Judge orders Packard Plant Demolition

[Richard]

The March 31 order declared that the more than 30 parcels owned by Palazuelo “are a public nuisance which interfere with common rights enjoyed by the general public by significantly threatening the public’s health, safety and welfare.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/busin...ic%20nuisance.

Gives him 45 days to demolish,but let’s break it down

Packard Plant as a whole consists of over 150 individual parcels that make up what is referenced as The Packard Plant.

The current owner owns 40 parcels out of 30 are being required to be demolished.

The city owns an unknown amount of those parcels,which is now on the hook to pay to demolish also because they are connected to the parcels that are in the demolition order.

For instance,the city owns the parcel that was connected to the now collapsed walkway.

So what happens now ? Does the owner of the adjacent property have to take a saw and cut their parcel away and demolish it? Are they also going to be required to seal up the vacant holes that will be left or is the city really ready to commit millions into demolishing their parcels also?

When you look at the long stretch of factory,view it as a row of teeth and you are removing every other one while creating gaps,what then happens to the adjoining properties on each side?

When the city tax foreclosed on the parcels for the last auction,they did not even know how many or what parcels to actually foreclosure on,they actually added to the madness because of that and created even more of a mess up.

I would agree there could be a case made for demolition because of failed commitments,current taxes owed etc,I question the timing and if the city actually has its ducks in a row when it comes to who actually owns what.

If one was looking at priorities when it came to spending millions in demolitions within the city,how many neighborhoods would benefit more then a factory that is far removed from the city center and how many residents does it negatively impact?

It looks like crap but as an open space factory and factory only it still has the structural bones where it could be revamped in a timely manner.

It is not the factory that is bringing the city down,it is the city and state that are bringing each other down,other states people are spending billions to build new factories but in Detroit and Michigan, the only view is still a scorch and burn your way to the future,it did not work in the 50s 60s and it will not work again,even more so now when factories are coming back in demand out of necessity.

Its the attitude of it’s the ugly factory that is holding us back,demolish it.

How about,we have this factory,what can we do as a city and state to encourage investors to put it back online.

They sold it to the wrong guy,what they need to do is take it back,clear up all of the discrepancies in the assembly of the parcels and market it as a complete project.

Even if the entire place is demolished,it will still have multiple owners,owning separate parcels,so they still will not be able to market it as a continuous parcel.

They need to fix the legalities of it first,otherwise they are going to be throwing millions of taxpayer dollars into demolishing something that will still not be a marketable property.

Is that really the best move when as a city you are trying to move forward without repeating the mistakes of the past?