Brewster site now sellable? Midtown growth has some optimistic

[Detroitnerd]

The difference between the projects and what they replaced, to me, is that the old Hastings Street neighborhood had political power, in that all residents new each other, traveling up and down their street, from the richest undertaker to the poorest hooker. Also, they lived in a mixed-use environment, and could run their own businesses, live near work, heck, walk up and down the street and job for others if they wanted. Instead, look what "public housing" did. It separated people from their livelihoods, and poor people from other people. It was one factor in breaking black political power as it existed in the old neighborhood.

[Bham1982]

Instead, look what "public housing" did. It separated people from their livelihoods, and poor people from other people. It was one factor in breaking black political power as it existed in the old neighborhood.

This is totally true, but Brewster was a decent place to live until the early 70's or so. It destroyed the old neighborhood, but was well-built and decent housing.

What happened was that desegregation allowed African Americans to leave the old neighborhood, leaving the Brewster socially isolated, and home to the poorest of the poor.

Then the idiots in Congress made changes to the public housing requirements that basically incentivized tenants to be single parents and unemployed. Working familes gradually left Brewster.

[Baron_Haussmann]

Who you know, or any other deals you have experience with do not matter.

You were not involved, so you have no idea how this deal was structured.

The replacement of units was negotiated with HUD years ago, before the units were vacated.

As is stated above, the DHC is selling the 15 acres with no requirement to replace housing units.

[adamjab19]

This shows the projects when they were still open: http://maps.google.com/maps?q=Detroi...73.88,,0,-3.23

Click a few yards over and it shows them abandoned: http://maps.google.com/maps?q=Detroi...83.89,,0,-4.33

In fact, I think the above link is one of the saddest, most depressing things I've seen on google street view, and that's saying something. "Enter at your own Risk."

Yeah, wow.

[Detroitnerd]

This is totally true, but Brewster was a decent place to live until the early 70's or so. It destroyed the old neighborhood, but was well-built and decent housing.

I often think of what it was like to live in a tenement neighborhood. I've read "A Tree Grows in Brooklyn" a few times, and Betty Smith didn't seem to romanticize it much. But toward the end of her book, she doesn't romanticize the projects either. Check this quote out:

No, she'd never come back to the old neighborhood.
Besides in years to come, there would be no old neighborhood to come back to. After the war, the city was going to tear down the tenements and the ugly school where a woman principal used to whip little boys, and build a model housing project on the site; a place of living where sunlight and air were to be trapped, measured and weighed, and doled out so much per resident.

I think that she has hinted at one of the main problems with housing projects: These were the ideas of reformers who were very top-down. If slums are dark, we will fill every room with light. If slums are concrete, we will give people a minimum of greenery. If slums are squat and low, we will build into the sky. They basically built a lot of very reactionary designs that wound up being sort of warehouses for people, as opposed to the organic neighborhoods they replaced. So, yes, they are "well-built" in that the concrete and steel still stand, but they were idiotically built in another sense.

What happened was that desegregation allowed African Americans to leave the old neighborhood, leaving the Brewster socially isolated, and home to the poorest of the poor.

Well, also stuff like the Highway Act and the GI Bill had already allowed lots of [[mostly white) people of means to move outside the city, and their homes were prized by people who'd been trapped by racial covenants in their own ghettoes for years. When they finally voided racial covenants, blacks of means could afford to buy those houses, and paid a pretty penny for them. [[The way real estate predators flipped houses and engaged in "blockbusting" were shameful, and very profitable.) But the poorest blacks couldn't buy those houses. In a way, desegregation robbed a neighborhood like Hastings Street of its wealthiest and most beneficial residents.

Then the idiots in Congress made changes to the public housing requirements that basically incentivized tenants to be single parents and unemployed.

It seems idiotic, but what about this? What if the goal of public housing hadn't been to provide public housing? What if the goal had been to remove a neighborhood that had been very difficult politically by ramming a freeway through it and resettling its residents in an area sequestered away from the rest of the city? If that had been the goal, then I would say public housing in the United States has been a great success...

[Brian1979]

This shows the projects when they were still open: http://maps.google.com/maps?q=Detroi...73.88,,0,-3.23

Click a few yards over and it shows them abandoned: http://maps.google.com/maps?q=Detroi...83.89,,0,-4.33

In fact, I think the above link is one of the saddest, most depressing things I've seen on google street view, and that's saying something. "Enter at your own Risk."

Is St Antoine still blocked at Wilkins or has that been removed?

[Brian1979]

As for Brewster, HUD will almost certainly require on-site replacement units, same as everywhere else where federal housing funds are used to demolish a federal housing investment. Usually, the former residents are given first dibs on the new public housing units.

Replacement units for what? This is an abandoned building we are talking about, so they are suppose to replace an abandoned building with another abandoned building? That makes no sense at all.

[Brian1979]

Dude, a public housing project won't be demolished with folks living inside. I'm pretty sure homicide isn't part of the Hope VI guidelines.

Again, Hope VI requires on-site replacement of housing units.

Whether it's been vacant for one day or 100 years, you can't use federal housing money to demolish a federal housing investment, without specifically agreeing to replace the lost affordable units.

When a building is vacant that means no one is living there, why do you continue to think that anyone is living in the Brewster-Douglas projects?

[Brian1979]

Dude, a public housing project won't be demolished with folks living inside. I'm pretty sure homicide isn't part of the Hope VI guidelines.

Again, Hope VI requires on-site replacement of housing units.

Whether it's been vacant for one day or 100 years, you can't use federal housing money to demolish a federal housing investment, without specifically agreeing to replace the lost affordable units.

What purpose would there be to replace the lost units? Do you not realize that Detroit lost a quarter of it's population in the last ten years? Where are these people living in the Brewster-Douglas projects that you think live there?

[Bham1982]

When a building is vacant that means no one is living there, why do you continue to think that anyone is living in the Brewster-Douglas projects?

Obviously no one is living in the Brewster projects, and I never claimed otherwise.

I said that whatever redevelopment occurs must include some significant proportion of public housing units, approved by HUD.

This is still a HUD site, and those vacant units are still federally subsidized units. A vacated HUD complex remains on the books as having "x" number of units, which must be accounted for prior to replacement.

And former Brewster families or other folks on Detroit Housing Commission waitlist will occupy some of those units.

[Bham1982]

What purpose would there be to replace the lost units? Do you not realize that Detroit lost a quarter of it's population in the last ten years? Where are these people living in the Brewster-Douglas projects that you think live there?

You're right that Detroit is losing considerable population, but this does not relieve Detroit of its affordable housing obligation.

Detroit took federal funds to build public housing units. Detroit is probably requesting federal funds to redevelop public housing sites.

These funds will not be approved unless there is a plan in place to house needy folks. And, unless something has changed in the last two years [[when I last had specific numbers), there are thousands of families on the housing waitlist.

Many families would LOVE to have public housing, even in Detroit. Much of it is decent [[the senior complexes are all quite good), and often "public" housing means a mobile Section 8 voucher, to be used in the private market.

[Detroitdave]

It could be done . Something similar was done with apartments like the Brewsters in LA called Park Labrea . I used to live near there. Check out the link

http://www.parklabrea.com/4/Apartmen...es-California/

Quick history here :http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Park_La_Brea,_Los_Angeles

Image the views for the Brewsters towers ? if you sold it right, with the right amenities and security people would move in a heart beat ! I know I would .

There is enough money in the burbs and people moving in to support a smaller version of that .

People want and expect good places to live and if you give it to them they will pay. Make it gated with a gate guard , like Park Labrea , and it could work . The location is stellar right off the 75 near the ball parks, eastern market ,downtown , museums ect .

Can you image all those folks coming down to eastern market or a ball games or just visiting and you take them back to you apartment and they see that ! their jaws would drop ! Who wouldn't live in an area like that ? ,it would make Royal Oak, Troy , Novi seem boring ... well they don't need any help they are boring ... safe but boring .

Time to set up Detroit ! weather you like it or not,You've got to remember Detroit is competing with Chicago , New York, LA, SF , Boston , Atlanta ect for the young urban professionals , that's were the money is at , Not many people with kids and a family are looking at Detroit .

Shore up the school you have now , and look to the future . young professional will pay taxes and don't have kids yet so they will be the ones paying for quality. and I'm not talking about that "junk" crosswinds threw up either ! those people should be shot !

Any thoughts?

[BrushStart]

You're right that Detroit is losing considerable population, but this does not relieve Detroit of its affordable housing obligation.

Detroit took federal funds to build public housing units. Detroit is probably requesting federal funds to redevelop public housing sites.

These funds will not be approved unless there is a plan in place to house needy folks. And, unless something has changed in the last two years [[when I last had specific numbers), there are thousands of families on the housing waitlist.

Many families would LOVE to have public housing, even in Detroit. Much of it is decent [[the senior complexes are all quite good), and often "public" housing means a mobile Section 8 voucher, to be used in the private market.

"Detroit's affordable housing obligation?" How much more presumptuous can you be? Why don't they move the Brewster-Douglas towers to Oakland County... Has anyone relieved it of its affordable housing obligation? Why do people simply presume Detroit should have to carry the weight of the region's poor?

As virtually everyone has admitted, the Brewster-Douglas projects are in a potentially high-value location in the city. Why should they have to become public housing any more than some area adjacent to downtown Birmingham? Like Detroitdave said above, they could be converted into condos for higher income professionals.

[Detroitnerd]

Good point. I want all affordable housing requirements to be in Birmingham from now on. Nice long management leases of 30 years or so requiring Section 8 residents. It happens in my neighborhood, why not in theirs too?

[BrushStart]

Good point. I want all affordable housing requirements to be in Birmingham from now on. Nice long management leases of 30 years or so requiring Section 8 residents. It happens in my neighborhood, why not in theirs too?

I'm tired of the same cycle of bullsh*t, man. This is an area of Detroit where the number of high-income residents is growing exponentially, a huge demand for urban housing exists, and yet people want to take a defunct piece of property that cannot and should not ever be public housing again, and return it to that condition. For Pete's sake, Brewster-Douglas is no longer a housing project for a reason!

Public housing can just as easily be recreated somewhere else other than turning the former Brewster-Douglas towers back into some new type of housing project. It makes no sense to remake Brewster-Douglas into public housing. No other city would even think of doing so. Look at LA, NY, or Chicago. Cabrini-Green is GONE for a reason. Large housing projects like that do not work, and secondly, the land is far more valuable if put to other uses.

If there is any sense left in the world, Brewster-Douglas should be sold to a private developer who has the vision and ability to remake the property into middle-income housing for people who want to live in the city. The government, HUD, or whomever should take the profits and give out Section 8 vouchers to people who need them so they can live wherever they want. If a few of them so happen to choose to live in the new Brewster-Douglas buildings, so be it. However, I doubt many will as they probably still suffer from nightmares of what that place must have been like.

[Brian1979]

I honestly can't believe we're even having a discussion on razing the Brewster-Douglas projects. There shouldn't be a replacement because there is nothing to replace, when a building is vacant it's no longer serving any purpose other than to sit there and rot, I'd much rather see that area developed into residential/commercial mix rather than some stupid housing project. That property has far too much value to even consider putting low income housing back onto it. Put public housing in Brightmoor or some other distant neighborhood from downtown and midtown. I would like to see the area that Grand Blvd encircles as a compact vibrant urban setting and that would mean no public housing within the Grand Blvd. loop.

[drjeff]

So why were the Brewster-Douglass projects closed in the first place in 2008? I'm guessing it's not because there's a lack of poor people in Detroit who would qualify.

[Detroitnerd]

I have an idea for the site, but it's crazy.

Why not take the land and plat it back into small city blocks?

If the city blocks allow the buildings to stand, maybe we let them, but the rest of it should be small lots, small streets, small alleys, small everything. And it should integrate with the rest of the city as much as possible.

I fear that by just "giving it over to a developer" we're going to get something that turns its back on the city and lasts 30 years.

[Bham1982]

I honestly can't believe we're even having a discussion on razing the Brewster-Douglas projects. There shouldn't be a replacement because there is nothing to replace, when a building is vacant it's no longer serving any purpose other than to sit there and rot, I'd much rather see that area developed into residential/commercial mix rather than some stupid housing project.

It's federally funded urban renewal land.

The feds have the right to determine the future use of this land, because Detroit long ago accepted urban renewal funds that [[like all federal appropriations) come with use restrictions.

Just like Michigan can't accept funds for the homeless and use it to build a rocketship. Doesn't work like that.

But there won't be a "stupid housing project" built on the land. It would almost certainly be a mixed income format.

[Bham1982]

. Look at LA, NY, or Chicago. Cabrini-Green is GONE for a reason. Large housing projects like that do not work, and secondly, the land is far more valuable if put to other uses.

Just FYI, U.S. cities have had VERY different experiences with public housing.

In NYC, no public housing has been demolished. It's generally been well maintained and has always been occupied by a mix of income classes.

Chicago had its issues with public housing because the first Daley only built race-segregated housing in the crappiest parts of town, and Chicago didn't do a thing to maintain the buildings.

LA, I have no clue. I do know they have relatively little public housing, and it tends to be scattered-site.

Keep in mind that public housing isn't inherently bad. There is beautifully maintained public housing in Ann Arbor. Baldwin House, in downtown Birmingham, is basically senior public housing. Even Detroit senior public housing is pretty good.

[corktownyuppie]

It's federally funded urban renewal land.

The feds have the right to determine the future use of this land, because Detroit long ago accepted urban renewal funds that [[like all federal appropriations) come with use restrictions.

Just like Michigan can't accept funds for the homeless and use it to build a rocketship. Doesn't work like that.

But there won't be a "stupid housing project" built on the land. It would almost certainly be a mixed income format.

Would the feds be agreeable to a landswap? For example, in exchange for releasing the state from the restrictions to the use of this land, the city offers an equally valued plot of land of equivalent value somewhere else? I mean, this isn't the 5 boroughs of New York....we've got plenty of vacant land to go around and then some.

[Bham1982]

Would the feds be agreeable to a landswap? For example, in exchange for releasing the state from the restrictions to the use of this land, the city offers an equally valued plot of land of equivalent value somewhere else? I mean, this isn't the 5 boroughs of New York....we've got plenty of vacant land to go around and then some.

Good question, and I don't know.

Maybe there have been other land swaps nationally. Wouldn't surprise me, and may be a good idea.

All I know is that the feds will require a substantial commitment to affordable housing before signing off on demolition.

[rhythmc]

"Detroit's affordable housing obligation?" How much more presumptuous can you be? Why don't they move the Brewster-Douglas towers to Oakland County... Has anyone relieved it of its affordable housing obligation? Why do people simply presume Detroit should have to carry the weight of the region's poor?

As virtually everyone has admitted, the Brewster-Douglas projects are in a potentially high-value location in the city. Why should they have to become public housing any more than some area adjacent to downtown Birmingham? Like Detroitdave said above, they could be converted into condos for higher income professionals.

I agree. Why is it that Detroit must carry so much of the region's poor. At one time, Detroit was at one time the center of wealth for the region and carried a higher proportion of the poor. However, the wealth is now north and west of the city. However rather than concentrate the poor in Oakland County, why can't the metro area work to spread the burden? Of course, I know why they don't.

[Bham1982]

I agree. Why is it that Detroit must carry so much of the region's poor. At one time, Detroit was at one time the center of wealth for the region and carried a higher proportion of the poor. However, the wealth is now north and west of the city. However rather than concentrate the poor in Oakland County, why can't the metro area work to spread the burden? Of course, I know why they don't.

Detroit long ago accepted funds for massive urban renewal funds, with the condition that the housing built through HUD adhere to the agreed-upon income guidelines.

This has nothing to do with Birmingham or relative land values, or where poor people live. It's about a municipality fufilling an agreement to accept federal funds all these years.

Now I agree that Birmingham and other places have a responsibility to house the poor. I also agree that Detroit shouldn't be a dumping ground, and that conditions have changed radically since these projects were built.

That said, Detroit is the one asking for federal funds. If they want the funds, they have to agree to the stipulations, which are that HUD requires an affordale housing commitment.

[rhythmc]

As someone suggested above, maybe the city should look into swapping the land at the site for another area in the city. there's no way the city should have a low-income housing project in the middle of the city.