After getting feedback from constituents and city-parish administrators, Metro Councilman Buddy Amoroso is rethinking his ordinance that would require victims of the August 2016 flood to remove trailers and mobile homes from their properties by early March.
At the Dec. 8 council meeting, Amoroso introduced the measure to reinstate local zoning rules that were suspended after the flood to allow for temporary housing structures on flooded properties. Amoroso’s ordinance would have allowed for mobile housing units provided by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, but required all other trailers and mobile homes to be removed.
“There comes a time when you have to get back to normal,” he said earlier this month.
But after meeting with Director of Development Cary Chauvin and hearing from others at City Hall about the potential hardship the measure could create, Amoroso says he will amend the proposal at the Wednesday, Jan. 10, council meeting. He will instead propose allowing temporary housing structures for property owners still experiencing flood-related hardships for another 180 days, or until early July.
“There are more private trailers out there than I thought so I will back off,” he says. “We don’t want to create additional hardships for people.”
There’s no way to estimate how many temporary structures are on residential lots, Amoroso says. As of mid-November, there were some 1,300 FEMA housing units still sitting in local yards and driveways.
Amoroso says he is particularly concerned that FEMA will begin charging rent for its housing units in March, which he believes will lead some flood victims to trade them in and borrow mobile homes from family or friends.
“It just seemed like this wasn’t the right time to do this,” he says.
—Stephanie Riegel
