He's back, and this time he wants Palmer Park.

He, of course, is Rod Lockwood, who we will politely call "an eccentric developer" with ideas we will politely call "absolutely nuts" about Detroit's public spaces and what should be done with them.

The last time Lockwood reared his head, it was Belle Isle in his sights. Back in 2013, the wealthy suburbanite hatched a plan to purchase Belle Isle from the city (for one billllioooon dollars) and more or less secede from the country, making the then-city park into a Hong-Kong-style protectorate organized according to philosopher Ayn Rand's laissez-faire capitalist principles.

Lockwood envisioned a wealthy poured-concrete enclave free of moochers, government benefits, and, apparently, women, all articulated in what we'll politely call a "self-published novel" describing the glories of this island fiefdom some 30 years hence.

Although Lockwood won support, to varying degrees, from a slew of prominent local businessmen, his Belle Isle scheme was a non-starter for many, many reasons, ranging from "it's a really stupid plan" to "this is not constitutionally possible," "no one, from the city to the state to the feds, would go for this," to "good God, it's a REALLY stupid plan."

More:Turn Palmer Park into futuristic new development? This pair wants to do it

And despite those prominent Detroit businessmen, no one really took this toolbox seriously, and an ongoing plan to make Belle Isle a state park moved forward without any real interference from Team Rand.

But six years to the day after Lockwood unveiled an addition meant to sweeten his Belle Isle proposal (when no one bit on the Belle Isle plan, Lockwood offered an expansion that would turn the east Riverfront into a staging area where the Belle Isle elite could garage their cars and house their servants), here he comes again, with a plan for a "futuristic" development at Detroit's beloved Palmer Park.

"Palmer Square," as proposed by Lockwood and partner Larry Mongo, the downtown bar owner who was also a backer of Lockwood's Belle Isle plan, would occupy about half the roughly 300-acre park, and comprise mixed-use buildings, luxury condo towers, old-world retail with cascading vegetation and a central lake with a "flying carpet" undulating play area for kids. (No word yet on whether "Palmer Square" would require secession.)

Never mind that there is no apparent demand for mixed-use residential and retail development at Palmer Park, located in a high-density, stable part of Detroit, or that the park is well-used by Detroiters and supported by People for Palmer Park, an active nonprofit, or that per the land's deed restrictions, it must remain a park. None of this, it seems, matters to Lockwood.

And frankly, I thought we were done with this kind of thing.

Just a few weeks ago, I told my editor that it might be fun to do a retrospective of Big Bad Ideas people have had for Detroit.

Not your garden-variety bad plans, but the kind of fake solutions to real problems people only feel empowered to lob at a city that's down on its luck: the Belle Isle protectorate and gondolas across the river, the Michael Jackson theme park, the Maharishi transcendental meditation task force and that one time Donald Trump met with Coleman Young about building a casino here (and what wouldn't you give to have been a fly on the wall at that meeting?).

I was a little nostalgic for the absolutely nutballs plans some folks cooked up, but it seemed like a sign of progress. There's a lot of work left to do, and it's not happening fast enough, but we're searching for real solutions to our problems.

It seems Lockwood hasn't been paying attention.

After attending a Lockwood press event back in 2013, I wrote that the businessman's plans were ridiculous, and we'd already wasted too much time talking about them:

"I’d like to make a modest proposal of my own: Let's stop. Next time I’m invited to a Lockwood-organized luncheon, I’ll go out to Belle Isle and pick up some litter. Maybe Lockwood can chip in with some new equipment for the Detroit Mower Gang, a group of volunteers that maintains public parks." (The Belle Isle spring clean-up is set for this very weekend.)

Reader, I'm sorry to tell you that I was not strong enough to resist the urge to dunk on this maniac.

But Detroit's real problems need real solutions. It'd be nice if a man like Lockwood, with time and money to spare, wanted to be part of that.

Nancy Kaffer is a Free Press columnist. She enjoys parks and also rational thinking. Contact: nkaffer@freepress.com.