New Orleans Endangered Public Housing Success at Last! Golf Course Plan

and do "Fore Kids" -- if they're kids -- these rosy predictors of all that's so good and hopeful -- know that golf courses waste more water and use more pesticide including those banned for any other uses in the U.S. -- waste more of earth's resources, pollute more water and kill more everything (not just geniuses who happen to have been born disabled or unfortunate loved ones stuck in wheelchairs and public housing -- including veterans) -- than almost any other endeavor?

Reprint from New Orleans indymedia
http://neworleans.indymedia.org/news/2007/10/11247.php

City Park, Affordable Housing at Risk
by Elizabeth Cook Tuesday, Oct. 23, 2007 at 9:49 AM
yocandra42 [at] hotmail.com 504-319-3564 New Orleans, La.

Fore Kids Foundation plans for City Park and the St. Bernard Housing Development will endanger the park, and affordable housing. Deadline to submit comments for the Master Plan for City Park is today (October 23). Send in your comments to this email address: plan [at] nocp.org

As a member of C3/Hands off Iberville, I have advocated since Katrina for the right of return of all New Orleanians. Families have struggled to return though, because of the lack of affordable housing. With 12,000 homeless in our city right now, we need public housing, all of our affordable housing, now more than ever.

Fore Kids Foundation out of Baton Rouge is set to partner with Columbia Residential from Atlanta to demolish the St. Bernard Housing Development and create a "mixed income" community.

Everyone ought to be paying attention to how this whole deal regarding the St. Bernard Housing Development is going down, and what it will mean for the pocketbooks of residents. Also, City Park will be drastically impacted by Fore Kids Foundation's plan for New Orleans.

Fore Kids Foundation produces the Zurich Classic, which is staged once a year at the TPC of Louisiana Golf Course in Marrero. TPC of Louisiana is a PGA owned golf course. TPC of Louisiana has never done very well since the first day it opened in 2004. How do I know this?

Because the state of Louisiana has had to subsidize that golf course to the tune of $2.1 million since it opened, because of a bad, contractual deal handed to us by the Foster administration. If TPC of Louisiana doesn't do the business they expect to do in a given year, we, the tax payer, pay up. This contract will end in two years. Not only that. The state anted up $13 million to help construct that private, PGA-owned golf course, and we the taxpayers paid $500,000 to replant trees on that private, PGA-owned course after Katrina.

Now Fore Kids Foundation is advocating for a "PGA style" golf course in City Park, to the tune of $19 million in three phases. They advocate private funding for the construction of that golf couse. However, the state of Louisiana subsidizes the park budget by 1/3 right now. Look for that to go up if that golf course is built. Golf courses are expensive to maintain, and, isn't it already plainly evident that the area simply can't support a PGA owned course, let alone a "PGA style" course?

If you check the City Park website and download their "Master Plan", the total cost of improvements to the park would be $115 million. To help finance this, the park would seek a "permanent source of financing" that would potentially generate $45 million that could involve a 3 mill property tax. Also, the park would seek $28 million from the state's capital bill outlay process. All this, to make City Park, "the premiere urban park in America".

I hope everyone takes the time to read the fine print of this "Master Plan", as it involves the pocketbooks of tax payers. This overly-ambitious plan would bring several new developments to the park, including moving the Children's Museum to the park, a library, a multi-purpose building ($6 million), minature golf ($700,000), a skate park ($1.8 million), and a new fountain for $400,000.

Also, this Master Plan proposes shrinking the Couturie Forest from 33 acres to 19 acres, in order to construct the golf course. Couturie Forest is a hardwood forest in the middle of City Park. Scout Island would vanish with the construction of this golf course. TPC of Louisiana in Marrero was constructed on 250 acres of "reclaimed wetlands", according to the TPC of Louisiana website. Must we have our golf courses constructed on top of our few acres of natural resources that are accessible to the urban dwellers in and around our city?

Has anyone bothered to ask whether we really need City Park to be "the premiere urban park in America?" Personally, I would be happy with the adequate maintenance of existing infrastructure and green space. How about taking all of the hardware down that dangles from trees in the park, hardware left over each year from Christmas in the Oaks? How about water fountains that work and accessible bathrooms? The new water fountains recently installed on Roosevelt Mall simply don't work.

Apparently, for their own aggrandizement, Fore Kids Foundation will push this "PGA style" course against my better judgement, and hopefully against the better judgement of all Louisiana residents and those who love City Park and don't want to see the park exploited. Why doesn't the Fore Kids Foundation take all of its business to the TPC of Louisiana golf course In Marrero, which apparently badly needs the business?

Fore Kids Foundation on their website explain that the monies they earn from producing a "PGA tour event" pays administrative costs for their foundation. We don't know what their administrative costs are, because non-profits are essentially not transparent and accountable to the people, yet often receive government funding.

Gary Solomon, member of the Board of Directors of Fore Kids Foundation, recently said on a WDSU TV interview, that the proposed "PGA style" golf course at City Park would help "integrate the neighborhood".

What does it mean, to "integrate the neighborhood" with a golf course? Does "integrating the neighborhood" have anything to do with drastically reducing the units of affordable housing at the nearby St. Bernard Development, as is the plan for that development by Fore Kids Foundation?

Is Fore Kids Foundation counting on "new" neighbors, and the demolition of the St. Bernard Devleopment, to provide the needed residents, and income, to patronize the golf course?

According to Columbia Residential, as it now stands, the numbers of affordable units for former residents will be reduced to just 155 public housing units. That's down from the 1300 units that still exist at the St. Bernard Housing Development. This is not integration of a neighborhood. This is permanently keeping the working poor from returning to their neighborhood.

Another 155 will be rented to those whose income is no greater than 60 percent of the area's median income. Another 155 units that will be rented at "market rate" will also be built with this plan, according to Columbia Residential. Why are we spending tax credits and HUD funds, programs meant to bring equality to the housing market, on "market rate" housing?

Tax payers should take note. It would be much less expensive to rehab the units at the St. Bernard Development, than to demolish and replace them with far fewer affordable units. HANO itself has said that the St. Bernard Housing Development could be repaired for $41 million, and substantially modernized for $130 million.

We should all be worried about the partnership between Fore Kids Foundation and Columbia Residential. It was recently revealed that Alphonso Jackson, Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, is under criminal investigation for hiring a golf pal with a no-bid contract to work for HANO. He is also being investigated for giving a sweetheart deal to Columbia Residential to redevelop the St. Bernard Housing Development, to the tune of $111 million.

Jackson worked for Columbia Residential before he became HUD secretary, and Columbia Residential owes him between $250,000 and $500,000. This is reason enough for Columbia Residential to back out of this deal. HUD Inspector General Kenneth Donohue, and Congress ought to call for a halt to all contracts in relation to this deal. Fore Kids Foundation should pull out of such a partnership, and do the right thing for the people, and give up on building another golf course that will be under-utilitzed and likely subsidized by Louisiana taxpayers.

As the criminal investigation moves forward on Jackson's deals, Mayor Nagin should advocate for public housing to be reopened, for residents, and for those on the waiting list who numbered 6000 prior to Katrina. The homeless encampment parked under his nose in front of City Hall ought to be an everyday reminder that city and state officials have fallen fall short of advocating for and creating affordable housing for everyone.

Reopening the existing buildings of public housing would save the Louisiana taxpayer millions of dollars, as it would cost far less to reopen than to rebuild, particularly at the Lafitte Development, which sustained little, flood water damage, and the C.J. Pete Development, which did not take in water.

The homeless should be given those public housing units residents don't come home to. Residents of Louisiana must demand that the government and certain non-profits stop fleecing us for golf courses and sweetheart deals that don't stand up to scrutiny under the light of day.