Our coverage of activities happening at the neighborhood level as told by the neighbors themselves. Coverage of the characteristics of given neighborhoods.
There are lots of places to drink in Metro Detroit but few you'd call your neighbor. What is it that makes a neighborhood bar so special? Is it the location, the people, or how long they've been around? Metromode's Nicole Rupersburg ponders those very questions from the bar stools of her favorite neighborhood joints.
With stately, tree-filled streets, its homes built in the Arts & Crafts era, Tudors and Cape Cods, Pontiac's South Boulevard area is a trip back in time, a tour through the years from the days the first homes were built in the early 1900s until the last ones went up in the 1950s and early 1960s.The neighborhood at South Boulevard and Franklin Street is one of many vintage neighborhoods in the city and across the county, all of them the focus of the Oak Street Home and Neighborhood Fair this Saturday. It's the third year of the fair, which brings together home professionals and various home improvement and preservation organizations together with the owners of homes built in 1960 and before. There also will be advice and information on access to landscapers and financial assistance for home improvements.The Oak Street fair runs from 4-7 p.m. in the area of South and Franklin near Woodward. The fair is free and will offer kids activities."Our urban neighborhoods are an extremely important component of Oakland County's quality of life," County Executive L. Brooks Patterson says. "The fair raises awareness of these neighborhoods and brings resources directly to homeowners."The Franklin South Boulevard neighborhood specifically will be the site of home renovations and improvements being completed Saturday by Rebuilding Together Oakland County, the local branch of a national nonprofit that takes volunteers into older neighborhoods to complete preservation projects and improvements."When we come away at the end of the day, there's going to be six to 10 homes that have been given revisions, painting, shrubbery," says Ronald Campbell, principal planner and preservation architect for Oakland County Planning and Economic Development.The boulevard will also be changed when the day ends. ITC Holdings Corp. of Novi, an electricity transmission company, has donated nine red oak trees and will plant them in the median on South Boulevard."There's tremendous investment in these neighborhoods both in terms of infrastructure and in private investment," Campbell says. We want them to understand the opportunities to protect that investment."Source: Ronald Campbell, principal planner and preservation architect for Oakland County Planning and Economic DevelopmentWriter: Kim North Shine
The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) will give neighborhoods a boost through a special $65 million initiative.Choice Neighborhoods has 15 planning grants worth $3 million in total, and 19 implementation grants totaling $62 million. Governments and nonprofits are eligible, and so are for-profit developers who apply jointly with a public entity.The idea of the Choice Neighborhoods initiative is to transform distressed neighborhoods and public and assisted projects into viable and sustainable mixed-income communities by linking housing improvements with appropriate services, schools, public assets, transportation, and access to jobs, according to the website. Early childhood education is also a priority.Nancy Finegood, executive director of the Michigan Historic Preservation Network, sees the value in city-nonprofit partnerships. "It would be a wonderful opportunity for any kind of neighborhood project to revitalize the neighborhood and do some restoration of both homes and commercial properties," she says.Click here to learn more. The deadline is Oct. 26.Source: U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development; Nancy Finegood, executive director, Michigan Historic Preservation Network Writer: Kristin Lukowski
This month Assistant CEO and Chief Development Officer of Wayne County's Economic Development Growth Engine Turkia Awada Mullin shars with you several updates about Wayne County's Neighborhood Stabilization Program, which brought in $25.9 million to assist in the areas hit hardest by foreclosures and blight.
The words green demolition would seem mutually exclusive at first glance, but Wayne County will take a stab at making them a reality this year.It is preparing to start a pilot program that calls for the deconstruction and recycling of abandoned homes instead of the normal process of bulldozing them and dumping what's left into a landfill or the Detroit incinerator. The new program trains people how to deconstruct these homes to their foundations, recycling the details, metal, and wood everywhere from scrap yards to architectural warehouses. The foundations will then be dug up and recycled. "We hope to hit the ground running within 60 days," says Jill Ferrari, senior executive project manager for Wayne County, who is overseeing the program and supervising its use of federal neighborhood stabilization funds. The county has been awarded $25.9 million to buy, rehab, and sometimes demolish foreclosed structures. It recently received the first $3.9 million from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.Source: Jill Ferrari, senior executive project manager for Wayne CountyWriter: Jon Zemke
Dearborn is using an old program and well-known program to improve its neighborhood. The city is celebrating the 40th anniversary of its Operation Eyesore and offering to sell trees to residents.Operation Eyesore got its start in 1960 when the city began buying and razing problem properties so they could be redeveloped. Since that time it has removed 1,288 blighted buildings, letting developers replace them with 585 new dwellings. All sales to the city are voluntary.Dearborn property owners who feel a sub-standard building is in their neighborhood and would like to sell it to the city can call (313) 943-2170.The city is also offering a free tree to residents so it can be planted in the easement in front of their homes. The following species of trees are available: Celebration Maple, Yellowwood, Honeylocust, Ginkgo, Golden Rain Tree, Rubber Tree, Hackberry, London Plane Tree. The supply of free trees for the program is limited to 200. They can be ordered by calling (313) 943-2318.Source: City of DearbornWriter: Jon Zemke
Royal Oak is making a grab at $1 million to help stabilize its neighborhoods in the wake of the mortgage crisis.Federal and state officials recently let Royal Oak leaders know that the city is eligible for up to $1 million in federal funds meant to help stem the tide of blight caused by foreclosures. City officials are now officially applying for those grants. The money is meant to help city officials acquire, renovate, raze or sell foreclosed homes. The idea is to help stabilize these properties before their blight causes home values in the neighborhood to slide.Several other communities in Oakland County are taking advantage of similar funds through both the feds and federal money filtered through the county. Southfield, Hazel Park and Pontiac are receiving the largest chunks of that pie worth millions of dollars.Source: City of Royal OakWriter: Jon Zemke
Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) has emerged as the go-to measuring stick for a building's greenness. It's not that it doesn't have its critics, but it is a standard that continues to evolve.In that vein, LEED's proud parent, the United States Green Building Council, is birthing a new child, one that does not just look at one building or one development. Their new LEED for Neighborhood Development rating system utilizes the principles of smart growth, new urbanism and green building to create the first ever standard that attempts to quantify the sustainability of a neighborhood. This rating system being presented builds upon 240 neighborhoods that were monitored since summer 2007; ultimately, 18 have been certified. It looks at brownfield redevelopment, pedestrian- and bike-friendly infrastructure, energy effiency,and a lot more -- it's 127 pages, FYI. Now the public is invited to comment on the draft -- at least until January 5; to do so, visit this website. To learn more about LEED as a whole, read this article.Here's your chance to give those LEED-ers an earful. Writer: Kelli B. Kavanaugh
Now would be a good time to find your dream home in your dream neighborhood. As prices drop, houses in some of the area's more desirable cities become more affordable - actually, a lot more affordable. Excerpt: Since the market's peak in 2005, home prices have fallen about 23.2% in metro Detroit, according to the S&P/Case-Shiller home price index. Record foreclosures in the past two years have also created a drag on home values as foreclosed properties compete head-to-head with owner listings. So, for the first time in years, buyers can find many choices in the under-$200,000 price range in communities such as Allen Park, Westland, Dearborn, Ypsilanti, Detroit, Howell, Harrison Township, Fraser, Clinton Township, Warren, Holly, Farmington Hills, Keego Harbor, Waterford, Monroe, Royal Oak and Ferndale, according to data compiled by Realcomp in Farmington Hills. Read the entire article here.
Wall Street might not be getting any federal bailout (for now) to deal with bad mortgages but Oakland County has received $26 million to do just that. The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) new Neighborhood Stabilization Program has awarded $26 million to help stabilize neighborhoods hit hard by foreclosures. The winners are Pontiac ($3.5 million), Southfield ($3.2 million) and Waterford (a little more than $2 million). Oakland County received almost $17.4 million. That money is meant to help local communities acquire and redevelop foreclosed properties in danger of becoming (or remaining) blight. Some of the money can be used to raze structures redevelop vacant properties. Twenty-five percent (at least) of that money must be used to buy and redevelop buildings into housing for families with incomes that are less than 50 percent of the neighborhood's median income. Homes put back on the market must be listed at 20 percent under the current market value and can only be sold to people who will use them as their primary residences. Oakland County Community & Home Improvement division will release guidelines and application procedures in the near future. For information, click here or call (248) 858-0493. Source: Oakland County Economic Development & Community Affairs Writer: Jon Zemke
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