Mark's Notebook


	Things are more like they are now than they have ever been. - Gerald Ford

Big Government Fix-It Plan for New Orleans

New York Times

Thursday 5 January 2006, 11:11 am
Keywords: Katrina Hurricane Relief , News Articles

By Adam Nossiter

Representative Richard H. Baker is the champion of a housing recovery plan that would make the federal government the biggest landowner in New Orleans. Mr. Baker's proposed Louisiana Recovery Corporation would spend as much as $80 billion to pay off lenders, restore public works, buy huge ruined chunks of the city, clean them up and then sell them back to developers.

Property owners would not have to sell, but those who did would have an option to buy property back from the corporation. The federal corporation would have nothing to do with the redevelopment of the land; those plans would be drawn up by local authorities and developers.

A sobering early flyover of the ruined neighborhoods in New Orleans convinced him that ordinary solutions would not work. Here was a problem way beyond the capacity of private enterprise.

Desperate for a big-scale fix to the region's huge real estate problem, Louisiana officials and business leaders of all stripes have embraced the plan, calling its passage crucial.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/05/national/nationalspecial/05buyout.html