Michigan to receive $100M to demolish vacant homes

[Spartan]

Assuming this is approved as expected, I imagine Detroit will get a decent amount of this money. Hopefully they actually spend it this time. Pontiac, Flint, Saginaw and Grand Rapids will also receive portions.

http://www.freep.com/article/2013060...t-land-detroit

[Detroitnerd]

Here we go, reinforcing the least inventive answers to problems with government money.

For decades, government and business heavily funded demolition. In fact, the amount of public money that has gone into funding the wrecking ball here in town is astonishing.

That sort of funding has created a concentration of demolition and wrecking companies in the metro area.

Only very slight funding has gone to rehabs, renovations, repurposing, re-use, upgrades, etc. And if you hardly fund re-use, you tend to get planners and architects who don't consider re-use. If you hardly fund rehabs, you get engineers with a tear-it-down-and-start-over mentality.

My point is that you get the skill sets that you subsidize.

Or take a look at fledgling companies that deconstruct the houses.

http://www.hamtramckreview.com/2012/...deconstructed/

See, instead of going on demolition sprees like spendthrift Detroit and pay-to-knock-it-down-into-the-basement Lansing, Hamtramck awards contracts to "deconstruct" old buildings.

"According to Community & Economic Development Director Jason Friedmann, the cost of deconstructing a building is about $25,000 versus $7,500 for demolition.
"However, once the salvaged material is sold the venture actually turns a profit, to the tune of about $15,000. Last year a house on Carpenter was deconstructed and the material was sold at a wholesale price of $40,000, with an estimated retail value of around $100,000."

Yeah, don't try any of that profitable stuff that helps start businesses and employ groups of workers with new skill sets. Just keep paying the same old wrecking companies to knock houses down into the basement. Maybe for a few extra hundred they can salt the earth there so that nothing may grow again ...

[Wesley Mouch]

Here we go, reinforcing the least inventive answers to problems with government money.

Nerdelski, this is a standard government answer to everything -- do whatever was done before exactly without changes. Because there's little incentives for change. And because change makes risk. [[Its the argument for privatization. Private companies must innovate, or they get eaten for lunch -- unless they pay big enough bribe or kickbacks, see Ferguson, Bobby. But I'm getting off topic

My point is that you get the skill sets that you subsidize.

Quite right.

"According to Community & Economic Development Director Jason Friedmann, the cost of deconstructing a building is about $25,000 versus $7,500 for demolition.
"However, once the salvaged material is sold the venture actually turns a profit, to the tune of about $15,000. Last year a house on Carpenter was deconstructed and the material was sold at a wholesale price of $40,000, with an estimated retail value of around $100,000."

This is fascinating. I've always been bothered that demolition destroys so much value. A lot of the houses we've been tossing into the earth go down with great materials. Wasted. If only the scrappers could be allowed to steal the wood as well and sell it.

My question to you though, is the math. Where's the value? Wood? Door frames? Trim? One can buy a kit house these days of decent size of $60k. How can an existing structure, even if in great shape, have a salvage value of $40k?

This is all very interesting and you'd think rewarding for Detroit -- if we can get to the value before every home is gone.
[/QUOTE]

[Detroitnerd]

Nerdelski, this is a standard government answer to everything -- do whatever was done before exactly without changes. Because there's little incentives for change. And because change makes risk. [[Its the argument for privatization. Private companies must innovate, or they get eaten for lunch -- unless they pay big enough bribe or kickbacks, see Ferguson, Bobby. But I'm getting off topic

Well, here's one point where our political trajectories actually cross: these entrepreneurs are able to turn a profit on something the city would do much worse and at significant expense.

This is fascinating. I've always been bothered that demolition destroys so much value. A lot of the houses we've been tossing into the earth go down with great materials. Wasted. If only the scrappers could be allowed to steal the wood as well and sell it.

My question to you though, is the math. Where's the value? Wood? Door frames? Trim? One can buy a kit house these days of decent size of $60k. How can an existing structure, even if in great shape, have a salvage value of $40k?

This is all very interesting and you'd think rewarding for Detroit -- if we can get to the value before every home is gone.

Well, I'd recommend reading A Splintered History of Wood by Spike Carlsen. In one chapter, he illustrates how businesses go to great lengths these days to salvage old-growth wood, historic wood, woods that are banned from harvest, woods that are prohibitively expensive to husband, etc. Now, obviously, not every house is going to be a perfect candidate for remarkable profits [[demolition companies will always be needed; a certain amount of rubbish-clearing is always necessary), but a lot of these old homes are built of wood of a quality you simply cannot obtain anymore.

If people are spending vast amounts of money to lift old wood out of moss pits and kiln them and turn them into lumber, you can tell there's a robust market for historic wood. So, yeah, why not let some innovators have a crack at deconstructing the houses?

[DetroitPlanner]

This is fascinating. I've always been bothered that demolition destroys so much value. A lot of the houses we've been tossing into the earth go down with great materials. Wasted. If only the scrappers could be allowed to steal the wood as well and sell it.

Scrappers are stealing things illegally. If they could make money off of stealing the wood, they would! Instead they leave it a valueless carcass.

[Richard]

Scrappers are stealing things illegally. If they could make money off of stealing the wood, they would! Instead they leave it a valueless carcass.

Different scrappers have different reasons check out salvage on ebay sometime.NOLA had teams after Katrina stealing woodwork in crews.

http://www.freep.com/article/20130605/NEWS06/306050038/

House takes testimony to toughen rules for metal thieves, scrap yards

this is once again in front of legislation but is still related to the neighborhoods in the big picture.

[JBMcB]

Scrappers are stealing things illegally. If they could make money off of stealing the wood, they would! Instead they leave it a valueless carcass.

They *could* make money off of the wood, but pulling out paneling and trim without damaging it takes skill. Doesn't take a lot of skill to pull plumbing out of a house, just an axe and a hacksaw.

Go check out Materials Unlimited in Ypsilanti, they have whole rooms of mahogany paneling pulled out of demolished mansions in Grosse Pointe, running for thousands of dollars.

[DetroitPlanner]

Go check out Materials Unlimited in Ypsilanti, they have whole rooms of mahogany paneling pulled out of demolished mansions in Grosse Pointe, running for thousands of dollars.

I am sure they would strip that wood! Especially if they can have a fancy store fence it for them!

[Wesley Mouch]

Scrappers are stealing things illegally. If they could make money off of stealing the wood, they would! Instead they leave it a valueless carcass.

Yes, and I don't condone it. Removing live phone wires or public statuary. Bad.

If we could find a way to channel the scrappers energy into recycling, we'd be onto something.

[Richard]

Yes, and I don't condone it. Removing live phone wires or public statuary. Bad.

If we could find a way to channel the scrappers energy into recycling, we'd be onto something.

Crack down on scrappers ,give them 100 hours community service working with the deconstruction firms their pay goes back into the system to pay for the program,they may learn a trade the city saves on demolition maybe some will gain pride in contributing to the solution verses being a part of the problem.

Some maybe doing it to survive verses some that are doing it as a quick fix,separate them and make it easier to deal with it.Throwing them all in jail is just creating more funding woes.

[Honky Tonk]

Yes, and I don't condone it. Removing live phone wires or public statuary. Bad.

If we could find a way to channel the scrappers energy into recycling, we'd be onto something.

Two words: Pay Them.

[Richard]

For every empty lot there are costs attached long term and short term the more empty lots the more the taxpayer has to pay for in increased taxes the higher the taxes the less that will want to live there.

If they form a panel that has a building inspector,experienced contractor,and a historical representative that goes street by street and looks at every house and makes the determination of demolition or secure or rehabilitate. Behind them are the boarding crews and then the deconstruction crews then the demolisher crews.

Without the legislation and as written that is what the currant funds are for ,fast, effective,and has results.

We probably will not even get into the throwing of the $100 million dollar bone when the entire $500 mil is supposed to be used for this so who gets the other $400 mil? Which is not even the correct figure of allotted funds to begin with.

[Honky Tonk]

Scrappers are stealing things illegally. If they could make money off of stealing the wood, they would! Instead they leave it a valueless carcass.

That and a lot of these houses have burned in the past too, making salvage more difficult. There's a place on 15th and Grand River, Architectural Salvage I go to from time to time. They seem to do Ok with the items they carry. These kinds of places are great for a certain urban renewer mentality, but the few contractors I know say unless specified, their clients want new from the big chain stores.

[Det_ard]

"According to Community & Economic Development Director Jason Friedmann, the cost of deconstructing a building is about $25,000 versus $7,500 for demolition.
"However, once the salvaged material is sold the venture actually turns a profit, to the tune of about $15,000. Last year a house on Carpenter was deconstructed and the material was sold at a wholesale price of $40,000, with an estimated retail value of around $100,000."

Yeah, don't try any of that profitable stuff that helps start businesses and employ groups of workers with new skill sets. Just keep paying the same old wrecking companies to knock houses down into the basement. Maybe for a few extra hundred they can salt the earth there so that nothing may grow again ...

That doesn't pass the smell test, at least as any kind of large-scale replicable endeavor. Certain historic, upscale, well-preserved homes, perhaps. The other 99% of Detroit housing, NFW.

I like the idea of renovation, re-use, dismantlement and recovery and I've dropped vintagey house parts off at ASW that I didn't want to just throw in the dumpster. Unfortunately, in an average Detroit home, there's not much of real value. Certainly not enough to offset the $25K bill to recover it.

Which should be obvious to anyone with common sense. If you could pull $40K wholesale or $100K retail out of most or even a decent number of houses, you wouldn't see a tax forclosure list in Detroit with thousands and thousands of houses that won't even sell for $500.

This a nice concept but a very niche business in real life.

[Detroitnerd]

That doesn't pass the smell test, at least as any kind of large-scale replicable endeavor. Certain historic, upscale, well-preserved homes, perhaps. The other 99% of Detroit housing, NFW.

Well, that's funny, because there it is in black-and-white, from an official source. And yet you're still skeptical? Well, given the way we've all been subsidizing the demolition of the city center and sprawl on the exurban edge, nobody is motivated to come up with good answers; we already fund the bad ones!

If you used the money we currently fund demolitions with to subsidize rehabs, repurposings, upgrades or, if all else fails, deconstruction, who knows what we could have? And if home deconstruction means leaving a site that doesn't need to be remediated, so much the better for us all.

Personally, I'm a little more interested in what these entrepreneurs and public officials have to say in black-and-white than the dismissal of a person who knows nothing about these new tactics.

[Eber Brock Ward]

Great post, nerd.

[EASTSIDE CAT 67-83]

bump..kudos

[313WX]

The fact of the matter is the vast majority of the vacant properties in Detroit won't be candidates for reinvestment or redevelopment any time soon. Instead, in neighborhoods such as Osborn and Warrendale, they will harbor drug dealers and atract scrappers who only make the neighborhoods more crime ridden. Furthermore, the dilspitated ptoperties only drag down the property values of the homeowners who are trying to hang in there and do right by their city, despite getting screwed every which way.

Will the demolition of these properties solves all of Detroit's problems? No way, but it's certainly a start at stabilizing the areas that continue to rapidly decline.

As far as what will replace these properties when they're gone, well that's what intelligent planning and zoning laws is for. Don't authorize the construction of a farm or strip mall on an otherwise urban commercial strip.

[Richard]

The funds which were a part of the bank settlement stemming from the foreclosure crises.

They were intended to help the hardest hit areas to include foreclosure assistance leagle help,payment to those who have already have gone through the foreclosure process [[average payment $1500), neighborhood stabilization including the boarding,securing and demolition of bank owned homes in "the hardest hit neighborhoods" or whatever it took to reestablish.

The original intent already allowed for what is being proposed which in turn is being used to broaden the scope of the original intent to other areas.

In short the original intent already covered demolitions in the hardest hit neighborhoods so why is there a need to pass legislation to broaden the scope? You can already guess which neighborhoods will receive the funds and which will remain hardest hit.

MSHDA said it wanted to use $100 million to tear down
MSHDA said 4,000 properties could be demolished working with land banks, local agencies and nonprofit groups.

$100 million to tear down 4000 properties?

This is using funds to prop up local agency's,how much of it is really going to reach its intended target based on past history?

DN is spot on an addition would be in cases of Marathon who demolished many solid homes that could have been relocated,the same with the 26 plus in the proposed freeway expansion and used as infill to reestablish neighborhoods,it seems to work well elsewhere and are common conditions.

[Detroitnerd]

I understand your point, 313WX, but deconstructing houses does more than just turn a profit, employ more people, leave something easier to redevelop, as well as being good for the environment.

Deconstructed houses are not there anymore. Drug dealers and scrappers cannot hang out in houses that are not there anymore.

[Richard]

The thing is drug dealers can always hang out, they do not need a empty building and to use that as justification for demolition is dirvirting from the main reason they are hanging out.

The whole thing behind neighborhood revitalization is to place the taxpayer into the home which in turn creates a solid neighborhood and forces the drug dealers to hang out elsewhere.

[Detroitnerd]

Jesus. With shenanigans like this and the sweetheart prison deal, tell me again why businesses from other parts of the country would want to locate in a bass-ackward, graft-choked Chinatown like Michigan?

[Bham1982]

I'm not opposed to demolitions, but I don't exactly understand the end-game. It's not like demolitions do anything positive for the surrounding neighborhoods or help prevent future abandonment. Drug dealers and squatters will just move on to the next property.

Is the end-game just a giant meadow from 8 Mile to the river? I just don't see where this is headed.

I don't have a better solution, though. Maybe just highly targeted demolitions? Or more efforts at preventing abandonment in the first place?

[DetroitPlanner]

I'm not opposed to demolitions, but I don't exactly understand the end-game. It's not like demolitions do anything positive for the surrounding neighborhoods or help prevent future abandonment.

Is the end-game just a giant meadow from 8 Mile to the river? I just don't see where this is headed. Try living next to squatting drugged out hookers who constantly try to steal your water and electricity while you try to deny them access to it because they will never go away if you do. Its not fun.

I don't have a better solution, though. Maybe just highly targeted demolitions? Or more efforts at preventing abandonment in the first place?

Try living next to a home that needs to be torn down. They become magnets for blight, illegal activity, and vermin. Try living next to squatting drugged out hookers who are intent on stealing your water and electricity while you are intent on starving them from it in hopes they will leave. Its not fun.

Some of the currently abandoned homes can be saved and rehabilitated, but from an economic perspective, that number is very small. You will sink way more money into it than you will ever get out of it. If it was true that these homes were valuable, then the market would have picked them up long ago.

[Bham1982]

Try living next to a home that needs to be torn down. They become magnets for blight, illegal activity, and vermin.

I totally agree; if I were living next-door, I would want it torn down, pronto.

I'm speaking more from a macro perspective. Where is this all headed?

If I were a drug dealer or a squatter, housing demolition wouldn't impact my lifestyle choice. It would be a temporary inconvenience. And the supply/demand imbalance in Detroit isn't affected either.