THE TIMES-PICAYUNE

FEMAs slow pace in producing a strategy to house displaced disaster victims has irritated lawmakers, particularly those along the Gulf Coast. After Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, FEMA provided trailers for hurricane victims.

WASHINGTON — FEMA on Tuesday missed a second deadline for producing its plan, in the works since the 2005 hurricanes, for housing displaced victims of the next major American disaster.

The congressionally mandated report was supposed to be finished last June. Criticized for the delay, a top FEMA official promised at a hearing last month that it would be ready by April 1. It is now unclear when it will be done. More on FEMA Misses Second Housing Report Deadline

St. Tammany Parish business leaders are moving forward with a plan to build affordable housing for workers such as police officers and nursing assistants who are increasingly priced out of the post-Katrina real estate market.

The plan would establish what is known as a community land trust, with a nonprofit group owning land that it leases to homeowners for a nominal fee.

Prices would be within reach of those who currently cannot afford a home in the parish because the trust would retain title to the land and the buyer would own only the house itself.

Representatives from the Northshore Business Council, a newly formed group led by former Parish Council member Pat Brister and lawyer Howard Daigle, described the plan at a conference Tuesday in Madisonville.

The business council, along with the parish government and the St. Tammany Housing Partnership, soon will commission a feasibility study at an estimated cost of about $30,000, half of which will be financed with grant money from Habitat For Humanity St. Tammany West. The other half will likely come from the parish, which may eventually donate land to the trust.

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The State of Louisiana will hold a public hearing to obtain views on the housing and community development needs of the State; those comments will assist the agencies in developing the Consolidated Annual Action Plan for FY 2009. For those persons who are unable to attend the public hearing, written comments on the needs of the State may be submitted beginning April 2, 2008 and will be accepted until April 11, 2008. Written comments may be mailed to the Office of Community Development, Post Office Box 94095, Baton Rouge, LA 70804-9095 or faxed to 225-342-1947.

The public hearing will be held on April 2, 2008, at 1:30 p.m. in the V. Jean Butler Board Room in the Louisiana Housing Finance Agency building. The Louisiana Housing Finance Agency is located at 2415 Quail Drive which is off of Perkins Road near the Pennington Biomedical Research Center in Baton Rouge. This facility is accessible to persons with physical disabilities. Non-English speaking persons and persons with other disabilities requiring special accommodations should contact the Office of Community Development at 225-342-7412 or at the mailing address or fax number in the preceding paragraph at least five working days prior to the hearing. More on Public Hearing Notice for FY 2009 Louisiana Consolidated Annual Action Plan