Four public housing developments in New Orleans will be torn down beginning Dec. 15 an official said Thursday after the local housing authority approved $30 million in demolition contracts.

The federal Department of Housing and Urban Development announced 2006 that it would demolish the city's four largest developments, St. Bernard, Lafitte, C.J. Peete and B.W. Cooper to make way for "mixed income" neighborhoods.

But the plan has drawn strong protest and a federal lawsuit in a city where affordable housing remains hard to come by more than two years after Hurricane Katrina. Opponents of the demolitions say it would be better to repair and renovate existing buildings.

A group called Stop the Demolition Coalition posted on the Internet a call for protesters to come to New Orleans Dec. 10 "to join with the residents of New Orleans and all those who believe in the human right to housing to resist demolition."

"If court actions do not bring relief it's up to the people to enforce the human right of housing," said Bill Quigley, an assistant dean of the Loyola Law School who is representing former residents in efforts to save the projects. "There are a full range of First Amendment rights such as sit-ins and demonstrations available and people will do whatever it takes to stop the demolition of their homes."

A federal judge earlier this month refused to stop demolition of the housing projects while a suit calling for their renovation makes its way through court.

That decision is now at the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, Quigley said.
People evacuated from the complexes following Hurricane Katrina sued HANO and HUD after the agencies announced they would demolish the complexes.

HUD contends that the residents are just trying to delay improvements to public housing. Plans for replacing the brick buildings, some of which were built in the 1930s, were in the works before Katrina hit just over two years ago, HUD says, and the storm's devastation only accelerated the process.

"Plaintiffs have no legal right to return to the particular public housing units they occupied on Aug. 29, 2005, because they have no property interest in those particular units," wrote attorney Lesley Farby on behalf of HUD in a recent court motion.

The lawsuit contends that the city will drastically reduce the number of subsidized apartments for poor families, essentially preventing their return. New Orleans had 7,641 units of public housing before Katrina, about 5,100 of them occupied.