{"id":11323,"date":"2014-11-18T05:00:37","date_gmt":"2014-11-18T13:00:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.yardi.com\/blog\/?p=11323"},"modified":"2021-02-03T15:47:45","modified_gmt":"2021-02-03T23:47:45","slug":"on-the-urban-prairie","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.yardi.com\/blog\/on-the-urban-prairie\/","title":{"rendered":"On the Urban Prairie"},"content":{"rendered":"

Drive out of Detroit\u2019s Downtown and Midtown neighborhoods, away from the historic skyscrapers and abandoned ruins of once-grand buildings, and you are quickly amidst a whole different kind of surreal scene. Once densely packed with people, Detroit\u2019s \"Adamoutlying single family home neighborhoods have suffered immensely from the city\u2019s ongoing depopulation.<\/p>\n

Across the city\u2019s 149 square miles, nearly every neighborhood had 15 percent of its homes abandoned or foreclosed. There are still an estimated 80,000 structures left standing. This summer, the federal government pushed Detroit to spend $850 million to tear down 40,000 of them in the long slogging war against blight.<\/p>\n

Adam Hollier, Detroit native, Cornell graduate, and former City Council liaison for the Detroit Mayor\u2019s office, sees the city\u2019s sparsely peopled suburbs as an opportunity for change, and a new way of looking at urban life \u2013 one with plenty of open space.<\/p>\n

Hollier\u2019s new job isn\u2019t in politics or real estate, but on Detroit\u2019s vast urban prairie. Working for Hantz Farms, he leads a small team that planted 15,000 trees this summer in one of Detroit\u2019s declining western neighborhoods. Hantz Farms purchased 1700 parcels, totaling 150 acres, from the city to create their \u201cWoodlands,\u201d where the grass and trash that covers houseless lots has been cleared. John Hantz, CEO and owner of Hantz Farms, lives in Indian Village, a historic neighborhood just a few streets away.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat we\u2019re doing clears the way so that other people can invest in the neighborhood. The goal is that that will bring other investment in housing or commercial real estate. It\u2019s very similar to what Dan Gilbert is doing downtown, in that you know you\u2019re throwing good money after good money,\u201d Hollier explained.<\/p>\n

The results of the clearing are impressive. From a lot that hasn\u2019t yet been worked over, overgrown bushes spilled onto what would have once been a neighborhood street. Trash is everywhere \u2013 old tires, pieces of burnt wood, broken glass bottles.\u00a0 Five houses might now sit on a street where there were once 25, shoehorned into tiny 30\u2019\u2019 by 60\u2019\u2019 lots. \u00a0It\u2019s on the blocks where the debris has been cleared that the urban prairie really looks like a prairie.<\/p>\n

\u201cNow you can see four, five, six blocks in any direction,\u201d Hollier pointed out \u201cAnd if you don\u2019t talk for two seconds it sounds like you\u2019re in the country. Which is a really weird thing when you\u2019re four miles from downtown.\u201d<\/p>\n

Over the next two summers, the Hantz team plans to plant an additional 30,000 trees. Some parcels may be used for farming \u2013 two ventures, growing mushrooms and hops \u2013 are in the planning stages.<\/p>\n

Produce and jobs<\/b><\/p>\n

Hantz Farms isn\u2019t the only company working on new life for the urban prairie. Gary Wozniack is a man with a dream of repurposing 310 acres of vacant, city-owned land for high-yield agriculture, and simultaneously creating up to 700 jobs, most paying $10 an hour. It\u2019s a 20 year plan that will begin in to ramp up with the first 25 acres over the next year.<\/p>\n

The work would be suitable for employees with limited education and professional skills, including those who have done prison time or struggled with addiction, a type of opportunity that is sorely needed but rarely available in Detroit.<\/p>\n

\"Gary\u201cWe have a huge untrained labor force, probably upwards of 200,000 adults in the city,\u201d said Wozniack, a native Detroiter and RecoveryParks President\/CEO. This summer, the unemployment rate has hovered above 14 percent.<\/p>\n

This fall, RecoveryPark expects to finalize its initial land deal with the city, purchasing the farm\u2019s first 25 for just $1. The purchase will include the crumbling historic Chene-Ferry Market, an open air structure covered with trash that will become a headquarters for the operation.<\/p>\n

The neighborhood where RecoveryPark will grow is even harder hit by abandonment than Hantz\u2019 Woodlands blocks. It\u2019s located on the city\u2019s near east side, not far from the commercial New Center. But instead of 6 houses per block, here often only one or two remain. Without any mediation efforts , neighbors are left to cut the grass of dozens of empty lots or contend with trash and furniture dumped near their homes.<\/p>\n

RecoveryPark \u00a0won\u2019t ask the remaining residents to live the area, but it will drastically change their neighborhood and bring jobs next door.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you drive through this neighborhood, because it\u2019s so de-populated, we feel that if you bring 700 jobs here eventually the housing developers are going to come along. And after the housing is built, the commercial strip mall people will see there\u2019s jobs here, housing here, maybe people need a place to buy chips,\u201d Wozniack said.<\/p>\n

Much of the farming operations will be housed in greenhouses and plastic-covered high tunnels, which are suitable for growing delicious healthy produce year round. The plan is to distribute to restaurants and grocers within a 300 mile radius, ensuring that food can get from the farm to its ultimate destination \u2013 the dinner table \u2013 in less than 24 hours.<\/p>\n

Hantz and Wozniak\u2019s projects on the prairie are two of the larger scale examples of how Detroit is putting its vast open spaces to new use. Community gardens are also popping up, some to feed the hungry and homeless, others simply to feed the neighborhood. Grocery shopping options are limited in the neighborhoods hardest hit by home abandonment.<\/p>\n

John Mogk, a law professor at Wayne State University who is involved with the city\u2019s master planning efforts, says it took two years to get Detroit city zoning changed so that agriculture operations were possible in the city limits. He\u2019s excited to see urban agriculture coming online, but says that so far, the small community gardens \u2013 counted at 1400 and growing\u00a0 — are just scratching the surface.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have 40 square miles of vacant land in Detroit,\u201d Mogk explained. The city\u2019s new master plan, which will be completed in 2015, is expected to expand land use opportunities for a prairie that was never part of anyone\u2019s urban plan.<\/p>\n