The land beneath Detroit’s recently renovated former train station Michigan Central is currently zoned for M4, which is meant for “intensive industrial.” What that means is that an M4 district can “permit uses which are usually objectionable and … is rarely, if ever, located adjacent to residential districts.” The current zoning designations were adopted in 1940 and are overdue for a change.
Michigan Central held its first rezoning community meeting last Wednesday at Newlab, part of a wider community engagement strategy to educate and hear from residents on plans to downzone from M4 to B5, which would make it a business district.
Owner Ford Motor Company wants Michigan Central to host new retail storefronts. However, the reason for downzoning from an M4 district to a B5 district is to allow for the opening of a hotel inside of Michigan Central, which is planned for the top two to three floors. There is currently no hotel operator identified for the project and the parcel of land must be rezoned before any of the hotel operations can begin to be built out.
The meeting was hosted by Michigan Central’s director of community engagement Cornetta Lane-Smith, Detroit City Planning Commission’s Kimani Jeffrey, and Michigan Central’s head of place Melissa Dittmer. The crowd was fairly small but Detroit residents were given plenty of time to ask the three hosts questions.
“The size of the crowd speaks to how routine this process is rather than something a bit more controversial,” Michigan Central’s director of communications Dan Austin tells Metro Times. “Most residents are happy to know we are making ourselves available at these meetings and are holding office hours.”
Although turnout for the meeting was relatively low, the matter was highly significant for those that did come out. Many of the questions concerned the near-future effects of bringing in new businesses to the neighborhood — including concerns over parking, the future of neighboring land parcels, and what types of businesses would be brought into Michigan Central.
Laura Chavez, president and CEO of the Southwest Detroit Business Association, was especially concerned about the impact on existing local businesses, noting “we don’t want there to be casualties from this development.”
Dittmer explained that the strategy is “to make sure we are additive to the existing retail community, especially the mom and pop ecosystem that exists around us. … Everything that we are doing in terms of thinking through that ground floor strategy is with that in mind.”
“My one ask is to make sure we are at the table for those conversations,” Chavez responded. “There is the potential to hurt the community with the wrong retail.”
Michigan Central seems to have taken note.
“[Chavez] brought up a valid concern about the negative impact on the already existing businesses,” Austin tells Metro Times. “We are looking to bring in local businesses, not chains that will compete with existing brick and mortar stores in the neighborhood. The point is to add to the neighborhood and not take away from it, and that is why we are putting a heavy emphasis on community engagement.”
The politics of rezoning can be quite boring. However, it has the potential to benefit residents and local businesses — and can even help reimagine Detroit as we know. With several parcels across the city stuck in the history of their zoning and not being used, downzoning to a residential district could help with other issues the city is facing.
“We have a rental crisis going on and part of that is because there is not enough residential,” Vanessa Serna of Core City Strong tells Metro Times. “People are interested in living in Corktown, North Corktown, and Core City, but there is not enough housing here.”
Although Detroit’s population declined by about 8,000 residents from 2021 to 2022 and has shown very little change since, an increase in housing — and, specifically, affordable housing — would not only allow for more people to move to the city, but it could also address the blight problem. Downzoning districts where industrial buildings sit empty could allow for developers to come in and put in new builds, whether businesses or residential.
Another reason for downzoning is to limit which businesses come into a neighborhood. In late 2022, Can-Am International Trade Crossing was denied a permit to build and operate an open-air, high-impact concrete crushing facility. Had it not been for activists and Core City residents collecting signatures, hosting community gatherings, and getting support from political figures like Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib and Senator Stephanie Chang, a concrete crusher would have been someone’s neighbor.
“A concrete crusher can come into areas designated as M4,” Serna explains. “There are swaths of land developers can build on but they don’t want to if there is concrete dust flying around.”
This type of intensive industrial would undoubtedly be harmful to the city’s growth and current residents, the latter being subject to both health concerns and property devaluation. This is where downzoning is beneficial to long-time residents.
“Across the city, communities are having to deal with the intensive industrial in their neighborhoods and this is one way to stop it from coming in,” Serna says. “This downzoning will enable our community to breathe a sigh of relief, move forward, and be able to beautify our neighborhoods.”
Serna adds, “This area has been underserviced for decades. To bring in more people, to bring in more businesses, means they are going to fix our roads and clean up our neighborhoods more.”
Although rezoning concerns specific parcels of land, the politics of zoning has far-reaching consequences — for better or worse. When it comes to District 6 of Detroit, though, City Council Member Gabriela Santiago-Romero has made it clear that downzoning is a priority.
“I want to make sure that we continue to downzone intensive industrial areas in order to open neighborhoods up to more small businesses and housing,” Santiago-Romero tells Metro Times. “There was a lot of downzoning work done by my predecessor, Raquel Castañeda-López, and we are going to revisit that and finish what she started.”
Overall, the downzoning of Michigan Central stands to benefit from a popular neighborhood while adding a new value to a historic landmark. What seems more promising, though, is the potential of more downzoning to come.
“Downzoning, especially for industrial areas that are also heavily residential, is almost always going to positively impact us,” Santiago-Romero adds.
Michigan Central is holding open office hours from 10 a.m. to noon on Feb. 20, March 19, and April 16 for residents to ask questions and be heard. In February the City Planning Commission will host a public hearing and another community meeting open to the public will be held at Newlab in April or May.
City Council is set to hear and vote on the downzoning in May.
Subscribe to Metro Times newsletters.
Follow us: Google News | NewsBreak | Reddit | Instagram | Facebook | Twitter
