I feel like I connected with Detroit and its communities more than ever this week. For work, I had to go to a storm drainage conference. The city of Detroit is implementing a new fee for non-permeable acreage. The new fee is $750 a month per acre that is covered by anything other than grass. Obviously business owners, new and old, are angry. The Detroit Water and Sewerage Department spent over 1.5 billion dollars last year to resolve the the overflow problem that Detroit’s two pipe system has, yet the expenditure has largely been ineffective. Now, the DWSD is trying to raise funds for another round of ineffective spending. They have a credit system that allows people to get cash back for green infrastructure and permeable acreage projects. However, it is clear from the meeting that it is impossible for local business owners to get access these benefits. Small business owners simply cannot afford $750 per acre a month because their margins of revenue are already razor thin. In addition, I met many owners of urban farms that have large farms that obviously have large permeable acreage yet are still getting fined for the entirety property. When asked if they would get their money back, the DWSD said they would fix the problem but could not issue any refunds. I felt frustrated and I understood the anger of community members in the room in the room. The only businesses that can afford these changes are large business downtown like Quicken Loans. It is clear that the local and state government is failing its citizens and the communities of Detroit that do good work. At our Tuesday meeting, we talked about the very same urban farming and how important it is in order to solve the “food swamp” that is in Detroit, but if these farms can’t survive, how do people get access to healthy, fresh food? $750 a month may seem small to an outsider, but the implication of this fee run deep, and it hurts the people that are already hurting.
The upload function says it is full, but I was going to post a picture of the new “plaza” in Downtown Detroit. Dan Gilbert hired a New York based consulting group in order to open a small plaza right next to the Campus Martius Area. In order to have the plaza, the city of Detroit has to shut down Woodward and Jefferson, the busiest junction in downtown Detroit. The entire bus system had to be changed. Traffic is adding 15-20 minutes to people’s commute. And no one uses it because Campus Martius already has a area for food trucks and sitting. This week I began to feel frustrated at the people who supposedly run this city, whether it was the local government or Dan Gilbert. Now more than ever I have a passion to be an ally to the people of Detroit.
