Sophie Kasakove
The Times-Picayune | The New Orleans Advocate
(TNS)
Jan. 28—After several recent building collapses left New Orleans residents bewildered and calling for action, New Orleans City Council members say they’re working to more tightly review the city’s building stock.
The council this week will consider hiring an engineer to advise it on a new structural review process for the city’s buildings. Council members will consider the motion — proposed by council Vice President Helena Moreno and District B councilmember Lesli Harris — in a committee meeting Wednesday and vote on it on Thursday.
“We cannot idly sit by while structural threats in our neighborhoods pose significant risks to public welfare and quality of life, lead to business interruptions and property damage, and require first responder resources to mitigate safety concerns,” said Moreno in a statement.
Staff from New Orleans Fire Department and the city’s departments of code enforcement, safety and permits and public works will discuss the collapses Wednesday. The Preservation Resource Center, which works to preserve New Orleans’ historic architecture, will also give a presentation.
Harris said that the engineer hired by the city should “conduct a thorough assessment” of the recent building failures and “provide proactive, evidence-based solutions.”
Architectural and other experts say there is no one-size-fits-all solution to the structural challenges facing the city’s aging building stock. The recent building failures — where buildings Uptown, in the Central Business District, and elsewhere partially tumbled — were likely caused by a different set of structural problems. In some cases, the exact causes remain under investigation.
Some were vacant buildings with open code enforcement citations that had been visited by countless city inspectors over the years. The Plaza Tower, one of several properties to shed debris in recent months, has been the subject of large fines over the years as officials have pushed to demolish the hulking structure. Demolition contractors finally moved in on Monday to assess how best to make the derelict skyscraper safe and then to determine how it should be torn down, after repeated efforts by the property’s owners to halt the city’s efforts.
City records also show months, or even years, of code enforcement citations at a former art gallery on Oretha Castle Haley Boulevard, a vacant former guitar shop near Magazine Street, Tujague’s restaurant on Decatur Street, and a home on Frenchmen Street in the 7th Ward, all of which tumbled in full or in part in the past four months.
But other buildings, such as a mixed-use building on O’Keefe Avenue, appeared to be off city officials’ radar when major structural issues emerged in recent months. It’s still unclear why one of that building’s walls crumbled last month.
Ashton Avegno, a structural engineering consultant in New Orleans, questioned how the city could realistically conduct any sort of comprehensive review of its buildings.
“These are old buildings, they have different problems — I don’t see reasonably how you can assess all of them,” he said. “It’s just an individual, case by case problem, you can’t throw a blanket over it, you can’t lump everything together.”
He said that the city should instead focus on more aggressively enforcing the existing laws that it has on the books by demolishing properties where owners have ignored repeated citations.
A spokesperson for Mayor LaToya Cantrell did not respond to a request for comment on Tuesday.
A Cantrell spokesperson earlier this month said the city’s code enforcement inspectors cite property violations every day, but “accidents or mishaps will still occur.”
But the administration also conceded in a statement last month that more regular inspections — especially by property owners — could remediate bigger problems.
The administration is “working to collaborate with the New Orleans City Council to develop legislation on regular inspections for vacant historical structures and buildings,” the statement said, adding that the city should “move forward with legislation mandating that property owners conduct annual structural inspections and maintain their properties.”
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