Schuette slams Detroit Dem for blight, OKs it for billionaire investor | Opinion

Nancy Kaffer | Detroit Free Press

GOP gubernatorial candidate Bill Schuette is appalled by the condition of an apartment building owned by Democratic lieutenant governor candidate Garlin Gilchrist II in Detroit's North End. The property on Marston Street, Schuette says, is so disgraceful, and Gilchrist's failure to rehabilitate it so egregious, that Gilchrist, Democratic gubernatorial candidate Gretchen Whitmer's running mate, should resign from the race.

The North End apartment building is in bad shape, no doubt. Despite the money Gilchrist has poured into the building, it's not yet inhabitable, and the neighbors on Marston Street have justifiable complaints. Blight is one of Detroit's most intractable problems, and there's no denying the physical and psychological toll it takes.

Kaffer: Rehabilitation for a train station, and the Moroun family that let it rot

Kaffer: Ford wants $240M for Detroit train station rehab: Are you kidding me?

But when Schuette slams Gilchrist's ownership of a blighted, vacant building, he's not just reducing a complicated story about land ownership and barriers to property rehabilitation in this city to a political jab. He's tacitly acknowledging a double standard many longtime Detroiters recognize: All too often, Detroiters are held to one standard, while billionaire investors get carte blanche.

As Michigan's attorney general, Schuette effectively signed off on generous public subsidies for the construction of the Ilitch family's $864 million Little Caesars Arena, issuing a 2014 opinion that OK'd the Detroit's Downtown Development Authority collection of Detroit school taxes to fund the private development, a public benefit of $324 million.

The Ilitches have a track record of property ownership that's rife with blight on a vast scale. They pursued a 15-year strategy to acquire property in the arena's footprint, often leaving some structures in disrepair. Ilitch-owned properties continued to rack up blight tickets as recently as this summer.

But in an interview this week, Schuette wouldn't talk about that.

More: Whitmer's running mate meets deadline to fix blighted Detroit house

More: Who is Garlin Gilchrist? Father, tech expert, Whitmer running mate

"I’m not, I’m not going to comment, nor am I agreeing, you’re charging the Ilitches have a shoddy, spotty, whatever it is, record," Schuette said. "... My point is that I’m not commenting on the Ilitches’ blighted property record, I think that, frankly, Ilitch plus Penske plus Gilbert and a whole bunch of private investments have caused a rebirth in Detroit, and quite frankly, I think that is significant. And I want to encourage more of that."

The 2014 opinion, Schuette said, was "a sound, solid decision, and I’m not going to make any apologies on that."

Nor would Schuette discuss whether, as governor, he would find it appropriate to offer public tax subsidies to other private land owners who oversee blighted properties, or who owe back taxes, as the Ilitch family did during arena deal negotiations

"I'm not going to get into the blighted issue," he said. "I want Detroit to grow. Detroit is a city of 138 square miles. We’ve seen a huge renaissance, and the issue is how do you help build that out, and I want to help build that out. Frankly, I’m Detroit’s best hope. You may disagree with that."

When it comes to Gilchrist, Schuette isn't quite as forgiving.

Garlin and Ellen Gilchrist aren't deep-pocketed developers or billionaire business owners.

The Gilchrists' bought the Marston Street building, a multi-family property rare for a Detroit Land Bank Authority auction, back in 2016, for $13,500, half of the $27,000 auction price. Because Gilchrist was a city employee, he was eligible for a 50 percent discount.

"We are not real estate developers so much as people who thought we could bring this building back to life in a part of the city that has meaning to us," said Gilchrist, who played Police Athleltic League basketball as a child at the former Considine Rec Center on Woodward Avenue in the North End, told me this week.

The building was badly damaged, and Gilchrist and wife Ellen borrowed against their home to start work. He says they spent around $200,000 on cleanup of the interior, repairing or removing parts of the structure, leveling the foundation, replacing some windows, fixing the porch and the roof, and on architectural plans and surveys required for the full renovation of the building.

Then the Gilchrists ran out of cash.

Gilchrist left the city shortly after buying the Marston Street property to run for Detroit City Clerk in 2017.

"We've been to a lot of different lenders and had a lot of fits and starts," Gilchrist said. "There are still challenges to get some renovation financing."

The Gilchrists aren't alone. Detroit has no shortage of housing, or buildings in need of rehab. But funds to complete those rehabs can be difficult to obtain.

Lenders still view Detroit rehabilitation loans as high-risk, with some justification, said Mac Farr, executive director of the Villages Community Development Corporation on Detroit's east side.

"It’s still a touch-and-go activity," he said. "If it works out, it works out very well. If not, it’s disastrous."

A would-be borrower without a track record of completing successful rehabs, Farr said, is at a deep disadvantage: "In the neighborhoods, it's still bootstrappy mom-and-pop (rehabbers) this stuff."

Gilchrist's North End property is an eyesore. And there's no question about that, or that Gilchrist, who bought the eight-unit apartment building back in 2016, should have done better.

That's something Gilchrist himself acknowledges, saying he's dissatisfied with the progress he's made: "We’re still trying to work to get financing. This has been a two-year process, and we are committed to still trying to figure this out. This is something that is important to Ellen and I. We started it and we want to finish it."

It's an explanation that's unlikely to sway Schuette. Maybe Gilchrist should have asked for a multi-million-dollar subsidy, instead?

Nancy Kaffer is a Detroit Free Press columnist. Contact: nkaffer@freepress.com.