Detroit to businesses: Clean up your blight

Detroit's fight to reduce blight has begun to focus more on vacant, dilapidated business properties marring the city's landscape, with city lawyers quietly taking dozens of property owners to court in recent months to get them to either fix up or demolish their buildings.

A team of six lawyers in Detroit's Law Department has brought more than 50 lawsuits in Wayne County Circuit Court against commercial property owners in the last nine months, many targeting blighted buildings that help tarnish neighborhoods.

Targeted so far have been the owners of properties ranging from a large, dilapidated apartment complex on the city's west side, to a downtown high-rise and even a two-family duplex near Indian Village, one of the Detroit's more stable neighborhoods.

The aim is to get those properties rehabilitated or torn down, and to put others on notice that the days are numbered for speculators who buy buildings in Detroit and let them decay, said the city's top lawyer, corporation counsel Melvin (Butch) Hollowell.

"We're filing two to three cases a week now, and we're ramping up," Hollowell told the Free Press. Many of the property owners live outside Detroit and even out of state "and have felt for too long that they could let the properties deteriorate without consequence. Clearly those days are over."

Even though vacant and blighted homes far outnumber empty or crumbling business spaces, the fight against commercial blight is in many ways as challenging as the city's effort to tear down 200 houses a week or, through the Detroit Land Bank, get negligent property owners to fix up and reoccupy salvageable homes or risk deeding them to the city, which resells them at auction.

A survey of properties citywide released last year by the Detroit Blight Removal Task Force, convened by President Barack Obama's administration, found nearly 85,000 blighted properties, homes and other buildings in Detroit; more than 5,400 were vacant commercial, civic and church properties.

Hollowell said the city's bankruptcy plan of adjustment — its plan for operating city government after Detroit emerged from Chapter 9 protection in December — set aside quality-of-life money for his department to hire additional lawyers to tackle the commercial side of blight.

City lawyers are using nuisance-abatement laws similar to those used by the Detroit Land Bank Authority to force negligent residential property owners to either fix up vacant, decaying homes or deed them to the land bank, which then auctions them on www.buildingdetroit.org. The cases are heard by chief Wayne County Circuit Judge Robert Colombo Jr.

So far, property owners the city has taken to court include:

■ Ralph Sachs, a significant property owner in Detroit, who the city sued last summer to get exterior repairs, graffiti removal and windows boarded up safely at the Park Avenue Building at 2001 Park downtown, court records show. The suit was settled, "and we're taking steps to comply with what the city wanted us to do," Sachs' lawyer, Paul Swanson, said Monday.

■ Global Premier Asset Services and Premier One Management, owners of a dilapidated apartment complex at 2901 W. Chicago between Linwood and Dexter on the city's west side. Representatives of the owners, who could not be located Monday, did not respond to summons in the case filed in October, and Colombo ordered the property deeded to the city in February, court records show.

■ The owner of 12300 Greenfield, a crumbling building just south of I-96 on the city's west side. A representative for the company could not be located, and the company had not responded in court Monday afternoon. The city wants the building torn down, calling it beyond repair. Detroit will bill owners whose buildings must be demolished by the city.

■ Frank Mabry Jr., owner of 14115 E. Jefferson on the city's east side. Detroit won an order in February for the owner to remove trees growing from a roof, along with roof repairs, windows boarded up, trash, peeling paint and graffiti removed and other repairs, court record show. Mabry has until July 29 to have the building either certified in compliance or torn down.

Reached Monday, Mabry and his wife, Marchele, who live in New York, said they were stymied by fraudulent actions by nearby property owners and no cooperation from the city in an effort to turn the building into a counseling and service center for military veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder, through a nonprofit agency they established.

Mabry Jr., retired from the U.S. Marine Corps, and his wife said they're still trying to round up support for the center, but they harbor hard feelings for the city.

"Our family has suffered horrendously," Marchele Mabry said.

■ Cheryl Huff, owner of a two-family flat at 1501 Parker in the city's Indian Village neighborhood. The home suffered fire damage on the upper flat and had been unoccupied, leading to numerous complaints to the city from neighbors, said assistant corporate counsel Megan Moslimani.

The city won an agreement with Huff for the city to have the home demolished, with costs repaid by Huff. The city said she has paid in full. Huff declined comment Monday.

Hollowell said the commercial blight fight so far is focusing mostly on neighborhoods, not major commercial corridors.

He said the effort is closely aligned with efforts to remove and stabilize blight in neighborhoods hit hard by mortgage foreclosures, and most of the suits are taking place in areas where the land bank is actively bringing suits against negligent owners of vacant, neglected homes.

Hollowell said the city may, at some point, move toward action larger commercial blight spots, from empty manufacturing plants to vacant places such as the old Southwest Detroit Hospital, but the aim for now is "to have the biggest impact on neighborhoods."

With vacant homes and businesses being targeted at the same time, "those who live in the neighborhoods will see an impact right away," Hollowell said. "Rome wasn't built in a day, but given the number of resources we have, we feel like it's best to do it in a coordinated fashion ... We've made a good start, and we're pleased with the results."

Contact Matt Helms: 313-222-1450 or mhelms@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @matthelms.

To report a blighted property

Residents may register complaints about the condition of residential or commercial property including code violations, failure to maintain the property, rodent infestation and inoperable vehicles. Residents must include their own name, address and phone number, along with the property location and address.

Phone: Contact the Property Maintenance Call Center at 313-628-2451

Mail: Buildings, Safety Engineering and Environmental Department; Attn: Property Maintenance Division; Coleman A. Young Municipal Center; 2 Woodward Avenue, Room 412, Detroit, MI 48226