Could This Bywater Mixed-Income Apartment Development Bring Back Former Residents?

By Katherine Sayre, NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune on June 01, 2017

A New Orleans development team hopes a $30 million proposed five-story, mixed-income apartment building in the Bywater will give former residents priced out of the hot neighborhood a chance to return.

Iris Development Co. and Green Coast Enterprises plan to begin construction this fall on a 105-unit building at 2930 Burgundy St. in the industrial corridor along railroad tracks that cut through the neighborhood.

Home prices in Bywater, once a working-class neighborhood, have skyrocketed over the past five years, often pointed to as an example of gentrification in New Orleans post-Katrina in the sliver-by-the-river neighborhoods.

The Burgundy Street project is using a city incentive that allows developers to build more units on a property in exchange for dedicating a portion of the apartments for lower-income residents.

Curtis Doucette, Iris Development’s managing partner, said Bywater is an attractive neighborhood for people to live and work, but long-term residents have lately been pushed out.

“This is a neighborhood that was already diverse but also losing some of its residents because people couldn’t afford to stay there,” Doucette said, adding that he hopes the affordable apartments help current Bywater residents facing financial pressure and former residents looking to return.

Doucette said the below-market apartments allow for more units to be added to  the building, but they also fall in line with the affordable housing goals of Iris Development and Green Coast Enterprises.

In the case of 2930 Burgundy, the developers committed to setting aside 15 percent — about 15 or 16 units – for lower-income residents for 50 years. Of those units, one-third will target residents earning 30 percent of the area’s median income, one-third for residents earning 50 percent and one-third for those earning 80 percent.

The market-rate monthly rents have tentatively been set for $1,300 for a studio, the high $1,600′s for a one-bedroom, the low-to-mid $2,000′s for a two bedroom and about $3,000 for the few three-bedroom units. The affordable apartments, depending on size and income, will range from $300 to $1,000 monthly, Doucette said.

The project also includes 5,000 square feet of shared community space for residents, including a rooftop deck, 2,700 square feet for retail such as a coffee shop or cafe, artist studio space and a 108-space parking garage.

The nonprofit Crescent City Community Land Trust, which also focuses on affordable housing, is providing financing for the project.

“As we’ve seen in the gentrification of the Bywater and with the recent example of evictions in the American Can Co. (apartments), affordable housing is challenging in New Orleans,” the trust’s executive director, Julius Kimbrough Jr., said in a news release. “We support projects that maintain and grow affordable housing.”

Lower-income residents of the American Can apartments in Mid-City recently discovered their rents would be going up — and out of reach — because an affordable housing requirement that was part of a property tax break on the initial renovation of the building was expiring after 15 years.

The density bonus for the Burgundy Street project is required for 50 years.

Will Bradshaw, president and co-founder of Green Coast Enterprises, said the development partners have had conversations with leaders at the nearby New Orleans Center for Creative Arts about how faculty and staff used to live near the school but have been forced to live much farther away because of the high cost to rent or buy in Bywater. Bradshaw said they are developing an agreement with NOCCA to offer apartments to faculty and staff.

The project as it’s proposed now couldn’t have happened without the density bonus, Bradshaw said, and the group will also be seeking a property tax break through the New Orleans Industrial Development Board.

Green Coast recently marked the opening of a middle-income apartment building downtown at 234 Loyola Ave., a historic property known as The Pythian, a project that also received financing from the Crescent City Community Land Trust. Green Coast has also recently teamed up with the New Orleans Redevelopment Fund in developing a new-construction affordable condo building on Banks Street in Mid-City.

Doucette said the developers have listened to neighbors’ concerns and added a second entrance-exit to the parking area to help with traffic flow and set back the upper floors of the 55-foot-tall building to reduce the height impact on nearby neighbors.

The Burgundy Street project is the latest example of the recent trend in New Orleans of developers tackling new construction apartment projects, after a wave of historic large-scale renovations. Vacant parking lots and old industrial property have become hot targets.

Housing leaders in City Hall have been considering a new inclusionary zoning policy, which would require developers in pricey neighborhoods such as Bywater to set aside a certain number of units — as much as 12 percent — for below-market rents when building multi-family projects. For now, the city has made the program voluntary — offering added density as a bonus for dedicated low-income housing.

http://www.nola.com/business/index.ssf/2017/06/bywater_affordable_apartments.html