Bing picks 3 neighborhoods to test reshaping of Detroit
Christine MacDonald/ The Detroit News
July 27. 2011 4:27PM
Detroit— Mayor Dave Bing this morning announced a broad effort to target city services where they are needed the most, affecting everything from where houses are demolished, trees are trimmed and street lights are repaired.
Bing's citywide plan calls for dividing Detroit into three categories based on a neighborhood's health — steady, transitional and distressed — and then concentrating certain services in those areas. For example, building demolitions would be more common in "distressed" and "transitional" areas, while the healthier "steady" neighborhoods would get more code enforcement and illegal dumping clean-ups. The new deployment of city services will take affect in two weeks, according to a city press release.
"We've got to take some quantum leaps so people can be satisfied with their return on investments," Bing said today. "Our entire city will benefit from their new market approach of service delivery. You deserve a city that works."
It's the first measure to come out of Bing's signature Detroit Works Project, an effort he launched almost 14 months ago to reshape the city. It doesn't include encouraging residents to leave underpopulated neighborhoods for viable ones. Bing calls it a "short-term intervention strategy" to save neighborhoods and says that his team is still working on a longer term plan that will emerge in 2012.
Bing made the announcement — with the rare use of a teleprompter — this morning in Odd Fellows Hall in the Springwells neighborhood of southwest Detroit. The Detroit Works advisory committee met Tuesday night in a closed meeting so it could be briefed on the announcement, city officials said.
Bing stressed that parts of the city "aren't being shut down" and that the basics of police, fire and weekly trash pickup are not being eliminated.
His staff said people have been contacting the city about wanting to move to more stable neighborhoods, but they don't have a formal program to help people move.
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. Those areas will get extra help through city partnerships with community housing groups, nonprofits, foundations and other government agencies. The areas are: Hubbard Farms/Southwest, Bagley/Detroit Golf Club/Green Acres/Palmer Woods/Sherwood Forest/University District and Boston Edison/North End/Virginia Park. The city will track data in those three areas in six months to see if the new focus is working.
Bing had hoped to deliver by the end of the year a dramatic road map to streamline services and concentrate residents in seven to nine neighborhoods. But city officials said they were convinced after a series of Detroit Works public meetings that the city needed to move more quickly on immediate solutions. Today's announcement at Odd Fellows Hall was the result.
Detroit Works consultants used a variety of data to divide the city into three "market types," including median sales homes sales, rentals, vacant land and foreclosures. According to the city press release, the categories are described as:
-- Steady: Homes in good physical condition with the majority being owner occupied. Homes in steady markets are typically valued high. There are limited vacancies in steady markets and a relatively stable population.
Steady neighborhoods would see more code enforcement, debris clean-ups, street light repairs, business recruitment and commercial area improvements.
-- Transitional: Dynamics of the market are changing; has a relatively high presence of REO properties; a mix of rental and owner-occupied homes; and in a transitional market, there has been some vacancy and some population loss.
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 longterm 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 city spokesman Dan Lijana. It wasn't clear early today which city services will be focused on those areas. More details will be released about the mixed areas soon, officials said.
Some community leaders and residents adopted a wait-and-see view of the announcement.
"I like the idea of increased collaboration," said state Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Detroit. "I am just very uncertain of what that really means."
Southwest Detroit resident Joe Rashid said the effort sounds positive and he likes that Hubbard Farms is being highlighted.
One of the biggest issues in southwest Detroit is illegal dumping, Rashid said. He would like to see that addressed.
"If we could just clean up the neighborhood," Rashid said. "We have the vibrancy and people here."
The city will hold a series of upcoming community meetings to discuss the plans with citizens, but officials didn't release dates this morning.
From The Detroit News: http://detnews.com/article/20110727/METRO01/107270380/Bing-picks-3-neighborhoods-to-test-reshaping-of-Detroit |
