Corruption with the Buy and Build Program

After not meeting for years, the Housing Redevelopment and Qualify of Life Commission convened a meeting for February 18, 2025 to approve a resolution to extend the “Build” requirement of the “Buy and Build” program for two years.

Now that the recordings of the two recent HRQLC meetings have been published, we can now start to put the pieces together about what is definitely not suspicious at all.

What happened at the February 18, 2025 meeting? Apparently not much. President Pomes did not show up and neither did anyone else from his administration. Because of this the HRQLC took no action on the resolution. One hour later, President Pomes and his senior administration members showed up at the Council meeting. That’s definitely not suspicious at all!

What happened at the February 26, 2025 meeting? Did an informative discussion take place about the reasons for blanket extensions under the program? No, not at all. Take a look for yourself – don’t worry, its not a long clip.

So the HRQLC approved a blanket two year extension for everyone who failed to comply with the requirements of the “Buy and Build” program. There was no discussion as to what prompted the need for this extension. There was no discussion as to why an extension of two years was needed. In fact, there wasn’t any discussion at all. The HRQLC voted 6-0 to approve the resolution. A more conspiratorially minded person might think that the HRQLC was trying to fly this under the radar to avoid drawing any attention to what’s going on.

Let’s begin at the beginning by taking a look at the Buy and Build Program.

The Buy and Build Program

The Buy and Build Program was just one of the many programs available for reintroducing lots acquired through the Road Home Program. The Buy and Build Program was intended to encourage redevelopment by authorizing the sale of individual lots to buyers. Multiple sources have confirmed that the buyers under this program received a thirty-five percent (35%) discount from the fair market value on the condition that buyers build a single family house on the lot within one year of the closing. Since this article was first published, the Parish Attorney has disputed that any discount was given under this program. We have not received confirmation from Parish Government that such a discount was not applied to any sales under this program. The Buy and Build Program ran from 2017 to 2020.

Let’s take a look at the agreement each and every buyer was required to agree to in order to buy the lot through this program.

The agreement consists of both requirements and consequences. Let’s take each of those in turn.

The Requirements

The requirements can be boiled down to just two:

1. The buyer must obtain (not apply for) a building permit within thirty days of the sale.
2. The buyer must complete (not start) a single family dwelling within one year of the sale.

The requirements are simple enough for anyone to understand. As a former government official explained it, if the buyer didn’t understand the requirements, it’s because he didn’t want to understand the requirements.

The Consequences of Not Complying

The consequences of not completing construction within one year were severe and can be boiled down as follows:

1. The ownership property immediately and automatically reverted back to the Parish.
2. All funds paid by the buyer remain with the Parish, i.e. the buyer is not entitled to a refund.
3. Any improvements to the property become the property of the Parish, i.e. any funds spent by the Buyer improving the property are then owned by the Parish.

Why is all of this happening now?

As we previously reported, at the December 3, 2024 Council meeting a local resident publicly raised the alarm that there were people who had bought lots under the Buy and Build Program, but didn’t build and that the Parish was not enforcing the rules on these non-compliant buyers.

On December 17, 2024, Councilman Everhardt proposed a resolution to have the Parish compile a list of all non-compliant buyers under the Buy and Build Program.

As of the writing of this article, the list of non-compliant buyers has not been published. The hesitancy to publish the list of non-compliant buyers probably tells us that there are some important people on that list.

The public has a right to know who is on that list before discussing or voting on resolutions and ordinances to waive the consequences of non-compliance.

The HRQLC Resolution becomes Proposed Ordinance Summary 4245

On February 26, 2025, the HRQLC voted in favor of the resolution to changes the rules after a foul had been called. Voting in favor were: Councilperson Patrice Cusimano, Councilwoman Cindy Meyer, Councilman Gillis McCloskey, Councilwoman Amanda Mones, Transit Manager Andrew Becker, and former Councilman Joseph “Joey” Difatta.

That HRQLCC resolution appears on the agenda for the March 5, 2025 Council meeting as a proposed St. Bernard Parish ordinance under Summary 4245.

Given that 4 sitting council members voted in favor of the resolution, it is virtually certain that those same council members will vote in favor of the ordinance.

Let’s break down and analyze Summary 4245.

1.

WHEREAS, due to a variety of factors including, but not limited to, COVID19, rising interest rates, rising costs of construction materials, and rising insurance
premiums, certain participants in the Buy and Build Program have been unable to comply with the timing provisions of that program; and

Many things could have been the cause for buyers not complying with the program, but that doesn’t mean that was the actual reason for not complying with the program. As a matter of policy, the Parish should not be interested in what could have been the cause of not complying. Moreover, the Buy and Build Program required a permit to be obtained within 30 days of the sale. If the buyer didn’t comply with the permit requirement, that buyer should not be given any consideration for an extension. It is hard to believe or prove that there was a drastic change in circumstances within 30 days.

First, the Parish should be interested in finding out the reason each non-compliant buyer says was the reason he or she didn’t comply. To that end, the Parish could have (and should start with) an application to extend the deadlines under the Buy and Build Program. That the Parish has no interest in finding out each buyers’ reasons is telling. It’s almost as if the blanket extension was to avoid having to scrutinize why certain people failed to comply with the program.

Second, after having each buyer state his reason for non-compliance, the Parish should require proof in support of each buyer’s claim.

Third, there should be some independent panel that decides whether each buyer’s claim has any merit. If it does, perhaps an extension is in order.

The Parish owes at least this much to the law abiding citizens of St. Bernard.

This applies equally for honoring you contractual agreements. It is for this reason that the Parish should exercise extreme caution in changing the rules solely to benefit those that have broken the rules.

2.

WHEREAS, the Office of Community Development has reported that a total of one hundred fifty-nine (159) properties sold via the Buy and Build Program are out
of compliance with their obligations, and that fifty-eight (58) of that total actually have structures built on them but are out of compliance due to their failure to complete construction within the relevant time frames of the program; and

The public deserves to know who is on this list. The Parish’s refusal to publish this list and publish the list well in advance of any consideration of the extension undermines trust in government.

3.

WHEREAS, the action directed herein would best serve the purpose of encouraging the redevelopment of those lots still vacant.

This doesn’t make sense on its face. The Parish is recognizing these buyers’ non-compliance, failing to request any information on why the buyers’ were non-compliant, and then jumps to the conclusion that an extension is the solution to encouraging redevelopment of these vacant lots. There is no reason whatsoever to jump to this conclusion. In fact, each buyer’s past non-compliance makes future compliance unlikely.

4.

To the extent a property currently has a structure built upon it but is considered non-compliant with the Buy and Program because the construction of said structure was not completed timely, said property is to be deemed compliant.

This is plainly not an extension – this is forgiveness.

5.

Owners of the remaining non-compliant vacant lots shall be granted a two (2) year extension beginning March 15, 2025, to bring their properties into compliance with the Buy and Build Program.

Calling this a two year extension is misleading. According to the Sold on St. Bernard website, the Buy and Build Program ended in 2020. Our investigation has been unable to find any sale under the Buy and Build Program after July of 2021. So it’s not a 2 year extension, its more like a 5 to 6 year extension.

6.

Owners of non-compliant vacant lots may sell their properties within this two (2) year period pursuant to the rules and conditions set forth in the attached Exhibit “A”. Purchasers of non-compliant vacant lots
shall be subject to the normal restrictions of the Buy and Build Program

This plainly runs against even excusable reasons for not building as required. This would turn the Buy and Build Program into a real estate flipping scheme that would allow non-compliant buyers to buy at a discounted rate, hold the property for many years, and then sell the properties at a prevailing rate.

This would also extend the two year extension by another two years. A non-compliant buyer could wait until March 14, 2027, sell the property to a new buyer, and the new buyer then has until March 14, 2029 to build a house on the property. And there is no limit to how many times the property could be re-sold like this without actually building on the property.

If the Parish were sincere in trying to be understanding of excusable circumstances, any allowance for allowing the re-sale of the property would limit the sales price to whatever the non-compliant purchaser paid for the property from the Parish. After all, why should a non-compliant buyer be allowed to profit off of his or her non-compliance. The Parish could just as easily achieve its redevelopment goals by selling the property itself.

Other questions that must be answered.

The recent push extend the deadlines under the Buy and Build Program raise a more troubling issue:

Why weren’t the rules being enforced before the extension was approved?

There should be a clear and definite answer to this question. Only then can we move to the next question:

Who authorized the enforcement of the rules to be ignored?

And only then can we get to the final question:

Who must be held accountable for non-enforcing the rules without having been given authority by the Council?

Until we get clear answers on these questions, it will just seem like the Council is engaging in a cover-up for people whose names are so important that their names cannot even be disclosed.

The legality of these after-the-fact extensions is questionable.

The passage of this ordinance is virtually certain since four council members have already cast their vote in favor of the HRQLC resolution. The question remains whether this ordinance would even be legal.

The sale documents make it clear that upon expiration of the one year time period, the property automatically and immediately reverted back to being owned by the Parish. That is of serious consequence that there is simply no way of undoing.

The law prohibits public property from being freely transferred to third parties. Yet that would be the practical effect of this ordinance: the Parish is effectively giving the property back to the prior owners who lost the property as a result of their non-compliance.

And since the list hasn’t been published, we don’t know if this would amount to the Parish giving away $10,000 or $10,000,000.

This article has been updated to reflect the Parish Attorney’s dispute as to whether a 35% discount was applied to any of the sales under the Buy and Build Program.