Terrebonne Council to ask LRA for more time

Terrebonne Parish residents could have deadlines extended to submit Road Home applications.

The Council’s Community Development and Planning Committee at its meeting Monday night passed a resolution asking the Louisiana Recovery Authority to allow more time for Terrebonne residents to apply. The current deadline is Sept. 5.

Representatives from Bayou Interfaith Shared Community Organizing (BISCO) and the Terrebonne Readiness Assistance Coalition (TRAC) appealed to the committee.

BISCO and TRAC want the deadline moved to December 2009. The final date for disbursement of Road Home funds is June 2010.

Terrebonne Parish has 2,700 applicants who are eligible to receive Road Home funds, said TRAC director Peg Case. TRAC manages around a fifth of their cases, she said.

“It’s a full-time job to go through the Road Home program,” Case told the committee. “This is a huge opportunity to mitigate bayou homes.”

Case wants to pass out fliers informing Terrebonne residents about the deadline.

Also at the committee meeting Monday, Terrebonne Economic Development Authority director Mike Ferdinand said the agency has assisted 53 businesses and has applied for seven government grants in 2008.

TEDA is required to periodically update the council on the agency’s activities.

Ferdinand said hotel developer K Partners is aiming for a Nov. 10 groundbreaking for the Marriott SpringHill Suites next to the Houma-Terrebonne Civic Center.

But the Houma area’s housing stock continues to be a problem, Ferdinand told the committee. Home prices in the area rose higher in 2007 than anywhere else in the country, mostly because not enough homes are being built.

The high cost of property insurance worsens the problem, he said.

The Houma area draws a large proportion of workers from outside Terrebonne Parish partly because of the high home prices, Ferdinand said.

Compared to retailers and manufacturers, TEDA has much less capacity to assist homebuilders.

“We are extremely limited in what we can offer housing developers,” Ferdinand said. “Our tool chest is limited in what we can do as an economic development agency.”