Tag Archives: blight recovery

Deconstruction

Muskegon County’s planned deconstruction-materials facility a key part in fight against blight | MLive.com

Approximately 50 properties are targeted for demolition by the end of 2010, including this home at 2627 6th St., as Muskegon Heights aims to work on their housing blight. Kendra Stanley-Mills | The Muskegon Chronicle

“Dave [Bennink, RE-USE Consulting] will be facilitating a strategic planning session,” said Jonathan Wilson, economic development coordinator for Muskegon County. “He will talk about how an operation like Second Harvest could run, the potential for a domestic and overseas market, and how the private sector could be involved and how it could benefit from it. It’s basically a brainstorming session.”

Precedent has shown that deconstruction materials from blighted homes can easily be repurposed into other products and sold to generate revenue. Community leaders think the amount of blighted homes in Muskegon County as well as its port could make it a “central hub for import and export of deconstruction materials in the future.”

via Muskegon County’s planned deconstruction-materials facility a key part in fight against blight | MLive.com.

Policy/Regulations/Government

Indiana cities getting money to fight urban blight | WISH-TV

Gary will receive $6.6 million of the initial amount. A team spent several months collecting data on blighted structures throughout the northwest Indiana city.

Besides demolishing vacant and abandoned homes and buildings, the federal program also provides loans to help homeowners avoid foreclosure.

Officials estimate about 4,000 blighted properties will be torn down across the state.

via Indiana cities getting money to fight urban blight | WISH-TV.

Deconstruction

Looking for Reclaimed Wood? The City of Detroit Joins the Salvage Business – Next City

Detroit’s Great Lakes Coffee used salvaged materials to pay homage to a bygone era.

Last week, Duggan announced a new pilot salvage program for the city’s North Corktown neighborhood. It’s starting small. The city will solicit bids from local salvaging outfits to find reusable materials in 10 houses set to be demolished. The city’s Building Authority is in charge of the effort.

The initiative, which they hope will launch next month, is part of the Mayor’s broader blight strategy, now with an eye on preservation as opposed to straight-up demolition.

via Looking for Reclaimed Wood? The City of Detroit Joins the Salvage Business – Next City.

Policy/Regulations/Government

City of Brotherly Love finally tackles neighborhood blight – latimes.com

Neighborhoods where the new strategies have been applied have seen home prices rise 31% over four years, compared with a 1% rise in comparable areas, according to a study by Ira Goldstein of the Reinvestment Fund. The initiatives increased home values by $74 million throughout Philadelphia, Goldstein said, and brought in $2.2 million more in transfer tax receipts.

Philadelphia had been spending millions of dollars a year to tear down vacant properties, and it didn’t seem to be making much headway, said Rebecca Swanson, who directs the city’s vacant building strategy. So in 2011, city officials decided to try a strategy they hoped would prevent properties from becoming run down in the first place.

The city utilized software used by the IRS to track down owners of the vacant buildings. Then the city took the owners to a newly created Blight Court. The door and window ordinance also allows the city to attach liens to property owners’ other personal property, including, in some cases, mansions in the suburbs.

“That was the whole point, to catch them early, cite them for doors and windows, and hopefully that incentivizes the owner to come out of the woodwork and do something,” Swanson said.

via City of Brotherly Love finally tackles neighborhood blight – latimes.com.

Urban Blight to Farms

Land Bank is fighting “urban blight” in the suburbs | Buffalo News, Buffalo Weather | WIVB-TV News 4 Buffalo, NY | WIVB.com

 

The Land Bank buys a vacant property that is still valuable and “banks” it for rehabilitation, or demolition to be re-sold and returned to the tax rolls.

“The entire community starts picking itself up once you start removing the blight,” says Lackawanna Mayor Geoffrey Szymanski.

The mayor says the Land Bank is helping his city, which he says can no longer afford to “fight the blight” on its own.

“With the Land Bank, we will be able to refurbish homes that are not in blighted condition, refurbish them, and sell them to somebody who wants to become a responsible homeowner,” he explained.

via Land Bank is fighting “urban blight” in the suburbs | Buffalo News, Buffalo Weather | WIVB-TV News 4 Buffalo, NY | WIVB.com.

Urban Blight to Farms

Detroit foodies promote urban farming as way to fight blight, grow economy | Crain’s Detroit Business

Detroit, which filed an $18 billion bankruptcy July 18, is reeling from the loss of more than 435,000 jobs in its metro area from 2000 to 2010, according to federal data.

Greg Willerer is embracing urban agriculture in Detroit. By selling at farmers markets, local restaurants and a community-supported agriculture project that sells his goods directly to consumers, Willerer said he can make $20,000 to $30,000 per acre in a year.

This has left it with an abundance of underused property. The city is spread over 139 square miles and has an estimated 150,000 vacant and abandoned parcels, according to a report this year by Detroit Future City, a planning project created by community leaders.

Converting some of that land to farming could clean up blight and grow jobs, regional officials say. With sufficient consumer demand and the emergence of a local food-processing industry, 4,700 jobs and $20 million in business taxes could be generated, according to a 2009 study.

“It will help,” said Mike DiBernardo, an economic development specialist with Michigan’s agriculture department. “We have so much blighted land that we can create opportunities for entrepreneurs, and we can give people in the community something to be excited about.”

via Detroit foodies promote urban farming as way to fight blight, grow economy | Crain’s Detroit Business.

Policy/Regulations/Government, Structure Reuse, Waste News

Urban farm plan for Detroit’s near east side hopes to reel in cash, tilapia | MLive.com

Gary Wozniak regards his domain with the enthusiasm of an evangelist. Where most people would look at these wide expanses of Detroit blight and see dark despair, he sees nothing but gleaming possibilities.

Fish-farm-photo-5-15.jpeg

WHAT DO YOU SEE?: Gary Wozniak stands in the abandoned Detroit municipal garage where he plans to install an indoor tilapia operation, partnering with an Ohio company looking to expand. The graffiti will stay. (Bridge photo/Nancy Derringer)

“This is the center of the farm,” he said, gazing over the corner of Warren and Grandy on Detroit’s near east side at a vacant lot waving with overgrown grass on a windy spring day. Not long ago, it was where Northeastern High School stood. Today, it’s ground zero in an agreement Wozniak hopes to make with Detroit Public Schools and the city to convert it to one of the city’s most ambitious urban agriculture projects — one that will eventually encompass everything from organic fruits and vegetables to an indoor tilapia farm in an abandoned municipal garage.

Yep, you read it. Fish, farmed, in a garage, in Detroit.

Wanna see more?

Hops growing on trellises surrounding an abandoned factory? Sure.

Plastic-wrapped hoop houses yielding fresh spinach in the midst of a Michigan winter? Why not?

And all of it to be run by recovering addicts — providing stability, job training and income, in a self-sustaining model.

“The farming is really a small piece of the pie,” said Wozniak. “I’m really interested in food-system development.” That is, creating new, shorter lines between where food is grown and where it’s consumed, mitigating such related headaches as pollution and poor nutrition.

It’s almost insanely ambitious, but the Fred A. and Barbara M. Erb Family Foundation of Bloomfield Hills recently announced a four-year, $1 million grant to RecoveryPark, the umbrella  organization for Wozniak’s plan. RecoveryPark is, technically, a redevelopment project, but what a redevelopment.

In a three-square-mile piece of one of the city’s most abandoned neighborhoods, Wozniak proposes taking it more or less full circle, bringing back not just farming, but 19th-century farming – labor-intensive, small parcels, minimal processing. Not giant combines and acres of soybeans, but food, healthy food, for people.

“This has really made me see the ‘power of we’ like never before,” Wozniak said.

via Urban farm plan for Detroit’s near east side hopes to reel in cash, tilapia | MLive.com.