Development Choices
For the first time in many years money is flowing into Detroit. New projects, from parks to the reconstruction of what is now I-375 is underway. And real estate developers, Stephen Ross and the Ilitch family are offering yet another idea for redeveloping the area around Little Caesar Arena. They are proposing a new hotel at the cost of $190 million. “The city needs many more hotel rooms to better compete for significant events and conventions that will bring tens of thousands of additional visitors to the region and help create good jobs for Detroiters,” Claude Molinari, president and CEO of Detroit Metro Convention and Visitors Bureau.
Meanwhile Dan Gilbert is struggling to make progress on the four development sites he secured with the help of Michigan’s Brownfields legislation. Legislation that he helped create and from which he has benefited. Over the last five years, only one project has been completed and one has yet to begin. All three sites are well below the city guidelines that require 51% of the construction jobs go to Detroit residents.
Initially projections were for 7,500 construction jobs for the projects. As of this summer there were only 1,501 workers. Of that number, only 472 were Detroiters.
In exchange for those jobs, Gilbert has secured almost $700 million in public financing over the next 30 years.
Not only are people not getting jobs as promised in the claim for public money but the legislation that enables these projects removes future tax dollars from city funds and puts them in the hands of the developers. The Transformational Brownfield program provides developers with future reimbursements of taxes generated at a completed project site: 30 years of property tax capture and 20 years of state income taxes from workers employed at the site and residents who reside there.
Nor do the developers have to wait until they have completed their projects. They can capture state income taxes paid by the construction workers and they can get an exemption from sales taxes on construction materials.
These notions of development and the public dollars they require should raise serious questions about what kind of city we want to become. Who is the city for? Do we think that spectacles of sport, conventions and gambling are what makes a city vibrant? Do we need public money to support hotels and more office space? What kind of urban life do we imagine for ourselves and our children?
The vision projected by our current mayor and by the corporate power structure is one that emphasizes a whiter, wealthier, and smaller downtown area. In pursuit of this vision, they have developed city and local mechanisms to move public dollars to subsidize private wealth. Thus, they are establishing a systematic way to continue to transfer wealth away from the residents of the city and into the pockets of developers – for generations.
Meanwhile, outside the small area of downtown development, neighborhoods continue to struggle. The most basic moments in life, rain and wind, routinely bring floods and blackouts as infrastructure long neglected fails us. Schools, libraries, community parks and greenways go untended, except by countless community volunteers who persist in preserving places of value.
Detroit is one of the few predominantly African American centers in the country, with a rich mix of peoples from around the world. Community life flourishes as people reimagine neighborhoods, often with little or no resources. Instead of guaranteeing cash to Gilbert and Ilitch, we should be investing in the block clubs, churches, schools, community organizations and public institutions that encourage us to live in sustainable, caring communities. Another way is possible if we are willing to make different choices.