Dave Starr
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Detroit services to depend on neighborhood condition
More stable areas to be treated differently than distressed ones
Christine MacDonald/ The Detroit News
Detroit — Mayor Dave Bing unveiled a broad overhaul Wednesday of how the cash-strapped city will serve residents, saying City Hall can't treat all neighborhoods equally and will now target areas for certain city services.
Bing called the first measure to come from his signature Detroit Works Project a "short-term intervention strategy" to save neighborhoods. It will affect everything from where the most houses are demolished, trees are trimmed and streetlights are repaired.
It calls for dividing Detroit into three categories based on a neighborhood's health — steady, transitional and distressed — and concentrating certain services in those areas. For example, building demolitions would be more common in "distressed" and "transitional" areas, while healthier "steady" neighborhoods would get more code enforcement and illegal dumping cleanups. The new deployment of city services will take effect in two weeks.
"We can't continue to do business the same way we have," Bing told a crowd in southwest Detroit at Wednesday's announcement. "We must be smarter about how we align our resources.
"Our entire city will benefit from this new market approach of service delivery. You deserve a city that works."
In an addition, three parts of the city will be singled out as "demonstration areas" to test the effectiveness of the new city services strategy and receive extra help from partnerships with nonprofits, other government agencies and foundations.
But critics said the plan generates unanswered questions and worry it could further demoralize struggling areas. For example, distressed neighborhoods would see a low amount of streetlight fixes, tree trimming, home rehabs and commercial corridor improvement.
And experts say the city characterizing areas as "distressed" could hurt everything from real estate sales to insurance companies issuing homeowners' policies.
"When (residents) see that the city will provide little code enforcement or public lighting in their area, how do they keep themselves and their families safe from criminals who now know exactly where to go to commit crime, or from unscrupulous property owners who leave their property vacant and dangerous?" asked Maggie DeSantis, president of the Warren/Conner Development Coalition, in an email.
Bing stressed that parts of the city "aren't being shut down" and that the basics of police, fire and weekly trash pickup will be delivered equally throughout the city.
Still, some legal experts worry it could land the city in court for violating residents' rights.
"If it's not done perfectly, it could be very dangerous," said Alan Ackerman, a property rights attorney who said he supports the Detroit Works Project concept. "There is an opportunity for people to claim reverse condemnation. It's a problem. How can you give some neighborhoods more services than others?"
City spokesman Dan Lijana wouldn't address potential legal challenges but said the effort is "reflective of our resources and how we can use them to the greatest impact right now."
Although Bing said this initial plan won't include an effort to relocate people in viable neighborhoods, John Mogk, a Wayne State University law professor, said it may nudge residents out anyway.
"Providing reduced services to distressed areas sends a message that these areas will eventually be cleared and reused for other purposes," Mogk said. "This kind of says to people you have some options and may want to move."
Bing had hoped to deliver by year's end a dramatic roadmap to streamline services and concentrate residents in seven to nine neighborhoods. But officials said they were convinced after a series of public meetings that the city needed to move more quickly.
Wednesday's announcement at southwest Detroit's Odd Fellows Hall was the result. The mayor said his team is still working on a longer-term plan that will emerge in 2012.
The three areas where Bing will gather data to gauge the success of the new strategy are: Hubbard Farms/Southwest; Bagley/Detroit Golf Club/Green Acres/Palmer Woods/Sherwood Forest/University District; and Boston-Edison/North End/Virginia Park. The three areas contain all three types of neighborhoods. The city will track data in those three areas in six months to see if the new focus is working.
Officials split
Residents such as Connie Walker, a 52-year-old life insurance agent who lives on the city's northwest side, said she's not sure if Bing's plan will work, but said she is desperate for solutions. She said there are six vacant houses on her street and eight on the next block that have been trashed by squatters.
Walker is in an area researchers deemed transitional, according to a city map. "You have a city that's just demolished," said Walker, a 30-year city resident. "The neighborhood is broken. The houses are trashed. We can't continue to live like this."
Chris Moshier, who owns an insurance agency that insures more than 1,000 properties in the city, said he can see how labeling an area as "stable" may encourage investment. But he said the distressed areas may lose out.
"Insurance companies are going to look at it and say I don't want to insure there," Moshier said. "And (investors) aren't going to want to purchase and rehab houses in one of those designated areas."
Reaction was mixed among other city officials.
Council President Pro Tem Gary Brown said he was "cautiously optimistic that more details will present themselves to be able to form an opinion in the near future. Today's announcement raised as many new questions as answers."
But Councilman James Tate was more supportive. "I think it's wise to have targeted areas," Tate said. "We are going to study what works citywide."
Rip Rapson, president of the Kresge Foundation, said he was pleased with the announcement and that the project is about City Hall being a "leader in the neighborhoods."
"The mayor recognizes that you have to pursue short-term progress at the same time as a long-term vision," said Rapson, whose group has funded much of the project.
And southwest Detroit resident Joe Rashid said the targeting of certain services to neighborhoods based on need sounds positive. He likes that Hubbard Farms is being highlighted.
Rashid said one of the biggest issues in southwest Detroit is illegal dumping. "If we could just clean up the neighborhood," he said. "We have the vibrancy and people here."
Categories explained
Detroit Works consultants used a variety of data to divide the city into three "market types," including median home sales, rentals, vacant land and foreclosures. According to the city news release, the categories are described as:
Steady: Homes in good physical condition with the majority being owner-occupied. Steady neighborhoods would see more code enforcement, debris cleanups, streetlight repairs, business recruitment and commercial area improvements.
Transitional: Dynamics of the market are changing; has a relatively high presence of bank-owned properties. Transitional areas would see more building demolitions, board-ups and road improvements. The city also would purchase bank-owned properties and do more residential rehabs in these areas.
Distressed: Shows signs of long-term physical decline; near absence of market activity; high vacancy rates; and high concentrations of vacant land.
Distressed areas would see a concentration of demolitions, job training, recreational services, land assembly for reuse and money to enhance vacant lots.
A fourth category was created for areas that were too diverse to fit into one of the three categories, said Lijana. The city said it plans to release more detailed maps in coming weeks that outline which of the three categories those neighborhoods would fit.
The city will hold a series of community meetings to discuss the plans, but officials didn't release dates Wednesday.
Russ Bellant, a member of Bing's Detroit Works advisory group who heads a block club on the east side, said he's unsure the new method will work.
He and his fellow members of the Helco Block Club know firsthand the limitations of city services. They recently recycled plywood and boards from a nearby vacant shopping center being demolished and plan to use it to board up dangerous privately owned homes themselves.
"If the reduction of services reaches a tangible level to where it isn't there at all, then people will be down at City Council and other ways speaking out about it," Bellant said. "I have some sympathy for the city when you look at how few property owners are paying taxes.
"At the same time, when you have been in your house for 30 years (and services are reduced)… there is going to be increased frustration, period."
cmacdonald@detnews.com
From The Detroit News: http://detnews.com/article/20110728/METRO/107280418/Detroit-services-to-depend-on-neighborhood-condition#ixzz1TPSAzHIL |
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