NEW ROADS - Audubon Estates In New Roads, a neighborhood built for residents of an area hit hard during the floods of 2016, broke ground on 20 new homes Thursday morning. These homes will be available to low-to-moderate-income families.

The homes are built six feet above ground to protect against floods while using a continuous load path. This means that the house is going to be tied together with connectors from the roof to the foundation, making it much more formidable in stormy conditions.

Most of the people who occupy Audubon Estates come from the Pecan Acres neighborhood. It's a part of Point Coupee Parish that has been hit with nearly 20 floods in 30 years.

The residents began reaching out to the state, begging for them to find a way to fix this. After years of planning, the residents of Pecan Acres and the state agreed to move to a patch of land two miles away from Pecan Acres.

That place became Audubon Estates. Most moved in last year, doing so as a community.

Harold Terrance, a resident who moved from Pecan Acres says it's been good to be surrounded by friends.

"It's good. I got, I got some of the neighbors I had on the same street as me, I got some neighbors that was on the back of me on Pecan Drive West. You know because they put us all on the same street." Terrance said.

Moving the residents of Pecan Acres was phase 1 of a plan by the
Louisiana Office of Community Development's Disaster Recover Units plan to offer affordable housing away from flood-prone areas. These new houses being built are phase 2 of the plan. The plan is called the OCHO Homeownership Pilot Program.

Point Coupee Parish President Major Thibaut is excited about what these new homes will bring.

"Phase two represents a new phase where the homes will be built and the public has an opportunity to buy. It offers a great opportunity for first-time homebuyers for people trying to relocate or trying to upgrade." Thibaut says.

The new homes are expected to be completed by the summer of 2025. 16 of the homes will be three-bedroom with the remaining four being four-bedroom. Kelvin Hill with the Disaster Research Unit says it's a good time to start boosting your credit score if you qualify.

"We will soon in the next month or so have, under contract, a third party to help us with the marketing and the selling of those homes. Once that's done, We'll advertise that and people can contact that third party to let them know they're interested." Hill said.