Renovation gets underway on a house in the Faubourg Marigny area of New Orleans
© AFP/File Robyn Beck

NEW ORLEANS, United States (AFP) - The delay has postponed delivery of billions of federal recovery dollars and has left many residents unsure of what to do with their flood-ravaged homes.

After a series of false starts, Mayor Ray Nagin said last week he hopes to have a blueprint for reconstruction by December. But many residents are skeptical of the mayor's latest effort.

"I don't believe we're going to have a plan by the end of the year because everything he has proposed so far has had holes in it," said Noel Barras, whose home in the Lakeview neighborhood was destroyed by flooding.

For the first time, however, Louisiana's governor and other critics of the mayor are expressing cautious optimism that the city's planning process may finally be on track.

"I am mildly encouraged," Jane Brooks, a professor of urban planning at the University of New Orleans, told AFP. "It is going in the right direction."

Aided by a 3.5 million dollar grant from the private Rockefeller Foundation, Nagin and the city council have vowed to reconcile disparate planning efforts into a single "unified planning process."

Instead of a centralized plan developed by city hall, residents from the city's 73 neighborhoods will craft individual redevelopment plans for their communities.

Meanwhile, city planners will map out the reconstruction of New Orleans' infrastructure, including a storm-fractured water system that is losing 85 million gallons of water a day.

Louisiana National Guardsman searches an empty housing complex for evidence of squatters, during a patrol in New Orleans East
© AFP/File Robyn Beck

By December, officials say, all of the proposed plans will be folded into a single master plan for approval by a state agency that controls the disbursement of federal funds.

Brooks, who has criticized the mayor's lack of leadership in the planning process -- including the post-Katrina layoffs of two-thirds of the city's 24 planners -- says the new "bottom-up" planning process may work.

"In many ways, that is a slower approach, but the final plan may be stronger as a result of the neighborhood participation," she said.

Some neighborhood planning efforts are underway, but other communities have not begun.

Since Katrina slammed into the city August 29, New Orleans' recovery from America's costliest natural disaster has been painfully slow. The magnitude of destruction, the complexity of city politics and a lack of leadership are frequently cited reasons for the prolonged absence of a road map for recovery.

New Orleans lacks a "planning culture ... and they are trying to invent this process now," said Robert Olshansky, a professor of urban planning at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, who recently told disaster experts meeting in New Orleans: "The local leadership is fragmented ... and I think that is being polite."

A temporary FEMA Disaster Recovery Center April 2006 in New Orleans
© AFP/Getty Images/File Mario Tama

As the new process develops, New Orleans struggles.

More than half of the city's population has not returned since Katrina. Many residents are still undecided whether to rebuild or relocate.

Repairs of the levee systems and drainage pumps were ongoing, as the 2006 hurricane season began on June 1. Some 4.5 billion dollars in federal funds for homeowners is not expected to arrive until fall, but the application process is finally underway.

Telephone service is spotty. A fractured water system hampers firefighters and fires are more common.

Garbage collection is irregular. The murder rate continues to climb despite the recent deployment of National Guard troops to help control crime. Hospitals are overwhelmed and understaffed.

Some neighborhoods have returned to normal; others remain desolate and vacant.

Barras, the owner of a popular novelty store near the Mississippi River, says she is trying to stay optimistic.

Sales of a popular blue toy helps, she says. The device contains tapes of Nagin's famous post-Katrina remarks. Push a button and the mayor's voice booms: "Let's fix the biggest goddamn crisis in the history of this country!" A customer laughs.

Barras smiles: "They are 10 dollars each but I can't keep them in stock."

©AFP