06:02 PM CST on Wednesday, January 4, 2006

Lee Zurik / WWL-TV News Anchor

Mayor Ray Nagin said he will allow people to rebuild in any part of the city that they wish to rebuild in but he won’t guarantee the level of services that will be available to the hardest hit areas in the short term.

Nagin’s commission on rebuilding the city had offered a plan to let residents rebuild for a year at which time the committee would have decided which areas weren’t coming back and would have bought out the owners, forcing them to relocate.

“We’re getting feedback from the community saying, ‘I don’t want to invest in my home and you tell me after a year that I made the wrong decision,’” said Nagin.

In light of that sentiment, Nagin said he will allow rebuilding in all areas, but that he will concentrate city services in the ones that were the least affected by Katrina.

“We’re talking about telling the community that you have the ultimate decision as landowner,” he said. “But (we will tell them) here are the areas we will concentrate resources for redevelopment and those areas with the least amount of flooding is where the resources will go initially.”

Asked specifically if the hard-hit areas of the Lower Ninth Ward and New Orleans East would receive city services, Nagin said, ‘yes,’ up to a point.

“But not as much as other areas that we’re targeting for redevelopment, because we’re going to have a limited amount of resources, and, to be effective, you need to have them concentrated.”

The decision could mean that residents in those areas will be farther from grocery stores, restaurants and schools and could have longer response times from police and firefighters.

Nagin said his plans would be available for the public to see by next week.

He said the key to recovery is a buyout plan for owners wishing to sell and he believes some type of bill will pass Congress, allowing that to happen.