

Councilmember Hughes.

Uh thank you, Mr.

Chairman.

Thank you for being so gracious to allow me to um ask a question, Director Davis.

Thank you uh for your leadership uh and you and your team.

I know you and I had a chance to uh meet in my office um uh last week and uh really wanted to put on the record about 6700 Plaza Drive, um, which we know has made every top five top ten lists of the most blighted um structures in the city.

But you know, in terms of solutions, one thing that I really want us to dig deep on.

I know you and I had a chance to talk briefly.

I think when it comes to demolitions, we're locked into a contract with one contractor.

Yes, sir.

And and and and I think you know, at the end of the day, there's probably pros and cons to that, but I think it locks us in and does us a disservice because if the contractor comes to us and says it's gonna take a million dollars to demolish Plaza Drive.

Maybe if we cast a wider net, if we're able to cast a wider net and get bids from three to five to ten contractors, maybe we'll get a bid that comes in at $300,000.

And so, you know, once we're unlocked from that contract, I hope we'll we'll explore ways to um, you know, become more innovative.

Yes, sir.

Um, you know, so that we can attack this commercial blight issue.

Yes, sir.

Thank you.

You're welcome, sir.

Thank you, Director.

I look forward to working with you.

I look forward to it.

Thank you, sir.

Thank you, Chairman.

Thank you, Councilmember Hughes.

Yeah, the commercial blight side also very important.

Uh all blight in the city of New Orleans is very important.

Um, I don't see any other questions from the council members.

So, Director Davis, I want to thank you for your time.

Uh, and thank you for bringing your team down with you.

Look forward to our continued partnership.

Absolutely.

Director Schwartz.

Thank you, sir.

All right.

Thank you for your patience, Director Schwartz.

My pleasure.

Thank you for working around schedules this morning.

Yep.

All right.

Uh good morning, uh, council members, uh, Councilmember Willard, thank you for inviting us here uh to present on the Office of Community Development.

Umgratulations.

Well, thank you very much.

Uh yes, uh, I am uh wearing a slightly different hat today.

Congrats and condolences, right?

Um I am uh serving in the capacity as the director of housing community development and special projects.

Um and uh it's an honor to serve uh the new administration and uh as you noted uh in the previous presentation, just very much looking forward to uh working in partnership with you and the rest of the council on uh a whole host of community and economic development issues that I know are near and dear to all of our hearts.

Um so one of the things that I I just want to start out saying is that um, and I'm sorry, uh I'm joined here by uh Liz Holman.

Uh we know I was asking her if this is the the first time she sat on this side of the day as an informal presentation.

I think it is, yes.

Uh you know, it's like it's like the sequel to a movie where everyone's in slightly slightly different roles.

Um but I'm excited to be here because uh obviously having worked uh closely with council on a number of uh economic development issues and projects.

Um what I love about community development is I think all too often it gets put in the box of just being about affordable housing, which is a hugely critical issue in the city that touches every resident in every corner of the city.

Um but community development really is about more than uh affordable housing, it's about supporting commercial corridors, it's about creating amenities and quality of life and the day-to-day infrastructure that I know we all uh want to see for our neighborhoods and our our residents, and so uh I'm just extrem extremely humbled and honored to be serving in this capacity and again looking forward to to partnering.

Um I went from a team of seven or eight people to a team of uh 46 or 48 people, and so um I'm here today to provide an overview.

There's obviously a huge uh group of folks who do just yeoman's work every day in the Office of Community Development.

And so first want to celebrate them and then also say that um you all might have some questions today that I'm still uh learning about, and so happy to uh get back to you on any any of the things.

I think both of us are drinking from a fire hose, so appreciate that.

We really just want to get an update from you on OCD and your department and really I guess initial priorities coming out of the gate.

That's great.

Thank you, Councilmember.

Um, so we'll just start uh mission and vision statement.

Um I think it's hugely important to know what your vision is uh for uh the city on the particular issues that you're tasked with in order to be able to strategize and set priorities within your department.

So I won't I won't read totally through uh these here.

Um folks uh at home and and obviously in the packet can read.

But I think what's really important is just um acknowledging again that this is about more than just affordable housing.

I think affordable housing is what grounds a lot of OCD's work.

Um, but it really touches on so many other aspects of the city and really every every community, every every commercial corridor in the city um is touched by this vision of of a vibrant um neighborhood for every resident that has access to jobs and and opportunity.

Um what is unique about the also community development that uh I think a lot of folks don't necessarily appreciate at home is that we are almost entirely grant funded.

And so when the federal government stopped giving a lot of direct support uh to cities in the late 70s and early 80s, one of the uh things that they did that was kind of transformative uh was create the community development block grant program.

And so um the city uh historically has received over 20 million dollars.

I think it's unsurprising that as a block grant, that number has actually been chipped away and and has dwindled uh over the years.

Um we still receive approximately 20 million dollars at the city through both CDBG community development block grants as well as some other uh funding programs that are very specific.

Um what's unique about OCD is that our office is almost entirely grant funded, with the exception of a few unclassified employees that work on on housing policy and strategy work and a few others.

Uh we essentially do the work of implementing um federally funded programs, and we are not a drain on the city's general fund, and so it's somewhat unique and I think it's uh a huge ROI and impact that that OCD brings.

Um each year it's a highly, as you might guess with HUD, it's a highly structured uh process by which we program these dollars.

We operate under a five-year consolidated plan that's kind of our uh comprehensive plan that's a rolling five-year uh strategy that we submit to HUD.

Um, and then each year we provide an annual plan that kind of nests up underneath the consolidated plan.

It's what are our priorities that we want to do in a given year?

And that's something that you know the the OCD team again does yeoman's work every day thinking about you know, how are we gonna stretch these dollars a little further for this community center for this senior program or for this affordable housing project?

I think one of the things I would love to engage with you and the rest of the council on is just taking a look as we start up the the annual planning process.

There are things that we can do that uh we could tweak and and uh place relative emphasis on in a given year.

And so I'd love to work with you all early early on in the process.

It won't start till after March 31st, but um, you know, a little later this spring I'd love to engage with you all to hear about your priorities for the city and and in your respective districts.

I think that's a great idea.

Wonderful.

Um and then obviously uh HUD uh is known for a lot of things.

One of them is uh being sticklers around compliance, and so we have a huge uh team and and a lot of our activities are around making sure that those dollars are spent appropriately and in the period of performance that they need to be spent in.

Um just to give the.

Does HUD have to approve that five-year plan?

They they do, yeah.

So that goes to the regional office and then is approved.

There's an established process for doing that.

Um we obviously work very closely, not just with the the regional office uh, but also with um locally based HUD officials and um the state's uh Office of Community Development, which I'm sure you have uh great relationships with and um Councilmember Morel and others who have had um extensive work at the state.

Um just to give folks a sense of the breakdown again of how that 20 million dollars roughly uh comes in.

Again, these are all federal grants.

Um these dollars are all heavily programmed and and have been supporting really great programs over the years, and so you know, I think there's always an opportunity to tweak and think about how we can achieve our our relative um strategies and priorities in a given year.

I think it is important to note given the current federal and political climate.

Um we are still waiting on our HUD 2026 allocation confirmation, and so we don't yet know exactly what those those dollars are going to be.

Is that late?

It's late, yeah.

Typically, it would happen by the end of uh the prior fiscal year, you would know uh what you're working with.

Um, so that is something that we can keep you all apprised of, and um it's a federal issue, obviously.

It's we're not the only correct every community uh, I believe in the country is waiting on on that.

Okay.

Um in addition to our regular entitlement money, uh primarily through CDBG and home and ESG and others, we also get um uh competitive grants uh like the NDR program, which I know has a lot of hair on it, but it's something that this administration I know is really committed to working through, as well as um what are called C D BG DR dollars, and we never want to get hit by a disaster.

Um, but one of the things that uh almost always happens in any federal uh disaster uh recovery legislation is an allocation of CDBG DR dollars.

Unlike uh uh entitlement money that happens on an annual basis, those dollars typically go through the state, and so we work very closely with state OCD on programming those dollars, and I'll say a little bit more um in the presentation, but we have some exciting uh programs that we've been working on for the better part of three years now on programming some post-ITA money that are uh finally gonna start hitting the street uh this year.

So we can say a little bit more about that.

Okay.

Um typically those regs are uh roughly the same as CDBG, but those are um uh dollars that uh typically have some other strings attached.

And um I'll just give just to put absolute numbers on it.

The post-IDA allocation to the city was originally uh 11 million dollars from the state because my predecessors and the team at OCD, as well as some work uh economic development and the resilience office were doing previously, we were actually uh doing a good job of programming money and and starting to spend money.

The state gave us an additional allocation of 21 million dollars.

So when we're good at spending money and demonstrate we can get dollars out the door, you get more money sometimes.

Point noted, yeah.

Yeah, duly noted, exactly.

So that's exactly it's a 33 million dollar pot of money in um what's called the RCIP, it's resilient communities infrastructure program.

Um in terms of the organization or chart and an organizational overview, rather than put a big spaghetti uh model up on the screen.

I thought it was helpful just to think about the six units that that we operate under.

Um these are long-standing.

Uh, the housing policy and strategy unit is one that uh Liz is here representing.

Um but these are these are very well established units within OCD that kind of touch on the programmatic side, like how do we actually deliver the services and projects and programs, and then also all the compliance and and fiscal related work that we have to do to spend these dollars well.

And so you can see uh we have an affordable housing division that's responsible for getting uh our our affordable housing NOFAs and programs out the door, as well as doing things like intake for uh managing our soft second program, which I know is really impactful for the 60 or 70 homeowners a year that received that first-time home buyers.

Uh, we love that program, and it's something uh probably the first phone call uh I got uh from the mayor's office um was that uh we needed to restart the soft second program for this year.

Um and so I'm proud to say we're we've got that program off and running, and um Cedrico Sartin in our office does a great job of administering that.

Uh we have neighborhood uh services and facilities.

Um Madeline Sanchez has been running that for uh many years, and uh this is amazing work uh supporting senior centers, uh supporting Hoppwa and uh other other services that really uh are out in communities, and so it's it's really important and impactful work that I think frequently flies under the radar, but for the folks that uh receive those those programs and services, it's it's deeply impactful.

Uh we do a lot with uh fiscal and compliance and disaster uh work, and so uh course Rialin and Bianca and and Ziva and their team uh do yeoman's work every day on that front.

Uh we do asset management and construction um inspections.

We have a great team of inspectors that go out, and every project that the city invests in, uh, whether it's scattered site, owner-occupied rehab, or multifamily um affordable projects, um, we have to inspect those projects not just on the front end to make sure that uh the units that are supposed to be getting created are getting created, and the work and scopes that are supposed to be happening are happening.

But we have a long tail of inspections.

When you hear about long-term affordability and affordable housing projects, that means that for 15 or frequently 30 or 35 or longer years, the city has to ensure along with the other investors in the project that those units are affordable.

And so there's a lot of work that happens both in the housing affordable housing unit and on our asset management unit.

And then the aforementioned annual and five year planning work.

Angela Noel and her team, Ms.

Donna and others do amazing work on the planning and resource development side.

And then last but certainly not least, housing policy and strategy is critically important to the city to address our affordable housing needs.

When we look at things like how are we administering our incentives in a smart way that's targeted and is getting us to the outcomes that we actually want to see?

How are we analyzing the pipeline of projects that we need to both create new units but also preserve existing units?

When we're thinking about the housing trust fund and how the housing trust fund is going to be programmed, all of that work requires some really smart, dedicated people who also really know what they're doing.

And so I'm really happy to have Liz and Sam, Rochelle, and a few others, Kelly Butler and Safety and Permits working to help lead the charge for the city on that.

Liz, do you want to uh mention anything in terms of priorities around some of the studies we're looking at or anything that are worth mentioning real quick?

Yeah, I think I mean we've been digging into MIC land use barriers.

Um we've got you know a bunch of studies that the city paid for that nothing ever happened with.

And so I think there's a lot of enthusiasm around using those recommendations that we got from experts.

Um a lot of them say that we need to build about 40,000 units of affordable housing to meet uh the need and to kind of get up to uh the demand.

Um and so that is daunting, but I think with the with a policy team, we can work on this strategy on how are we really being thoughtful about spending the dollars we have?

How are we adjusting programs?

How are we using the housing trust fund and bond dollars?

Um it's it's a huge uh task, but I think you know, our office, the council, um hopefully we can work together and kind of figure out a path to getting to that goal.

Uh so I uh we did hear a lot about a requirement of 40,000 affordable housing units last year.

Um with the shrinking population, is that number still accurate?

And how do you how do you say that when the population shrinking?

Yeah, I think I think that's fair.

The most recent study I read that in was the um transient lodging study, which just came out in January.

So as far as I know, they would be um taking into account the population uh decline.

Ideally, as community development and economic development get going, uh that won't be happening anymore, which would be great.

Um, but I believe the transient lodging study, which came out so recently probably should have been taking that into account.

My understanding is that there are between 50 and 120% AMI folks, there is just huge demand, and they are taking huge portions of their paychecks towards rent uh in a way that's just not on that's not sustainable.

Um I I think that should be reflected in the population shrinking, but hopefully we'll be reversing that soon too.

Yeah, yeah.

And it's a great question, and and there's two ways to look at it.

There, I think there's the the really eye-watering, very large numbers like that, the 40,000, the 55,000.

You know, I think um the other we can come at this from the other direction and say what are what are the achievable given the resources we have in hand, some of the land use barriers we can lower, expediting permitting for small multi-family or affordable housing projects, you know, what what can we, what goals can we set as a city as a council and an administration where should we be having a goal of creating 2,000 new housing units a year, net new.

Right.

Um, you know, how many units do we want to preserve for projects that receive low-income housing tax credits back in, I'm sure we all remember the GoZone uh bond era, right after Katrina.

A lot of those projects only had a 15-year compliance period, and so you know, we don't want to see the American CAN situation, so we need to have some financial tools and resources to ensure that those units are preserved.

And so I think we can set some really achievable goals on that, still be ambitious, but start to chip away meaningfully at that, whatever the number is, if it's 30,000 or 40,000 or 55,000, um, start to make progress every year that can be kind of our North Star.

Okay.

Um but it's a it's a great question.

Uh just uh cognizant of time.

So just um quickly going through these, I just wanted to give some examples of the types of um programs and dollars that our office administers.

So under C D BG and home, we've used those in the past for affordable housing gap financing.

So if an affordable project uh it almost always will have a gap in their in their financing in their capital stack, we've historically used CDBG and home dollars to uh fill that gap, although we now have additional resources such as bond bond dollars.

Um and so we're hopeful that hopeful that later this year we'll be able to start issuing NOFAs again to uh fill gap in affordable units.

We obviously have a first-time home buyer uh soft second program, which uh I know Councilmember Green had to leave, but he was um mentioning that uh he wants to uh learn more about how we can ramp that up.

Um and then we also have great partners um uh like rebuilding together, uh, people's housing plus and others that work on owner-occupied rehab, small multi-family uh Crescent City Community Land Trust, uh excuse me, land trust models.

Um we got some great partners on the ground doing that work.

Um I won't go through this in depth, but that neighborhood services and facilities work again under Madeline's team.

Um they do everything from case management and homeless prevention to tenant-based rental assistance programs.

Um we are stepping up to try to help make sure that the mayor's uh priorities around summer youth employment is funded this year, so we're able to flex some of our C D BG money in that along with uh other sources.

Um, and so you know, we make those types of investments.

Um then I was mentioning before, I guess the last two things I wanted to touch on were just related to those CDBG DR dollars.

So these are one-time dollars that come in after a disaster, but we're able to use it on really transformative projects.

Everything from a big drainage project in West End in District A to uh doing blue green corridors in Gentili.

Uh we're doing special economic development projects like I was mentioning before, where we're gonna be able to build a food incubator to support our food entrepreneurs in the city, so they don't have to leave not just New Orleans, but also the state sometimes to achieve their uh uh uh food uh manufacturing goals.

Um and we also have uh work supporting small businesses doing things like solar and battery on their uh uh businesses in commercial quarters throughout the city, um, and also uh hardening and making public buildings more resilient.

Uh the last thing I just wanted to quickly touch on uh was a couple of the the 100-day priorities established by the mayor in the transition.

Um so one is accelerating our multifamily developments.

I know uh Councilmember King had to step out, but um we were able to do the groundbreaking on NSA, which was uh a hugely uh uh impactful project uh that got off the ground in December.

Um and we're also working on projects like uh the former Mercy uh hospital redevelopment, the river district that has uh several phases of affordability, uh charity hospital and others uh to make sure that these large uh multifamily affordable deals can get done and we can get units in big chunks implementing the housing trust fund.

I know it's something that uh Liz uh Councilmember Harrison, uh the mayor and others have been working on that we are committed to trying to get the housing trust fund actually over the hump, get the agreement uh done between the city and our partners and get that that rolling uh by the end of the first quarter.

Um and there's several others here, but I'll stop there uh just for time's sake.

Thank you, Director Schwartz.

Uh very informative, certainly look forward to working with you and your team.

Uh congratulations to you as well, Liz.

Uh, look forward to working with you in your new capacity as well.

Um so thank you.

Uh we don't have any public comments up here, so um just meeting.

Uh well, we have some online comments that I'm happy just to include in the record, uh, as usual.

Yeah, just add those to the record.

Sure.

And when you're ready to adjourn, we can go ahead and second the ones in the books.

Thank you, everybody.

Thank you so much, council members.