Detroit gets $8.9 million for green infrastructure projects

[MSUguy]

The US Department of Housing & Urban Development [[HUD) has awarded Detroit an $8.9 million grant to demolish blighted homes and use vacant lots to control storm water, reduce flooding and beautify our neighborhoods.
This grant is in addition to the City’s annual funding and comes from the HUD Community Development Block Grant [[CDBG) Sanction Fund, which is comprised of funds recaptured from cities that failed to spend their annual allocation.

This is the first time the city has been eligible for additional funding. Historically, Detroit’s been in jeopardy of losing millions of dollars every year based on the City’s inability to manage its federal funds.
In the past two years, the City has significantly improved its management and usage of these funds, to the point where HUD has awarded Detroit the largest-ever allocation from the CDBG Sanction Fund.
This grant comes almost exactly a year after a 100 year flood devastated homes and businesses throughout the City of Detroit.

On August 11, 2014, a series of storms rolled through Metro Detroit, dumping more rain in a single day than the City has experienced in 89 years. Nearly 66,000 Detroit homes flooded and many basements were destroyed. FEMA spent more than $100 million helping Detroit residents and small business owners recover from their devastating loss. Many others simply didn’t qualify for assistance.

As weather patterns change, rain events like this could become more common. That’s why it critical for Detroit to find alternative ways to manage storm water to protect our homes, businesses and neighborhoods.
Thanks to HUD, Detroit is moving one step closer towards that goal.
Using this special allocation, the City will spend $8.9 million on green projects that will both improve the appearance of our neighborhoods and keep more storm water out of our sewers and our basements.
The projects will be concentrated in 5 neighborhoods:
Aviation Sub & Islandview
• Demolish approximately 115 residential and commercial properties
• Beautify up to 200 existing vacant lots with landscaping that can manage storm water
• Direct storm water into bio-retention basins that will hold rainwater and help reduce flooding
Brightmoor, McDougall-Hunt, Mt. Elliott
• Install trees and landscaping on vacant lots
• Work with DWSD to design large storm water retention projects that could be built in other Detroit neighborhoods.
Work is scheduled to begin before the end of this year.

http://www.detroitmi.gov/News/Articl...the-Next-Storm

[DetroiterOnTheWestCoast]

Good news that the city is now managing its funds well enough to warrant additional grants!

[RaumVogel]

The whole "cities that failed to spend their annual allocation" thing is part of the problem.Don't make government funded anything waste money just so they can have a bigger budget next year.
And if you take the excess and give it to another city,they will make sure to "go over budget" next year!

[stasu1213]

I had always wondered was Detroit's inability to spend their annual allocation due to incompetency or control and corruption. Were certain areas allowed to deteriorate with dilapidated structures standing for long periods of time so that the property value in these areas would drop so low that corporate interest could purchase the area for little or nothing

[Jason]

RaumVogel: Grant money like this is awarded to cities for specific types of projects based on how relevant the cities are to the goals of the project. The projects don't exist without the grant money and once the grant money goes away so do the projects.

These programs have goals and they are budgeted money for the purpose of improving things. This one is about managing storm water affordably using natural processes [[trees, etc.). If Detroit can't get its act together to spend the money to improve storm water management, then the program won't waste it's time, and it will send the money to somewhere else who will. The goal is not to spend money, it is to manage stormwater better.

stasu1213: If property values are so low then the land is worthless. If the land had a lot of value to corporate interests then the land would be valuable to them and would no longer be cheap. I mean Dan Gilbert doesn't go around dumping radioactive waste into buildings he wants to buy to make them cheaper, and I think even the factories would prefer not to be surrounded by post-apocalyptic wasteland. It's sad to think it, but it's incompetence.

[gvidas]

http://bldgblog.blogspot.com/2015/08...er-basins.html
Short summary of a stormwater project in Milwaukee:

As the city explains it, a "BaseTern" is "an underground stormwater management or rainwater harvesting structure created from the former basement of an abandoned home that has been slated for demolition." Why is the city doing this?

By using abandoned basements, the City saves the cost of demolition on these structures [[filing the basement and grading the surface) and on excavation for the new structure. In addition, BaseTerns provide significant stormwater storage capacity on a single site, the equivalent of up to 600 rain barrels.

The result, the city is keen to add, is "not an open pit. Rather a BaseTern is a covered structure, which is covered with topsoil and grass, and will appear the same as conventional vacant lot."

[Scottathew]

http://bldgblog.blogspot.com/2015/08...er-basins.html
Short summary of a stormwater project in Milwaukee:

That's a neat concept. I wouldn't mind it, as long it was used sparingly and smartly. The photo from the article shows a little pocket park on top of a BaseTern that's surrounded by buildings on either side.

Doesn't Detroit have a combined sewer\storm system? Would this be compatible with a combined system?

[archfan]

That's a neat concept. I wouldn't mind it, as long it was used sparingly and smartly. The photo from the article shows a little pocket park on top of a BaseTern that's surrounded by buildings on either side.

Doesn't Detroit have a combined sewer\storm system? Would this be compatible with a combined system?

Q. What will happen to the water in the BaseTern?
A. The BaseTern is designed to temporarily store rainwater or stormwater. Some of the designs have holes drilled into the floor to slowly infiltrate the water into the ground. Some of the designs hold the water and slowly discharge it back to the sewer after the primary flows in the sewer have receded.

Sounds like the first option would be better for Detroit.

[RaumVogel]

And it sounds like a great idea.