Would Someone Please Explain Building Code Violations

[DetroitPlanner]

These are under the Department of Adminstrative Hearings. Unfortunately, in a city that can't fill needed police and fire jobs due to budget concerns these are seen as small potatoes. Remember the last few years the foreclosures have increased exponentially at a time where the City is slashing its budget. Not an excuse, but an attempt to explain what is going on here. I for one am sick of being surrounded by empty homes that are blighting my property. If something does not happen soon I too, a professional who has lived within the City Borders most of his 44 years is leaving too.

[Gannon]

I for one am sick of being surrounded by empty homes that are blighting my property. If something does not happen soon I too, a professional who has lived within the City Borders most of his 44 years is leaving too.

Only because you are too ethical to use arson to clear the space, like some of the EVIL newbie gentrifiers who've infiltrated the North Corktown area...I say this because a proposed art house I know of was torched after some voiced complaints of how it would affect their property values. Same folks get all upset over those who farm and keep chickens on their property, too. They will burn in their own special version of hell. One of them SO pestered the city that they were moved to give a blight ticket to a fellow who later took his own life, from what I gathered that ticket was the last straw. And THAT ticket was for a pile of wood chips that he hadn't yet had the time to spread...but it was for a grand or MORE. No way anyone could bear that idiocy, or be forced to pay an attorney for the priviledge of regaining that ever-so-elusive freedom we so claim in this land.


I'm not fond of these sort of things, since they are the whole forcing their will upon the freedoms of the individual. Codes should keep some from danger, and others ON a master plan overall for zoning...but so much of it is foolishness.

Worse when you go to planned areas where they dictate relatively ridiculous rules for commercial signage that makes not a single business locatable by moving traffic. There are a few places like that in CA and GA that I've seen, and while there is some charm to seeing the standard McDonald's sign a foot off the ground with mini-golden arches...at what point has coding gone too far?!

[detr0itkid]

Only because you are too ethical to use arson to clear the space, like some of the EVIL newbie gentrifiers who've infiltrated the North Corktown area...I say this because a proposed art house I know of was torched after some voiced complaints of how it would affect their property values. Same folks get all upset over those who farm and keep chickens on their property, too. They will burn in their own special version of hell. One of them SO pestered the city that they were moved to give a blight ticket to a fellow who later took his own life, from what I gathered that ticket was the last straw. And THAT ticket was for a pile of wood chips that he hadn't yet had the time to spread...but it was for a grand or MORE. No way anyone could bear that idiocy, or be forced to pay an attorney for the priviledge of regaining that ever-so-elusive freedom we so claim in this land.


I'm not fond of these sort of things, since they are the whole forcing their will upon the freedoms of the individual. Codes should keep some from danger, and others ON a master plan overall for zoning...but so much of it is foolishness.

Worse when you go to planned areas where they dictate relatively ridiculous rules for commercial signage that makes not a single business locatable by moving traffic. There are a few places like that in CA and GA that I've seen, and while there is some charm to seeing the standard McDonald's sign a foot off the ground with mini-golden arches...at what point has coding gone too far?!

You are out of your gourd. Our neighborhood has 5-10 fires per year. It has been a hot spot for fire bugs since the 80’s. The art house was burned by one of the long time neighborhood residents who is sick of all of the gentrification [[stupid white punk rock/hippie art house included in gentrification). No one who is going for gentrification wants to live next to a burnt up house.
I’m not going to go into it on here, but Dave had a lot of other stuff going on. I don’t think you should exploit his death to make some point about how blight is ok.

[BrushStart]

You are out of your gourd. Our neighborhood has 5-10 fires per year. It has been a hot spot for fire bugs since the 80’s. The art house was burned by one of the long time neighborhood residents who is sick of all of the gentrification [[stupid white punk rock/hippie art house included in gentrification). No one who is going for gentrification wants to live next to a burnt up house.
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FYI, there is no "gentrification" in Detroit. Do you know anyone in this entire city who has been displaced and/or priced out of a neighborhood by these so-called "stupid white punk rock/hippie" people? It's really reassuring to see that some Detroiters would rather live next door to a burnt out shell of a house than next door to some new resident who will maintain the property.

[wolverine]

Incompetence. There's just so much of it. Detroit can't enforce building code violations when they lack the resources and are dealing with people they probably can't even find.

I love Chicago's accruing fines for larger delinquent properties. One here apparently got $6000 per day for every day they failed to fix the problem. I think they ended up forking over $4 million before the problems were resolved. That'll fund a pretty nice new neighborhood park.

[lincoln8740]

I love Chicago's accruing fines for larger delinquent properties. One here apparently got $6000 per day for every day they failed to fix the problem. I think they ended up forking over $4 million before the problems were resolved. That'll fund a pretty nice new neighborhood park.

Most landlords are getting the hell out of the city , you institute that Chicago plan, the pace will be even quicker.


Large fines only work if the property is worth something, Land in Detroit is basically worthless so fine/ put liens on the property all you want, people just walk away

[professorscott]

Large fines only work if the property is worth something, Land in Detroit is basically worthless so fine/ put liens on the property all you want, people just walk away

Sadly, Lincoln has hit the nail precisely on the head. There is no effective way to control blight unless the extreme end of the process - taking over the property for unpaid taxes and liens - is an effective threat. In Detroit, and seeping into some of the suburbs, the property is worth so little that this threat is of no effect. If I have nothing but lint in my pocket, and someone threatens to take everything in my pocket, that is not an effective threat.

Most of the large-scale property owners also know how to protect their companies from any other attempt to control blight. If the City was able to go after a property owner's other assets - which I don't believe it can - then the property owner can always take that particular corporate entity into bankruptcy. Also, the smart property owners have corporations own all the property, since we can't put a corporation in jail.

But the root of the problem is value. If property is valuable, blight can be controlled, and if it's not, it can't. Detroit has to find a way to make the land under the buildings worth money, and that is purely a problem for City government.

[detr0itkid]

FYI, there is no "gentrification" in Detroit. Do you know anyone in this entire city who has been displaced and/or priced out of a neighborhood by these so-called "stupid white punk rock/hippie" people? It's really reassuring to see that some Detroiters would rather live next door to a burnt out shell of a house than next door to some new resident who will maintain the property.

For the record, to gentrify, according to Webster’s, means “to convert a deteriorated or aging area in a city into a more affluent middle-class neighborhood, as by remodeling dwellings, resulting in increased property values and in displacement of the poor.”

Briggs [[aka North Cork Town) has always been bottom of the rung poor people. Most of the hillbilly, which are now mostly mixed race, families descend from people that have been in this area for 60-100 years [[3-5 generations +). They are mostly southern who came to the north so that they could avoid working in coal mines and dying of black lung disease. They were content living in their shot gun shacks, living lawlessly as if in Appalachia, and burning down houses as their cousins moved from the neighborhood to Taylor. In doing this they prevented anyone new from moving into the neighborhood. This worked fine until it became so desolate that the Corktown Development Company was able to swoop in, buy up land, demo houses, and build new houses. This brought new residents and a new way of life for the old residents. Property values on the old properties went up. Some of the residents took advantage of it and sold to urban homesteaders. Some landlords sold their apartment buildings to people who renovated them and increased rent from $300-$600 per month thus displacing people. Some people re-financed their shot gun shacks for more than market value and have since gotten foreclosed and moved out. Some of the previous residents were, and still are, thrilled to have been “Gifted” with new clean neighbors, increased aesthetics, increased police presence, and increased property values. However, equally as many of the old residents are resentful of this change which has been forced on them. I know who burnt down the art house, he is more or less ok with the revitalization, but does not understand the dynamics of the “freaky people” who were going to be taking over that house. He has a ton of kids and didn’t want that to be around them.
I personally am for the gentrification and am participating in it, however I am aware that the previous residents are “victims” of this change and sympathize with them. I would never actively try to change their way of life but I am well aware that my actions to “improve” the neighborhood are causing the demise of their way of life which has been going on for over 100 years. Obviously it is not reassuring that someone, in an effort to “preserve” their neighborhood, would burn down a house. But I see where the frustration comes from. Some people are so poor and uneducated that they cannot do anything else to stop this invasion of their neighborhood. The only option he knew was to burn it down so he did. From a gentrificationist standpoint, I am not thrilled having people coming into the neighborhood seeing a 3X burnt shell of a house just sitting there, but as a sympathetic human being I understand why it was done and will not interfere with this guys perceived right to keep certain things, which he deems unacceptable, from his neighborhood.