Family watches in horror as city tears down home days before Christmas

WTAE ^ | 12/19/2013

[colorado tanker]

I take no joy in this, either. But I sympathize with the neighbors. If you zoom in it looks boarded up and abandoned. Isn’t eight years long enough to rebuild?

[Uncle Chip]

If it was their beloved home then why weren’t they living in it — flaws and all???

Why were they living instead in Mississippi???

[Responsibility2nd]

Try this.....

https://maps.google.com/maps?q=2001+Kentucky+Ave+kenner,+la&ll=29.991892,-90.234337&spn=0.000005,0.002816&hnear=2001+Kentucky+Ave,+Kenner,+Louisiana+70062&t=m&z=19&layer=c&cbll=29.991893,-90.23485&panoid=1TEHBX6rHg68id5yg-Mh2w&cbp=12,275.09999999999996,,1,18.819999999999996&source=gplus-ogsb

[Organic Panic]

That is how my city works. The city triedto condemn my property to place a road through my house. After years of fighting they were forced to move the road to the original plan off my property. When contruction started they sent demolition crew “accidentally” to start ckearing my lot. They had two excavators and a D8 bulldozer. Their hope wasto level the lot while I was at work. Little did they know I was at home and watched the city supervisor case out the house making sure I wasnt here. I caught those rat bastards but not before they already tore down my fence.

If you like your property rights you can keep your property right. Period.

[Uncle Chip]

She was fixin’ to get ready to do something.

I might be wrong here but don't you mean "aimin' to get ready ...".

[Oliviaforever]

Must we live in each of the properties that we own?

[AndyJackson]

City Attorney Keith Conley told WDSU there is no court order required. A house can be demolished by council action, he said.

Good grief. What part of due process does this Nifong not understand?

[Uncle Chip]

When you refer to it as your “home” and say things like “I’ve tried for seven years to get back home. This is my home. This is my corner”, then you better be living in it or trying harder to get back into it.

[pgkdan]

Wasn’t Hurricane Katrina like 8 years ago???

[BykrBayb]

You sound like you’ve read the 5th Amendment, and actually took it seriously.

[Responsibility2nd]

I am amazed at the responses of so many who take exception to what the city did.

First of all, they are letting this soapy-dopey article influence their emotions. I’m betting the truth of the matter is that all legal requirements were met, yet the homeowner ignored and disregarded attempts to save her home.

Second. I’m betting manny FReepers would be singing a different tune if THEY lived next door to a dangerous eye-sore.

[dr_lew]

In this Google Maps view you can see a concrete foundation just laid at the site. Street View shows an apparently earlier view with a small house there largely hidden by foliage. In this Youtube WDSU News coverage it looks like a three story frame that is coming down. The site can be positively located by interview backgrounds looking across and along the street.

[stuck_in_new_orleans]

Notice the article doesn’t say how many years the property has been blighted. It was a eyesore

[SkyDancer]

Didn’t see what the original house looked like before demolition. How bad was it? I did that Google maps thing and from the image it didn’t look that bad. But then again, how long ago was Katrina? Was she sent papers or something to inform her they would demolish it? Do people from the council drive around neighborhoods looking for derelict home to smash?

[stuck_in_new_orleans]

Abandoned property for EIGHT YEARS is a public health issue. Period. It was a eyesore and needed to go.

[BykrBayb]

I think you’re missing the point. If there was a legitimate reason to tear the house down, due process would not have prevented it. Is due process really too much to ask for?

[trisham]

It’s much better looking than the ugly parking lot across the street.