Urban farms, gardens, reforestation all part of Detroit Works vision for remaking city

by John Gallagher|The Detroit Free Press

Faced with growing vacancy in the city, Mayor Dave Bing’s Detroit Works long-term planning team is moving closer to recommending a set of diverse options for remaking Detroit’s neighborhoods.

In an interview with the Free Press, planning team leaders say they envision some neighborhoods remaining traditional residential while others evolve toward open land used for storm-water retention ponds, urban farms and energy production.

The slate of draft ideas for community debate moves the process toward a future discussion of specific ideas for specific neighborhoods.

Some areas, such as the city’s Indian Village or Palmer Woods neighborhoods, might continue to thrive as areas of single-family residences. Other districts suffering considerable vacancy might transition to what the team calls “green residential,” a mix of homes and small community gardens or parks.

PFD: Download the Detroit Works’ long-term planning report.

Still other neighborhoods that are almost entirely abandoned might be used for reforestation or experimental fields where sunflowers and other plants could be used to detoxify contaminated land.

The team leaders emphasized that residents and community groups will play a major role in deciding what happens in their districts.

“They have the authorship as to what tool is applied where,” said Dan Kinkead, an architect and planner with Detroit-based Hamilton Anderson Associates who is part of the technical team.

Menu of options

The draft ideas are just a menu of options for discussion. They are not attached to any specific districts in the city.

The team is expected to produce a final report by late summer, offering options for residents and civic leaders to consider rather than strict recommendations about what should happen where.

“There is room for a broad spectrum of interventions to be played out,” said Toni Griffin, a City College of New York professor of urban planning who co-chairs the Detroit Works technical team developing the list of options.

Karla Henderson, Bing’s group executive for planning and facilities, said the mayor and his aides are looking forward to receiving the report from the planning team.

“We’re very interested in what comes out of the community conversations and how that aligns with some of (the team’s) recommendations,” Henderson said Monday. Once the report is done, work can then begin on deciding what options should be implemented and how that might take place, she said.

Residents attending a Detroit Works public briefing Saturday at the Detroit Rescue Mission got a peek at what the various neighborhoods might become depending on current conditions and residents’ desires.

Some of the 50 or so attending Saturday’s open meeting gave positive reviews.

“The conversation is just what we need to get back to the real issues,” said Phillis Judkins, 65, of the North End district.

Larry Roberts, 70, who lives in Indian Village, said the latest Detroit Works public meeting was more productive than the somewhat chaotic mass meetings Detroit Works held in the fall of 2010.

“Today it looks like there are people that have got some ideas that can move forward,” he said.

Change for urban sites

But some skepticism remained about how many of the good ideas will become policy in the cash-strapped city, and how many might ever be carried out.

“If the city government would buy into this plan and communicate to us what they’re going to do, I think it’ll work out all right,” Roberts said.

Co-chairing the Detroit Works technical team with Griffin is Dan Pitera, an architect and planner with the University of Detroit Mercy School of Architecture.

In an interview with the Free Press, Griffin and Pitera described the evolving plan less as something the city will attempt to impose than as a framework of building blocks for future citywide discussion.

“Everything’s possible, but not everywhere,” Pitera said.

What the Detroit Works planners call building blocks and other planners have called neighborhood types include districts devoted mostly to retail or industry, districts with a mix of homes and urban farms, and districts devoted to a blue-green landscape used for storm-water retention or natural wetlands.

Given the city’s vast amount of vacant land, Griffin and Pitera said the city can consider a whole range of new uses for repurposing abandoned urban sites.

“Detroit can be in the line of pushing the envelope,” Griffin said. “We want to expand the conversation about how those areas might contribute to the city.”

Original article can be found here.

Contact John Gallagher: 313-222-5173 or [email protected]

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For more information on the evolving Detroit Works plan and the schedule of community meetings, go towww.detroitworksproject.com.