The economy, Hurricane Katrina, and a shortage of vacant land are factors, officials say
Long gone are the years when Kenner awarded hundreds of permits to build new homes. Since Hurricane Katrina, new home construction has plummeted, with only seven permits given in all of 2010.
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View full sizeThe decline in permits for new home construction in Kenner is part of a national trend, said Kenner's Chief Administrative Officer Mike Quigley, photographed in July 2010. But the city is far from unique. "This is a nationwide trend," said Mike Quigley, Kenner's chief administrative officer.
It's a result, officials say, of the economy, little remaining vacant land in Kenner and Hurricane Katrina.
A look at new permits since 1996 show many more permits acquired pre-Katrina, with peaks of 343 permits in 1998 and 353 permits in 2001. That reflects new subdivisions in north Kenner, including Southlake Villages, Quigley said.
Permits haven't recovered since Katrina, coming in at 17 in 2006 and a low of 7 last year.
Kenner residents are still repairing or rebuilding houses damaged by Hurricane Katrina, said Tamithia Shaw, assistant city attorney and interim code enforcement director. New building permits don't include renovations or houses that have been demolished and are being rebuilt, Shaw said.
Ninety to 95 percent of the construction in the New Orleans metro area currently is renovations or remodeling, said Jon Luther, executive director of the Homebuilders Association of Greater New Orleans.
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View full size"New homes are going up, but they're going up in the place of an old home," Luther said.
The reason new home construction isn't rebounding faster is twofold: The difficulty in getting a construction loan and lagging job growth in the area, Luther said. However, the area doesn't have the glut of unsold new homes that other states do. "We've held up much better than many other places in the country," he said.
Northwest Kenner was a hotbed of development in the late 1990s and early 2000s, and the city doesn't have a lot of vacant land left to build houses. The main two subdivisions with any lots remaining are the more pricy Gabriel and Louisiana Trace. "We'd love to see those two big subdivisions completely built up," Quigley said.
Lynda Nugent Smith, the Keller Williams real estate agent who represents Gabriel's developer, said that there has only been one "spec house" built by a developer at the subdivision after Katrina, and it was built this year. Such a "speculative" house is built without a specific buyer in mind.
That house was featured in the homebuilders association's Parade of Homes this year, and the turnout was more crowded than it's been in years, Smith said.
She agreed with Luther that financing is one reason more new houses aren't being built.
"It's not that people don't want to build (or) they don't want a new home," Smith said. "They either can't or won't take the risk."
Overall, Kenner real estate is still doing very well, said Kenner Councilwoman and real estate agent Michele Branigan.
"In Kenner, what people enjoy is that you get more for your money," said the Latter & Blum agent.
The average sales price of homes in Kenner is lower than in Jefferson Parish and the region. In 2009, Kenner's average single-family home sold for $163,356, compared with $197,150 in the New Orleans metropolitan area, according to a presentation that GCR & Associates gave to Yenni's economic development commission recently.
Kenner homebuyers can get a bigger, newer house for less money, Branigan said. "That's why we're still successful," she said.
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Mary Sparacello can be reached at msparacello@timespicayune.com or 504.467.1726.