Just Let the houses Burn Down

[Danny]

First Detroit Police is not going to respond to old burglary alarms and now The Detroit Fire Dept. is not going let the house burn down. Fire can spread very quickly to another area by gusty winds. They have put the fire out in any buildings. Their ideal sucks! Detroit will rise out from its ashes.

[Autoracks]

1 way or the other i have a bad feeling period. I have seen entire blocks that from satellite look highly occupied but at the ground level its just 1 abandoned house after the next and often entirely open to the elements. Garbage day and you see 3 trash cans out and a couple junky cars on the street that Its a recipe for disaster. No where near enough money to completely demolish the unoccupied dwellings already around. Its not like many are worth much if anything

[ct4438]

I think some people taking the idea of crews of firefighters "watching" fires too literally. It's not as though they're just going to pull up and stand around with their hands in their pockets, admiring the flames. It means that no lives will be risked by sending crews into an abandoned burning structure. If there's a danger to other structures nearby, then efforts will be made to contain the flames to just the burning structure and to protect the public.

[Crumbled_pavement]

Yes. For 12 months. Then what?

The point I'm trying to make is that the DFD is making a decision to remove its structural costs. These aren't decisions that will save money this year. These are decisions which go to the city's bottom line every year. That's the thing with the neighborhoods, too. Shutting down garbage service to a neighborhood with 2 houses saves thousands of dollars. Not this year, every year.

We need to shrink the city [[area, not population) because that excess area costs money each and every year. Getting rid of $10MM in corruption gives you 142 cops for 12 months. Eliminating $10MM of annual, structural costs gives you 142 cops every year forever.

I agree with much you say here. The word "conspiracy" was a bad choice. However, I don't see how you're going to shrink the city without losing population. In fact, I think it's quite foolish to plan to shrink the city without factoring in population loss too. To go further, we don't have 750k in the city now, but I'd rather a smaller denser city with 300k people in it that functions, than a big behemeth that doesn't. I don't agree with internet_pseudopod that Bing necessarily has a plan to sell large swaths of the city for profit to some unknown entity. I do believe he aims to clear out large swaths of the city, which is probably for the better [[less cost as far as maintaining, providing services, etc.). He will also end up clearing out a lot of population too, which might also be for the better. Yes they are taxpayers, most of them, but are they paying the same amount of taxes vs. services used? Maybe the demographics of Midtown is more cost effective for the city than the demographics of Brightmoor. I think only a fool would expect Detroit's population to be over 500k in 2020. Maybe that's a good thing, lower population, but more properous? In the end, I doubt Detroit will even be Michigan's most populated city. That might not be a bad thing though.

[brizee]

Dave Bing and his entire crew have dogshit for brains.

Just complete rubes.

Even if I sort of see the value in this policy, why in the FUCK would you make it public?

What good does revealing this do?

At all?

[internet_pseudopod]

Well I agree with everything you say except for the part above. We must have a different understanding of Bing's plan. We don't need to clear the population. Losing population is not part of anyone's plan and doesn't help anyone.

We need to keep the population the same [[or growing) but move them into a smaller geographical area.

You say that if we do so, we'll have a tiny crap hole instead of a bigger one. I don't know...you might be right. But I do know this much. A tiny crap hole costs pennies to maintain and service vs. the gigantic, inefficient, aging, difficult to maintain elephant-of-a-city we call Detroit.

And then you'll have tons of extra money to start actually solving problems instead of draining away.

Whether the people that are cleared out leave or not is up to them and the economics of Bing's plan. The fact remains that for Detroit to shrink those people still have to be moved from those areas. Areas that now have some population must be voided of their population. If there were to be any assistance for people that are displaced by this plan with Detroit being the poor city that it is I would expect the incentive to be proportionally poor. When faced with that choice a good number of people may follow family connections, job prospects, or warmer weather and relocate elsewhere. There will be shrinkage and there will be no excuses because we did this on purpose.

I see the objective here as being to stop the slide and eventually get better. Does this plan achieve that goal? It may be a small part of it but all of the money in the world wont help unless Detroit becomes competent in the fundamentals.

[internet_pseudopod]

Yes. For 12 months. Then what?

The point I'm trying to make is that the DFD is making a decision to remove its structural costs. These aren't decisions that will save money this year. These are decisions which go to the city's bottom line every year. That's the thing with the neighborhoods, too. Shutting down garbage service to a neighborhood with 2 houses saves thousands of dollars. Not this year, every year.

We need to shrink the city [[area, not population) because that excess area costs money each and every year. Getting rid of $10MM in corruption gives you 142 cops for 12 months. Eliminating $10MM of annual, structural costs gives you 142 cops every year forever.

We afforded that 10 million dollars per year in corruption for untold years, probably decades. I think we can afford to return that money to the citizens in the form of services until such a time that the services are no longer needed.

I am sure that is overly simplistic and it certainly doesn't pass the accounting muster but when you can stand on a street corner for an hour and see more checker cabs than police in a city like Detroit we've got a problem.

[andrew.w]

I don't think you have to worry about asbestos burning, since the reason it was used was the fact it doesn't burn.

I'd be more concerned about burning PVC and other plastics [[vinyl siding, etc.).

[CLAUDE G]

I say let the houses burn to the point where they become a hazard and the city has no other option but to send in a bulldozer a few days later to level the entire structure.

The problem with most fires is that there is not enough damage to make the home unsafe, however there is too much damage to make it worth while for someone to make an investment and fix up the home to live in.

If the building is not a hazard and is not considered unsafe, then it just sits there half burned down.

[Zacha341]

^^^^ Precisely. You end up with two nifty options: 1. Abandoned house with all windows out rotting or 2. Half burnt house rotting... this is especially true of brick structures that rarely burn down to a pile of ash.

[HistoryNotHisStory]

DFD Commissioner Donald Austin today said "Let empty houses burn down as long as there are no occupied houses nearby."

http://www.myfoxdetroit.com/dpp/news...-20110825-wpms

The are major problems with what the Fire Chief says. He uses the words "empty" and "unoccuppied".

Consider the following scenarios
.
Scenario 1: My Property is on fire!
A Homeowner owns and live at his house. The Homeowner leaves the house to go to shopping for 1hour. Now, by legal defintion, the house is "empty". During that time the house catches on fire. The Fire Department allows house to burn because the house is now "empty".

Scenario 2: Abandoned Houses has Owners
A property owns multiple properties in the City of Detroit. Some are "empty" and "unoccupied". However, it catches on fire. The Detroit Fire Department will just let the property burn because they are "empty" and "unoccupied". The Property Owner sues the City of Detroit for making a policy to allow "empty" and "unoccupied" houses to burn. Remember people that every so-called abandoned house is owned by someone. The Bank of America, Deutchse Bank, and others will sue the City.

Scenario 3: Homeowner Insurance Skyrockets!
DFD makes a policy not to take out fires of "empty" houses. Fire Insurance for all properites [[residential and commercial) in the City of Detroit increases. Why? Because in some cases when the Fire Dept. arise a house is salvageable or can be restored . The insurance companies now will have to pay for the homeowners entire house rather than repair. Therefore, this increase in cost and lost of revenue by the Insurance Companies is deffered to insurance holder in the living in Detroit.

Thank you Mister Fire Chief!

[SWMAP]

You obviously have never tried to collect from an insurance company! And, by the way, empty properties nullify the insurance collectability - unless you buy a special rider that allows you to leave the property empty while rehanging or something. I gather that's quite expensive.

[kraig]

I wonder if they've factored in the amount of time it takes to put out a fire vs. the amount of time it takes to let a fire burn out? I would hate to see a truck and its crew unable to respond to one fire because they're baby-sitting another fire that could have been put out sooner.