Case Study of Bay St. Louis

10/17/2005 7:28:27 AM Daily Journal

BY EMILY LE COZ

BAY ST. LOUIS - Hurricane Katrina saved one of her most grievous blows for this tranquil bedroom community in coastal Hancock County.


When the storm came ashore Aug. 29, it plowed into oblivion nearly every structure from the beach to a half-mile inland, leaving downtown and the stately mansions on Beach Boulevard no more than fond memories.


What wasn't destroyed was heavily damaged in this artists haven of 8,209 residents, which Mississippi Development Authority director Leland Speed once called one of the state's top three cities. Estimates place the extent of destruction to commercial and residential buildings between 80 and 90 percent.


So thorough was Katrina in her devastation that when a team of architects and urban planners from Gov. Haley Barbour's Mississippi Renewal Forum came for a site tour Thursday, even lifelong residents struggled to navigate the town for lack of identifiable landmarks.


"Total destruction," said resident and architect Michael Reeves as he looked down a residential street devoid of homes and strewn with debris and mud.


The tour - part of a day-long excursion into Bay St. Louis - was the first step in a six-day process that will produce a road map to rebuilding one of 11 storm-ravaged communities along the Gulf Coast.


Last week, more than 200 local and national experts from a wide range of fields came to the Coast to participate in the effort. They arrived Wednesday for orientation and will stay until tonight creating a master plan on the best way to rebuild the Coast.


Like Bay St. Louis, each of these communities got its own team who visited their sites, met with residents and are drawing plans for what should emerge from the rubble.





Keeping it real


What should emerge, most residents said, should preserve the original character of their towns.


"We don't want to make any sacrifices that will have an effect on the long term for a short-term fix," Bay St. Louis mayor Eddie Favre told the visiting team. "We've heard rumors that we'll have high-rise condos all along the Coast, and I don't see it. That's not what we need here."


Team members - including architect Tom Howorth of Oxford's Howorth & Associates - assured the two dozen residents gathered in one of the town's remaining structures that their designs for Bay St. Louis would celebrate its quaint charm.


That includes keeping the town's sole casino and major employer, Casino Magic, off the beaten path and shunning glitzy new developments that would clash with Bay St. Louis' homey feel.


But residents, team members said, needed to make some concessions, too: The biggest one being their willingness to accept manufactured housing - something resident and Chamber of Commerce director Tish Williams said she abhors.


"I don't want my kids to grow up and have their memories of childhood living in a trailer," she said.


Williams and other residents - 70 percent of whom had no flood insurance - might not have a choice, said urban designer and team leader Bill Dennis.


"I think manufacturing housing is something to consider for the Coast," he said, "because otherwise you just won't have the workforce to rebuild. And your immediate need right now is to bring people back home."





Improve the good, toss the bad


Until Katrina, home until had its positive and negative aspects: Residents said they loved the beach, loved the charm and loved the history of their town. But they cited a lack of parks, lack of parking and too much congestion on U.S. 90.


Slicing a path through the center of town, U.S. 90 is one of Bay St. Louis' major economic engines and also a major headache.


"Highway 90 was designed in the 1960s," said local accountant and tour guide Chuck Benvenutti. "It wasn't designed for the traffic load we have today."


To preserve its positive function but correct its damage to the town, urban planner Geoff Dyer designed roundabouts at each major intersection of U.S. 90.


Unlike adding more lanes, which Dyer said usually just invites more traffic, roundabouts will slow vehicles without causing them to bottleneck while promoting a more leisurely driving experience.


The plan met Benvenutti's approval and he nodded his head excitedly as Dyer laid out the schematics.


Other plans also received positive feedback from city representatives, who got a preliminary presentation of the team's work Saturday at their temporary headquarters inside Biloxi's crippled Isle of Capri Casino.


Best received among them were: designs to turn the train-depot neighborhood into a funky artists quarter with low-rent studios, shops and cafes; plans to turn undeveloped property into interconnected parks and trails, and an idea to boost beachside parking by adding one-story parking structures underneath raised buildings along the shore.


Residents will have plenty of time to review the plans after today, when the team turns them over to city leaders and Gov. Haley Barbour's Commission on Rebuilding, Recovery and Renewal.


"At that point, it's up to them how they want to proceed," Howorth said. "But we'll be ready to jump in and help whenever they call us again."