metro
Blight Buster from page 8
prosecutor. In that role, Duggan won a
court decision that ruled abandoned hous-
es — like uncut grass or excessive noise
— should be considered a nuisance to a
neighborhood. Because governments have
a responsibility to eliminate nuisance, they
also have the standing to sue delinquent
property owners and seize the parcels.
In those days, Duggan was seizing and
auctioning houses to new owners, but the
program was discontinued after he left the
prosecutor's office. In the following years,
a five-person staff at the Detroit Land
Bank renovated and sold vacant homes,
mostly in historic neighborhoods like
Boston-Edison, using federal neighbor-
hood stabilization funds. However, those
projects were expensive, and the Land
Bank was only able to complete a few
dozen houses over a couple of years.
Larger Impact
For the new policy to have an impact, it
would have to occur on a much greater
scale. The reorganized Land Bank —
established under an intergovernmental
agreement between the city and the state
— has acquired properties owned by the
city, county and state, as well as through
the nuisance abatement model Duggan
pioneered as a prosecutor. In January, the
Land Bank owned less than 1,000 proper-
ties. That figure has now grown to 21,579.
By collaborating with multiple govern-
ment agencies, the Land Bank is collect-
ing most of Detroit's blighted properties
under a single entity responsible for both
demolitions and auctions, funded in part
by government grants and philanthropic
donations. The Land Bank has demolished
1,308 houses since the start of Duggan's
administration and is on track to reach
3,300 demolitions by the end of the year.
Still, Duggan has insisted demolition
shouldn't have been the city's only strategy.
"I believe the city's history of demolition
has been a mindless strategy, and I wanted
to change the direction from demolishing
to fixing up these homes and moving fam-
ilies in:' he told the JN. "We thought that
was key to turning the city around, and
that's been a big part of what we're doing:'
Today, the process begins by identi-
fying neighborhoods where the Land
Bank will likely have the greatest impact.
Rather than auctioning homes in neigh-
borhoods like Brightmoor, which has
been plagued by widespread vacancy, the
Land Bank is looking for neighborhoods
where occupying the handful of empty
houses could make big strides in stabiliz-
ing the street.
So far, the Land Bank has focused on
neighborhoods like Boston-Edison, East
English Village and Marygrove.
Though some residents are concerned
this policy privileges select neighborhoods
while leaving others behind, Gerson said
spreading the efforts across the entire city
would result in less impact.
10 September 4 • 2014
"If the city doesn't succeed, the
tri-county area can't succeed
— and if the tri-county area
can't succeed, the state can't."
— Erica Ward Gerson
chair of the Detroit Land Bank Authority
"We stake our ground on a neighbor-
hood that is strong today, and we slowly
try to expand those zones little by little so
that we can expand the size of the neigh-
borhood we're stabilizing; she said.
Using data from the Motor City
Mapping Project, an initiative convened
by the Dan Gilbert-led Blight Task Force
to provide a detailed picture of Detroit's
more than 370,000 properties, Land Bank
officials can see which parcels are blighted
and who owns them.
If the property is privately owned, the
Land Bank posts signage telling the own-
ers they must sign a consent order agree-
ing to bring the house up to code and
occupy the building within six months.
If they fail to comply, the Land Bank files
suit to seize the property. So far, officials
have postered 1,300 houses since April and
filed more than 500 lawsuits. The Land
Bank has won every case.
Next, officials determine which homes
are too far gone and require demolition.
The rest are put up for online auction
at buildingdetroit.org . Winning bidders
have six months to fix up and occupy
the house, often with help from banks
that are partnering to offer funding to
new homeowners. Purchasers of historic
homes are given nine months to complete
the process.
"It has brought a sense of hope to the
city that we didn't have before necessarily:'
Gerson said. "Everybody wanted it, but
until you began to see some actual prog-
ress, there's a lot of skepticism after a lot
of promises not kept over the years to the
citizens of the city. So I think that inside
the city there is a real sense that finally
someone has promised to do something
and they are. And that's really startling:'
The Land Bank's model is the first of
its kind in the country, and Gerson said it
has the potential to influence the ways in
which other cities cope with blight.
"If we can bring Detroit back, it's a
model for every other city in the country:'
she said. "There are a lot of other rust belt
cities that have very similar problems.
Maybe they haven't gone to bankruptcy
yet, but they're not dissimilar. Maybe
the scope is different, maybe the scale is
smaller; but if we can pull this off here, it's
monumental."
Open House
At a Sunday open house in mid-August,
potential bidders circulated through a house
on Wisconsin Street in the city's Bagley
neighborhood. The two-flat Tudor near
Marygrove College was built in 1929. The
facade boasts sweeping rooflines and a big
bay window, but the front door is boarded
with plywood and the kitchens are missing
appliances and most of their fixtures.
Detroiters Carol Zachary and Cynthia
Morgan toured the house looking for an
investment property to rehab and rent.
"I have a vested interest in the city
because I do live here Zachary said.
"That's the motivating factor — to bring
some of the houses that have good bones
—to bring them back. The original work-
manship is not comparable to what you're
going to find going up now so I think it
has good potential to continue to be a
viable neighborhood:'
Tamica Dothard, an open house super-
visor, said she's seen a diverse array of
people attending the open houses, from
businesspeople looking to turn a profit to
families, young people and empty nesters
—both working class and professional —
searching for a home in the city.
But Dothard said it's harder to generate
bids in some neighborhoods — each has
its own unique challenges, character and
history.
While the first open house in Boston-
Edison turned out a thousand people,
homes in other neighborhoods don't get
the same response.
The cost to rehab homes varies, too —
depending on the structure's condition and
the amount of work the homeowner wants
to put into the property.
Dothard noted that working with active
block associations, residents and other
neighborhood leaders is critical to the pro-
gram's success.
Next door, one neighbor said she thinks
that occupying the house will be a big
improvement for the neighborhood of
mostly tidy homes.
"It not being occupied wasn't a good
thine she said.
Home Place
Though there are plenty of people who
aren't looking to buy and inhabit a house
in the city, Gerson said there's good
reason for the wider community to take
an interest in efforts to rehabilitate the
city's neighborhoods.
"This is a home-place," she said. "This
is a real cultural home for an awful lot
[of people] in our [Jewish] community.
And, yes, they moved away from it, but
I'm hoping they will get reconnected:'
When she was asked to choose a house
to photograph for this story, Gerson
selected a Land Bank property for sale
in Virginia Park — the neighborhood
where her husband's grandparents once
lived. The Euclid Avenue property sold
last week for $5,100.
According to Wendy Rose Bice, execu-
tive director of the Jewish Historical
Society of Michigan, the neighborhood
was home to a large Jewish population
from the 1910s-1930s.
Virginia Park is just south of the
Boston-Edison neighborhood. Woodward
Avenue and Linwood Avenue form the
west and east borders, stretching between
Clairmount Avenue to the north and
Virginia Park Street to the south.
The neighborhood attracted both up-
and-coming Jewish families and new
immigrants moving into the city. The area
contained several Jewish shopping dis-
tricts, a branch of the Jewish Community
Center and Hebrew Free Loan.
Gerson said congregants at synagogue
are often fascinated by the work she's
doing, especially in the neighborhoods
where they have ties.
"Often what you hear about is their
experiences — for themselves or their
parents — growing up down here in
Virginia Park, in Boston-Edison," she
said. "The old Shaarey Zedek, the old
Beth El, they were all here, so this is not
a distant memory for most people. And I
think they're incredibley excited to hear
that it's coming back:'
But Gerson said those ties don't have
to remain solely in the past. She said
opportunities to work and live in Detroit
are expanding exponentially, but the
community hasn't fully tapped in to the
city. Young people, she said, are ahead of
the rest in getting involved.
For Gerson, Duggan and other com-
munity leaders, ensuring Detroit neigh-
borhoods thrive is vital to the city's
rebirth — and the region's.
"If the city doesn't succeed, the tri-
county area can't succeed — and if the
tri-county area can't succeed, the state
can't:' she said. "It's critical to all of our
futures. You can't just draw a line at 8
Mile and say it doesn't affect me:'
❑
For more information on properties in Detroit,
go to www.motorcitymapping.org and http://
auctions.buildingdetroit.org/home. Sam
Gringlas of Farmington Hills is a senior at the
University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, where he
is senior news editor at the Michigan Daily.
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