The City of New Orleans has revived a popular blight remediation program called the Lot Next Door. The New Orleans Redevelopment Authority starts taking applications for it Monday.
The city wants homeowners to buy blighted properties in their neighborhoods.
Lot Next Door began as a post-Hurricane Katrina blight reduction effort to help people buy property next door to their homes for market price or less. It is run by the New Orleans Redevelopment Authority (NORA,) which has sold more than 3,000 properties since Katrina.
Chief Operating Officer Brenda Breaux says the program has changed a bit this year – it has expanded to include the Lower 9th Ward and encourages better water management.
“There’s an incentive that allows individuals to put plantings on the property. If you put greenery, permeable pavement, landscaping – any of those things – you get a credit,” says Breaux. That credit offsets the purchase price of the property up to $10,000.
Breaux says the goal is to bring the abandoned properties back into commerce and help people of all income levels purchase them from NORA. The sale this year includes around 2,000 lots.
A list of properties for Lot Next Door 3.0 is at redevelop.nola.gov.
This story has been revised to reflect the following correction: In the original version of this story, NORA's chief operating officer referred to the approximately 2,300 lots to be sold this year by the organization. The number is closer to 2,000.
