Three Detroit neighborhoods have been selected to house solar arrays in the city’s latest effort to fight climate change.
Mayor Mike Duggan announced that Gratiot-Findlay, Van Dyke-Lynch and the State Fair neighborhoods are part of the first phase selections of Detroit’s solar neighborhoods initiative, which the city announced last year, to generate clean energy to offset electricity used by all 127 municipal buildings.
“Today, Detroit takes a step into a major national leadership role in fighting climate change,” Duggan said Monday, adding:. “127 city buildings are currently powered by 33 megawatts of energy per year from traditional sources, largely fossil fuels. In the next two years, we are going to build solar fields that are going to produce that 33 megawatts of energy in renewable energy, effectively generating all the power for city buildings from solar fields. We’re doing it, while at the same time, helping neighborhoods that think they have been forgotten.”
The first phase of neighborhoods contains 100 acres of ground with 21 owner-occupied houses. Owners signed an agreement to sell their homes and move, in exchange for $90,000.
Displaced tenants will get 18 months’ free rent
“These are the most blighted areas of the city,” Duggan said. “We are not pushing a single owner-occupied homeowner out of these neighborhoods to build the solar fields.”
Renters will also see perks.
“If you’re a renter, we will be giving you money to move and 18 months free rent,” Duggan said. “If you are a landlord or you own vacant lots, we’re gonna pay your fair market value. We have sent the City Council the documents asking us to move forward in condemnation. Those folks will be treated fairly, but there’ll be more than 900 parcels we’re going to have to acquire in phase one … the people who have owned the vacant houses and the landlords, they deserve a fair check. But they don’t deserve to get rich in a neighborhood that’s been largely abandoned.”
Duggan on Friday submitted proposals to Council to proceed with 104 acres of the solar field buildout in the first three neighborhoods, kicking off the process of acquiring land, community benefits to the surrounding residents and installing the solar fields. By early 2025, the administration will recommend three more neighborhoods of the initial eight finalists Duggan narrowed down last year, and build out 200 acres to power 33 megawatts of energy.
How neighbors of the solar fields will be helped
Surrounding the solar neighborhoods are 159 owner-occupied homes. Those homeowners will receive various home improvements ranging from $15,000 to $25,000 of work, including: windows, roof repairs, residential solar panels, energy-efficient appliances, home insulation and air sealing, energy-efficient furnaces and water heaters, smart thermostats, energy-efficient lighting or battery backup.
Of those is Patricia Kobylski of the Gratiot/Findlay neighborhood, who will seek energy-efficient siding for her home to help reduce her heating bill.
“I’ve painted that house twice myself, but I’m 78 years old. I can’t paint it anymore, so this energy-efficient vinyl siding, I just have to hose it off. I don’t need a new furnace, I don’t need a hot water heater, the windows are in good shape,” Kobylski said. “I don’t want to sell. I have a great house and I have good neighbors. There’s no reason for me to sell, and who’s going to give a nearly 80-year-old lady a 30-year mortgage? Nobody. And I don’t want to move out to the suburbs. This is where I’m supposed to be.”
Jean Holt, who raised her family and lived in the State Fair neighborhood for 53 years, remembers a thriving neighborhood full of shopping, families and children, and an area full of opportunities. But it has deteriorated over time, she said.
“There was nothing left that was viable for the neighborhood. Everything was burned, falling down, overgrown, people left their trash everywhere. It had become a dumping ground,” Holt said. “People began to move out. Young people, as they grew up, they left the city, not just the neighborhood, the city, so that made less occupancy in those areas.”
Holt added that she was more than willing to move and that solar fields will benefit Detroiters.
“We need more energy. We need more power. Mine went out when my kids were like 2 months old, I think, and I didn’t like being cold. Not at all. That’s a horrible feeling. So I think this would be, with all the electronics and energy burning going on, this will be an opportunity I think for them and generations to come as well as for those that are in the neighborhoods now that want to remain in those areas,” Holt said.
Two developers selected
The city will maintain ownership of the land and lease it to the developers. Detroit selected Boston-based Lightstar to build 63 acres of solar fields in the Gratiot-Findlay and State Fair neighborhoods for the first phase. DTE Electric Company will build the 40-acre field in Van Dyke-Lynch. Duggan said he wanted developers who have experience building solar fields.
Installations will beautify the city’s neighborhoods and the surrounding community benefits with energy-efficient upgrades will help reduce energy bills by 10-20%, said Councilman Coleman Young II.
“This is a good thing, because the greatest thing that people can do with their life is something that will outlast us. And what we build today and the environmental impact this will have, the education and the jobs that this will have, the energy savings that the people will save long-term is a legacy that will outlast all of our lives,” Young said.
Project funding
Duggan plans to use $14 million from the city’s utility conversion fund, which is legally required to be used on energy conversion. The fund dates back to when the city operated its own power system, and the $14 million will be used for upfront costs of acquiring and clearing the land.
The mayor also praised President Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act for allowing the city to undertake a project he could not previously financially justify.
“When President Biden passed that bill in 2022, this made it possible. Before that, you could not have financially afforded to do this. But what the president and the country have done is there is now 30% off of all of these costs,” Duggan said.
Net operating costs are expected to reach $1.1 million per year. The city currently spends nearly $2.4 million annually on the three neighborhoods to address illegal dumping and trash pickup, mowing and maintenance of overgrown lots and abandoned houses, police and fire runs, and street maintenance, building inspections and enforcements, and stormwater backups.
“One of the things I thought about coming over here were my kids,” said Councilman Fred Durhal. “To invest in an environment where they can have safe air to breathe, clean water to drink, is priceless. It’s absolutely priceless … at one time, we were spending money and we were polluting the environment. Now we’re utilizing funds to help clean the environment for generations to come.”
Second phase and future green sites
As the five remaining neighborhoods await the next phase’s selection process, at least 28 homeowners of the 31 owner-occupied homes signed letters of intent to sell their homes, Duggan said. The city would dip into the utility conversion fund to pay them to sell their homes before being chosen, but they are not required to sell if homeowners are not interested.
“We’re going to go them in 30 or 60 days and say, ‘If you want to go ahead and sell anyway, we’ll buy it now whether we pick your zone or not.’ And if they want to do it, fine, if they don’t want to do it, fine,” Duggan said.
The city is proposing a $4.4 million equity fund, using reserves from the utility conversion fund, to pay for it.
Under the project agreement, solar fields will operate and generate power for 35 years. Once they no longer operate, the contracts require developers to remove all equipment and return the property as a green field.
“We have the best of all worlds with this agreement,” said Tepfirah Rushdan, director of sustainability.
Next steps
The administration is required to submit several items to City Council for approval. These include a resolution to acquire private property in each of the neighborhoods, contracts with the developers, and a resolution to create an equity fund for voluntary purchases of owner-occupied homes in the five remaining neighborhood finalist areas.
Dana Afana is the Detroit city hall reporter for the Free Press. Contact: [email protected]. Follow her: @DanaAfana.
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