Detroit sues Bloomfield Hills company over blighted, hazardous land on city’s west side
Can-Am International Trade Crossing created the mess in a predominantly Black and lower-income neighborhood
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Vanessa Butterworth
Site of the proposed concrete crushing plant in Detroit's Core City neighborhood.
The city of Detroit is suing a Bloomfield Hills company that turned a vacant lot into a hazardous eyesore that is endangering residents in the Core City neighborhood.
The lawsuit filed this month in Wayne County Circuit Court alleges Can-Am International Trade Crossing dumped large mounds of dirt, concrete, and other hazardous debris at the site on the city’ west side and erected an electrical fence without getting any of the proper permits or conducting an environmental risk survey.
In December, the Detroit Building, Safety Engineering and Environmental Department (BSEED) rejected the company’s proposal to operate a concrete crushing plant in the predominantly Black and low-income neighborhood.
The property is zoned as a vacant lot and cannot be used as a dumping ground without city approval.
Despite the rejection, the company used the site to illegally dump solid waste and a create recycling transfer station, the lawsuit alleges.
The property “is a blight on the community and presents an imminent threat to the health, safety, and welfare of the public,” the lawsuit states. “The condition of the property directly threatens the health, safety, and welfare of neighboring residents and those who must pass the property when using public sidewalks and streets, in addition to constituting a common law public nuisance.”
The city also sued the property owners, Patricia Kent and Murray D. Wikol.
Under the company’s proposal, the plant would have received raw demolished concrete from throughout the state before processing and placing it in a raw stockpile up to 32 feet high.
Residents urged the city to reject the proposal, saying the facility would have created dust, noise, exhaust fumes, and other chemicals within a block of a school, church, and an urban farm that provides food to more than 500 people. They also said it would have brought 50 to 60 exhaust-spewing dump trucks to the site a day, using crumbling roads.
Residents added that they were worried about a nearby bridge that is deteriorating with exposed reinforcing steel. Another concern was that the area floods a lot and could turn the concrete dust and dirt into a messy, contaminated slurry.
Venessa Butterworth
The proposed site of a concrete crushing plant at 4445 Lawton St. in Core City in Detroit.
Protesters converged near the site on Dec. 14, saying the proposal was another example of environmental racism.
Nearly 1,700 have signed an online petition urging the city to oppose the site plan.
In the lawsuit, the city is asking a judge to declare the site a “public nuisance” and order the company and property owners to immediately remove debris and clean up the blight. If the company refuses to act swiftly, the city is urging a judge to appoint a receiver to clean up the property and then sell it to recover the costs of the clean-up.
The property, the city argues, is “blighted, illegally occupied, unsafe and/or dangerous as a public nuisance and danger to the safety and welfare of the public.”
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