BFA: DEGC, DDA, EDC, LDFA / Detroit Building Authority

2:00PM Mar 20, 2025

Speakers:

Keywords:

Brightmore Homes

property sales

non-compliance

HUD loans

home inspections

Detroit economic growth

investment

job creation

small business programs

Motor City Match

legacy business project

affordable housing

office space conversion

tax incentives

business development.

Green Grocer Program

food insecurity

Detroit Building Authority

economic metrics

grocery stores

job creation

distribution challenges

technical assistance

Transportation Innovation Zone

tax abatements

Motor City Match

public-private partnerships

commercial real estate

solar energy

neighborhood development.

The body or of their brotherhood

is There is really two,

two hats we're wearing.

I feel like seven minutes, far too Long.

Brother here. There you can go,

okay, all right, good morning. We will now call to order the expanded budget Finance and Audit standing committee for the purposes of our budget deliberations. Good morning, Madam Clerk, and if you could please call the roll

Good morning. Council member Scott Benson I, Council Member Fred der Hall, the third council member Leticia Johnson, present council member Gabriella San Diego Romero, Council Member Mary waters present. Council member Angela Whitfield Callaway, Council

Member Calloway indicated she will not be present for this hearing

clerk will note. Council member Coleman Young the second. Council president pro tem James Tate, Council President Mary Sheffield, present, Madam President, we have

quorum. There being a quorum present. We are in session, and before we proceed to the DEGC, we do have director Bill who is here to provide an update from some outstanding questions that were asked yesterday from President. Proton tape,

good morning. Dave Bell, Director of BC, I wanted to give you an update on the brightmore homes. And brightmore homes at one point consisted of 230 single family homes in five phases, the city is working with the current owner of brightmoor homes two and three to help facilitate property sales. Brightmoor homes one and hope Park are currently not being made available for sale. At this time, the city is working with the property owner to get them out of default. Brightmore homes four was sold to a new owner who was scheduled to meet with the city before the end of this month, the property owner was in default of the home HUD home Investment Partnership loans for bright more phases two and three. Other challenges were that the owner is homeowner. The owner experienced difficulty gaining access for re inspections and making repairs listed on the violation notice, BC continues to enforce upon this owner, and since January of this year, we have issued 102 tickets for non compliance as bright more homes phase two and three have compliance periods required through the home HUD loan program, regular physical inspections are required. These inspections consider a random sampling of units against the uniform physical condition standards required by HUD. Failed home inspections for brightmoor homes two and three between October of 2022 and June of 24 contributed to the default on the homes for HR by HRD, however, upon re inspection in November, on November 6 of 2024, brightmoor homes to have passed the non compliance issues needed to pass the home inspection and received a certificate, certificate, certification of compliance from HRD bright more homes three past home inspections on 1031, 2024, BC will accept these home inspections as a form of compliance under the rental ordinance. And note that scattered site units, this certification will only translate for the units that are that were inspected in the home sample. BC will work with law and HRD to increase enforcement on this project with the proposed timeline of getting these houses in compliance within six months.

That is my report. Thank you

so much, Director Bill Pro Temp Tate,

thank you, Madam President, thank you for this information is definitely helps be able to communicate this to the residents who are beating my head out literally, since 2018 same issue, we're feel like we're in the same spot. So now I'll be able to provide this them with a timeline and more detail, but I just ask again, ask, excuse me again, that the departments work together. This is what I've been asking for from the very beginning. So I yesterday, I was a little in my feelings, I'm going to say, because I didn't have this very important information, and I knew what the blowback was going to be for me later on, it has been up to this point, and with that I, you know, I did not thank the men and women of BC, for the very dangerous work that they do, at times, very hazardous work that they do with the community, and very important work as well. So I do want to put that on the record. I'm looking forward to continuing to work with your department and others to bring some resolution to this very challenging, and for for the residents, horrific situation that they are living in daily basis. And thank you, Director and your team for bringing this information forward again. We'll continue to follow up

through the chair. I am committing to you that I am going to help move this needle, and if it doesn't move, we're going to increase legal action on this project that you're I'm just as I'm frustrated also, and so I'm going to work to move this needle or get them into court. All right, thank

you so much for that. We appreciate you. Thank you all

thank you for being here. Thanks. Thank you.

We will now resume and go back to our Detroit economic growth Corporation DEGC presentation. Those that are with us can please join us at the table for that presentation. Applause.

Good morning Council President, we are and members of city council is good to see you all this morning. My name is Kevin Johnson. I'm president of Detroit economic growth Corporation. With me at the table is Derek hit, who's our senior vice president of public policy and operations, David Howe, who's our Vice President of real estate and investment services, and David White, who's our Vice President of Business Development and attraction at the DEGC. I want to start by thanking you for the time today, as for your continued support of the DEGC, this partnership has been essential in driving economic growth across Detroit. Looking back at this past year, I'm struck by how much we've accomplished together. The numbers tell an impressive story about the impact that we've had on the city's economy, which is touching real Detroiters and real neighborhoods and benefiting from the collective efforts of your support and what we are able to accomplish at the DEGC, let me share some highlights with you regarding the the impact we've had. We've helped secure over $821 million in investment throughout Detroit in 2024 which is translating to 2100 new full time, new full time jobs in the city of Detroit, and more than 2100 construction positions, real opportunities for Detroit residents. On the housing front, we were making some really solid progress projects like Fisher 21 the future of health development with the pistons are adding 11 175 new homes to our city, and I'm particularly proud that 218 of these units will be affordable, because growth must benefit everyone in the city of Detroit. Small Business continues to drive our neighborhoods economies, and our motor city match program has now completed 27 rounds, putting $19.1 million in grants to work and helping open 180 businesses with one ribbon cutting happening as we speak, we've also been delighted to see many of you at our ribbon cuttings. I know council member Tate, you were just with us not long ago. We're very excited that that happened, and we're achieving these these impacts by your support. What's especially meaningful to us is that 85% of the awardees are minorities. 70% of those awardees are women, and 67% of those awardees are owned by Detroiters. Business District liaisons have become fixtures in the community. Working with nearly 6000 businesses across every neighborhood, we're also attracting companies at the cutting edge of manufacturing and clean energy. Energy businesses like Le automotive and Fortescue are choosing Detroit for their growth. What we want to talk about in the next few minutes with my team, and they will walk you through operations, real estate, work, business development initiatives, small business programs, and you'll hear efforts like the green grocer project, bringing fresh food options to neighborhoods and our legacy business initiative that's preserving Detroit's Long standing establishments. And I must say, council president, your presence and your support of the legacy business program has not gone unnoticed. It was your leadership that made that happen, and we really appreciate it, and I don't think we can turn back now at this point. And none of this obviously happens without your support, but a $2.1 million contract that the city says provides us the resources that we need in order to continue our work to build a better Detroit and a better economy for for all of our Detroit residents, your additional funding for Motor City match the Smart City Tech grants and the EDC also helps support driving real results in our city. So we're incredibly grateful for this partnership and focused on making every dollar count Together, we're building a Detroit where businesses grow, residents thrive and neighborhoods flourish. Thank you for your time today, and we're ready to walk you through our presentation, and we'll take any questions you have after we complete our task here. Thank you.

Good morning, Madam President, yes, the Operations Section, which I coordinate, we coordinate, manage and perform site readiness and public infrastructure activities for strategic sites for investment, such as the crosswind one way conversion project and the demolition of Kettering. Also, by the way, there was a recent CRC report which which discussed the DEGC in our efforts, and in that CRC report, it was summed up primarily by a few quotes. And I just so happen to have those folks with me.

Those quotes were as follows,

the list of properties and businesses that have benefited from the activities of the Detroit DDA is impressive. Few would say that the work is finished, but there's still work to be done, but the central business district is much improved. The role that tax abatements are playing in aiding Detroit recovery, and the process that the DEGC uses to analyze the needs for tax incentives make proposed projects work, set Detroit at the forefront among many cities with and that's what our but for policies and my colleagues will continue To tell us, tell you about the success and the things that we're doing at the DEGC. David Howe, sir.

Madam President, good morning. Getting used

to this. Madam President, good morning again. My name is David Howe. I'm the vice president of real estate services for the Detroit economic growth Corporation, and I'm gonna just go over a little bit about what Real Estate Services does and some of the successes we've had over the past year. In the interest of time,

I will only

highlight several of the bullet points here. There's an there are a number of things that that we do on a daily basis, and of course, we can answer any questions that you may have. So DEGC provides project feasibility, financial modeling and underwriting for all of the major commercial and industrial projects proposed in the city of Detroit. We've also developed a tax abatement education series. The series was started at the request of Councilman Scott Benson, and to date, well over 1000 folks have participated in the education series presentations. We also negotiate and structure incentive packages underwritten based on net fiscal benefit and return on investment analysis. In other words, we ensure each abatement presented to this honorable, honorable body provides a positive fiscal benefit to the city. Again, I won't go over the the rest of the bullet points, but again, we'll answer any questions that you may have. Over the last year, we've been actively engaged or either led on a number of projects I've highlighted for here, Fisher 21 loss, which is the redevelopment of the former Fisher body plan. It's $151 million redevelopment project consisting of 433 residential units. The developers are Greg Jackson and Richard Hosey, and as it is, the largest African American led development to date in this city's history, hotel at water square, which will serve as the city's Convention Center hotel. It will be a Marriott. It's under construction now, and is expected to generate $2.6 billion of investment over the life of the incentives. Kevin mentioned the future of health and pistons project, the residential component of it. Of the project is estimated to be a $364 million project, 662 residential units, of which 133 are affordable. That project has AMI levels as deep as 50% Ami. Lastly, the Broadway loss, which broke ground recently, is a and it's a $40 million project, 80 units, 16 affordable units, of which 60, all of the affordable units will be marketed at 60% AMI, which essentially allows a person making $19 an hour to be able to afford to live there. Finally, over the course of last year, there were 16 abatement certificate approvals. 50% of those are outside or were outside of the CBD Midtown in New Center sub markets, which which means that neighborhood development is thriving here in the city of Detroit, the 16 certificate approvals represent $821 million of total investment, $1.8 million 1.8 million square feet of real estate will be developed, and that's 733 units. 162 are affordable. Well over 700 full time jobs will result from the investment, and 2100 construction jobs. That concludes my presentation. Thank you.

Morning, morning. My

name is David White, MVP of Business Development here at the DEGC, for us and the business development team, we really maintain two key functions, corporate attraction and also Business Retention and Expansion. On the corporate attraction side of the house. What we do is we really source capital investment and job creation from larger scale end users. So think your higher end manufacturers, logistics operations, office operations, R and D centers, and we conduct our activities within three main prosperity sectors, as we call them. These are the industry sectors that we feel Detroit has the right to win corporate attraction projects, those are automobility and advanced manufacturing, clean energy and sustainability and research, engineering and design. Within those sectors, we focus our activities around attending trade shows nationally and internationally, connecting directly with corporate leadership to tell the Detroit story to those companies. We engage with site selectors, who are the consultants who touch projects. So we want to make sure that Detroit value proposition is in front of those consultants, so they bring our projects to us here in the city of Detroit, we engage with the brokerage and real estate community to make sure that Detroit is at the table for projects that may be looking at Michigan or the metro Detroit area in general. And we do a lot of cold outreach and marketing to those companies to make sure that they're aware of the City of Detroit's value proposition for their projects. We also handle anything that comes to us, even those projects and leads that are outside of our core prosperity sector. So we're that single point of contact to evaluate anyone who wants to do a corporate project in the city of Detroit, from start up all the way up to a larger scale manufacturing operation. So that's really the corporate attraction side of the house on the Business Retention and Expansion program. This is where we're really placing a lot of focus in the last few months, is restarting that program, and that program, we get out to our larger scale employers in high growth startups and at least an annual basis, focused again on our prosperity sectors. We visit their facilities in partnership with our partners, like the EDC Wayne County, invest Detroit, etc, and we execute annual recurring visits to identify pain points for those companies. Track issues referrals. Refer to Detroit at work. Refer to invest Detroit. Make sure that if they're interested in expanding that we are then managing as the single point of contact that expansion project in the same way that we would manage an attraction project to help win that project for the city of Detroit. Since the program was restarted at the beginning of September, we've executed 32 such visits, and we're really looking forward to keeping that momentum going. That's an overview of what we do when the business development team, I have included just a sampling of the business attraction projects, which we've won in the actually since January 1 of 2024 I won't go through them in detail. I'll just, I'll just note that we've won 1200 plus jobs since January 1 2024 on the business attraction side of the house. And the trends we're seeing are number one, the companies tend to be more international in nature, high tech, high wage, high salary, jobs, little lower density in terms of the job creation, but more highly skilled. We also seen a lot of strength in the startup pipeline and innovation pipeline in our attraction side. So I can include there. Look forward to answering any questions and turn it over to the next team member. Thank you.

So Council President, Sean gray is with us online. He's fighting a bit of a cold, and we didn't want to stop any momentum from that occurring. So he's going to speak to our Small Business Services activity. Sean, are you on and ready to speak? I am. Can I be ready?

Do good. Good morning, Madam Chair, hopefully I can be heard. Yes, you you're heard. Perfect. Thank you so much. So the Small Business Services team, we have a number of programs and projects. We are really proud to have the close partnership of city council and the mayor's office to execute these projects. So I want to just talk through really quickly an overview of our existing projects. Of course, Motor City match provides direct support to small businesses that are looking to start in corridors across the city. Of course, I was very excited about that project. The district business liaisons assist businesses in lifting up their concerns or needs from the city in terms of city processes or other permitting, and just a number a wide range of issues that a business owner might experience in their journey to launch and grow their business. Also, the green grocer project is supporting emerging, small format, full service grocery stores across the city. It is great that we have seen new large supermarkets come to the city, but we want to make sure that we also lift up opportunities on quarters across the city to have small, smaller format stores. And as you well know, the legacy business project is, you know, with your support and guidance here to support those businesses that have been in business for 30 years and longer, next slide please. So just want to get a little bit into the Mercy match numbers. After 27 rounds, Mercy match has awarded $19.1 million in cash grants and opened 180 to Kevin's point, we are currently missing the 100 and 80th ribbon cutting, but doing so really grateful for the opportunity to do so, actually. And the interesting point about this project, and the thing that I when I talk to lenders, they are always impressed by that they don't see in markets across the country, is that not only have we awarded $19.1 million in grants to these businesses, but what we've seen is 102 million, over $102 million leveraged by those businesses using this money so they go out and get loans, they go out and get grants and other access to capital, which they come back and invest on quarters across the city. As Kevin mentioned, about 85% of those businesses are minority owned. 70% are women owned. 6% of these businesses are 67% of these businesses are owned by Detroit residents as well. Next slide, please. Thank you. Round 28 just of course, ended. We've done site visits. We have selected the awardees, and they will be announced on April 2. Next slide, please. So the district business liaison team has done yeoman's work to be at the tip of the spear for the need to support the needs of small business owners. We did recently fill three positions on this team, so we're really excited to be fully staffed and ready for to support businesses in every single district of the city. Next slide, please the district business liaisons, as you well know, do a number of things. Some of the things that we're really proud of is that we do corridor compliance series. We have been supporting the city also on finding locations or businesses that would host Ed charging stations along a number of significant corridors in the city, and so that has been really great work. Also, we work closely with the city on blight to beauty remediation processes and to help businesses who are impacted by streetscape opportunities find access to capital, to help them when there are impacts to their revenues or sales due to streetscape activities. So we've been really fortunate to continue a number of those offering a number of those resources. Next slide, please. The green grocer project has been, as I mentioned, supporting small format, full scale grocery stores. This project has supported thus far, nine emerging grocers, we've supported them in terms of funding or supporting, not fully funding, but supporting their build out design and offering technical assistance. We recently launched a bodega boot camp to help those awardees learn grocery specific marketing, merchandising and really what works currently in urban grocery stores, especially small format urban stores. And so that has been really fulfilling, and the work has been going really well. We're going to also award three additional grocery stores in March 2025 very excited about the work there. We have also worked to convene and collaborate with Motor City match, where there were grocery project awardees to make sure that they got, you know, a full slate of technical assistance offerings. Next slide please, and the Detroit legacy business project, you know, again, with the very close partnership of council president Sheffield's office and the mayor's office, has just been a phenomenal opportunity for us to lift up the businesses and inform what we ate, what we wore and so many aspects of our lives over the last 100 years or so, in some instances. So we were really fortunate to award 16 businesses. And so basically, 14 businesses, two per council district, $15,000 grants, and then two awardees received $50,000 grant city wide. We have announced those awards, of course, on March 5, we will be paying those dollars out as the awarded businesses submit eligible expenses to us. But we are very excited about this project. Another important facet of this project, though, is that we also have over 100 businesses that have been added to the Detroit legacy business registry, which we will use and deploy as we go out and you know, plan for events like the NCAA Final Four that's coming up. We can take that list into those plan into those plans with us and help make sure that these businesses have been long standing businesses are included in those conversations, and, you know, brought into those conversations collaboratively and in ways that will help them experience those those events and be parts of the experience for those who come to visit Detroit for large scale events in The future as well.

Next slide please. Yeah. One more

also, we are working on a couple of other really key projects. We have next up 313, which came out of Council as the young entrepreneurs project, we have branded its next up 313, and we are working very closely with council member waters office to launch this we just this week, had a small business plan pitch in partnership with council member water's office in Wayne County Community College District, and that was a successful event as well. We also are currently reviewing some questions from possible contractors to deliver Joy road retail study. We want to make sure that we are as collaborative and open as possible, because there's so many exciting changes coming for that corridor, and we have also, we're also reviewing responses for the targeted solicitation for the Africa town retail study, which we've worked very closely with city planning and development on as well. With that, I believe I have covered all of my areas, but just very grateful for the partnership, and very excited to answer any questions you have.

Thanks, Sean and Council President and members of city council, we have a couple of case studies that we've left with you to review at your at your leisure, that kind of illuminate some of the efforts that we've put forward in driving the economy of the city of Detroit. So with that, that concludes our presentation, and we'll we're open for any questions you may have. Right?

Thank you so much. Kevin Johnson and to the team. Want to recognize that member durha and council member young, our president, the Clerk, would know a cool note. Thank you. So just want to start off by thanking the entire DEGC team and the work that you all do. It's been an honor to work with you, Kevin and as well as Sean and others, with the Detroit legacy business project. And of course, I will be remiss not to lift that project up just such a phenomenal project that has really showed the intention and investment that I believe is needed for legacy businesses that have been here and weathered the storm in Detroit and are providing so many services to our residents and so, you know, oftentimes we talk about how we attract businesses in Detroit, but not enough attention is on how we retain those that have been here. So to hear them, the sentiments that they feel heard and seen now, I think, goes a long way to legacy businesses that have been here. So Sean, if you can briefly, if you're still on, I just wanted to talk about where the funding level is right now, as to date, and if we were to add more funds, what that could do to extend and continue the work of the Detroit legacy business program.

Thank you so much. House President Sheffield, so the project right now, so the first year of support was right about half a million dollars. We've done everything we can to keep expenditures very light. We have staffed it with the support of a team member who is kind of doing half work on this project and half work on another project. So we've been really fortunate to be able to do that now, having made the awards, we are at the more labor intensive part of the process where it's going to be harder to do that, just because we have to make sure that as we deploy those dollars, when we get documentation from an awardee, we do, we go through a lot of checks to make sure that the expenses are genuine and eligible, and so we take our responsibility to, you know, be Good hands for these dollars and to deploy them appropriately, very seriously. And so now we get to the really rigorous part of the process in terms of getting those dollars out the other point. And we were really fortunate to work so closely with your team on on, you know, having a town hall for this, the points that we heard, and some of the other areas that we're hoping to touch on in summer, we do have some remaining funding to do technical assistance and education series for all the people who we met through the process of pitching this grant opportunity. But the next part is to really help these business owners talk through what does valuation look like, what does an exit strategy look like? How do I make sure that my business is heritable in ways they're going to be meaningful if I'm hoping to pass it down. So we want to get into a lot more support for businesses and helping them understand, what legal support do you need to make sure your business is heritable, or to make sure that you don't have, you know, permitting issues that will prevent you from having a business model that you could hand to an heir. How do you identify a successor, or an heir or an apprentice who can take over your business? Also, how do we help you figure out what employee ownership models look like or would work in your business model? So there's a number of areas that we could expand and and really do a deep dive in in terms of providing programming and educational resources to make sure that our businesses have as good a chance as possible of getting from 30 years to 60 to 100 years old. You know, be that purchase and exit of the current ownership, be that handing it down, we want to make sure that we're lifting these businesses up and keeping them supported. And so additional funding and support would be really key in helping us meet a lot of the needs that we heard from these businesses directly in our town hall.

Right? Thank you so much. And I know a part of those conversations a Detroit business emergency fund was also discussed. I know we had a situation in the eastern market with a small business. I think it was jabs, gym, it was all it was on the news. So this is not a secret, but had underwent some fire damage, and they were looking for support at that time. And we thought about and talked about how we probably need to create an emergency business funds in extreme situations where some type of emergency event takes place that the city that small businesses can access maybe a pot of assistance to support in cases of emergency. So just wanted to also mention that the legacy business fund has touched every single Council District, and so we had well over 100 people who applied throughout various districts in the city of Detroit. And so I would like to add this program to our Executive Session, the Detroit legacy business Fund, with the allocation of $1.5 million to the Executive Session, all right, and Hearing no objections, that action will be taken. And then also the Detroit the creation of a Detroit emergency business fund as well to the executive session. So moving all right, Hearing no objections that actually will be taken. And then lastly, I just wanted to get more information on the newly created Entrepreneur Challenge grant program that was being proposed for this year,

if I may. Thank you very much again, council president. So this is a project that we have been in the discussions with with the jobs and the economy team at the city, the opportunity, effectively, is to provide some capital so that Detroit is competitive. When we talk about some of the tech startups, especially those focused on work that is relevant for civic engagement, or technologies that they are developing that might have an application or within the city of Detroit. Effectively, it would be broken into about 15 grants that would go to early stage tech founders to really incentivize them to stay in and grow in and invest in Detroit. So this would be early stage ventures. We see a lot of really exciting work coming out of a number of really cool Detroit based tech startup hubs, and we're hopeful that we can utilize or deploy this, this funding or this project to help make Detroit kind of a stickier place to land for some of those early Stage entities that are unfortunately, in some instances, choosing to go out west or into other markets.

Okay, all right, thank you. And we have received, I know, personally, I've received tons of calls and emails in support of this program, and also increasing the initial investment to $500,000 I had the privilege of going over to black tech Saturdays at new lab to see the amazing work of the entrepreneurs there and what they're doing and the solutions that they're trying to provide here in Detroit. And so I would like to also add this program, with a commitment of $500,000 to the executive session as well. All right, Hearing no objections that action will be taken. And we have several other questions for Yes, I'm sorry, madam president, keep missing that program. Yes, I will. It is the entrepreneurial challenge grant program, okay? And this is a part of the new Detroit Smart City Tech grant,

and that was $500,000

all right? So that will end my questions. We do have several other questions that we will submit in writing around the Motor City match the business liaison program. But I will yield now to my colleagues, and I will start with you, President Pro Tem Tate, thank

you, Madam President, and thank you all for being here just so you. David. The other day, you all are definitely in district one. We appreciate the assistance there. Always great to see you, Mr. Head as well. Issue on

third. Hold on for one second. I have to say this. I am so happy to hear you say, Council Member Tate that we're in district one.

It's been, it's been six years that I've been waiting for that one. So thank you, sir.

I got a haircut today, so I feel better. So,

I did want to talk about district one, talk about one of the businesses over there. So we did do a there was a redevelopment of a business that's located and maybe Sean can help with this one that was redeveloped on the corner of Grand River and Breton. At one point in time, it was, for decades, it was a Chinese food restaurant. The owners lived upstairs. Was one of those kind of, you know, kind of shops, you know, fit the climate that we had back in the day. It was on the demo list. It was saved, resurrected, redeveloped, and now it is a beautiful, redeveloped space that is completely empty, and it's been empty now for about three years. Part of the issue is the owner of the adjacent business as a parking lot and refuses to allow this current business, the rehab business, to use it, rendering it useless. And so I'm not sure what work has been done to try to free up. I'm trying to set up a meeting with the business owner. Got to get past budget. But I didn't know what the issue was until I started hearing from multiple potential tenants, and he just scaring them away. And so I'm not sure what has been done to try to address that concern. But that kind of, again, there's a lot that still needs to be done in district one, along our strongest commercial corridor. And again, very thankful that we have some movement, some action. But you know, with the community that can support businesses, as the grandmot Rosedale community, which I live in, can do so it still is lagging tremendously, again, not taken away from the work that's been done, but it is lagging. So since I am shooting my shot, what are we thinking about to try to, again, breathe some life, more life into that corridor. Because if we can't get that corridor done in district one, I'm I'm going to struggle to get the rest we're working on Finkle, that's in brightmore, that's a whole different story. But on this, this stretch in grandma Rosedale, if someone can talk to us about the efforts that have been made to

beef it up, improve it.

Sean, you want to take a stab at responding to council president, I mean,

thank you so much, if I may, through the Chair. Thank you, council president, potty for this question. I will have our district business leaders and kind of take a look, just to kind of get me a little more intel about the specific project. But we do remain very engaged in a number of our business associations on corridors for to kind of elevate questions or concerns just like this. As you know, from you know, our work closely on the Schoolcraft retail study and other projects. Oftentimes, when you look at property ownership on corridors in the city, the hard part is that you learn that some of the ownership of parcels that are really key and in developing nodes are in some instances, held you know, in ways or by parties who are not necessarily as fully engaged in some of the trends or opportunities on a given corridor. And so we absolutely want to remain actively seized of opportunities to better engage property owners so that they can connect with what's going on currently and what the trends are indicating. And so in every instance, we want to make sure that we have as much business intelligence as possible, so that we can talk to some of our corridor development associations and business associations and individual property owners to help them understand that there are higher use opportunities or higher yield opportunities for some of the properties that have, unfortunately, in some instances, either either fallen into disrepair or been brought online. And in this case, it sounds like possibly sidelined a bit by, you know, parking efficiencies. So absolutely want to work with you on this. I do want to make sure that our district is liaison team goes out and gets me a little bit more information on it, just so we can understand what resources we can bring to bear. But these are exactly the types of situations that we try to engage on, you know, throughout the year. And so I thank you for elevating this one to my attention. Alright. Thank

you so much for that. And then lastly, we have in district one, a handful of business associations, and they're all just flopping around, not doing much. You know, it's a challenge than getting them in the same room. Sometime it's been a challenge. Not so much for me. If I call them, they'll come to to, you know me, but themselves and trying to move them forward and identify and have them identify what their child their collective challenges and collective solutions are, are available and opportunities for them. So again, if I can get some type of understanding of what may be needed from this body to assist in helping to better organize, engage our businesses to create strong business associations. At one point in time prior to COVID, it was it was moving, and then COVID happened, and it changed a lot of things, but now here we are, you know, five years later, since the onset of COVID here in Detroit, and we've got to find ways to get beyond those barriers, and I'm not necessarily certain how we're doing that. So if, again, maybe Sean's the right person. Mr. Gray is the right person to provide that response. But what can we do to help

council member Tate? I think one thing that we can and I'll speak to Sean about this, is lean in more and be more and have a direct directive, I would say, with the DBL and in the in the districts, to kind of help organize the organizations, if you will. I think that's kind of what I thought I heard, and see if that bringing together can yield more outcome based at work that that the organizations are engaging in. Because I do agree with you. I think there are a lot of them and not have an impact at the level that they should. In that regard, we may be able to be helpful in that, in that space. So I'll talk to Sean about how we could at least get the list, you know, get the contact person, and you may your office may already have that and see if you know, we can kind of rally them and get more of an agenda based effort that would yield, like I said, more impact.

I appreciate it, because it's hard for us to fight for them if they're not, I mean, and I had to say it, if they're not willing to fight for themselves, with with each other and collaborate, it makes it very, very difficult. Not so much a question, but I am going to, at some point. I want to talk offline before I place it into the executive session, but talk about the engagement along the Grand River Street state and with the businesses right now, I've talked to a number of them, and they're not pleased. And I've talked to the department as well, and we're working on trying to identify how to improve the streetscape. Grand River Northwest, again, same corridor, again. Bike lanes have become a challenge for them, not because they don't like bike lanes, but because the city has not, has chosen not to remove the snow from the bike lanes, and that becomes a challenge. We've had other issues with bike lanes. We have other issues just with in terms of folks wanting to maybe even expand the sidewalk to allow for outdoor dining. So those are the kind of things that I'm hearing from the businesses, in order for them to to, in a way, want to work together, have that sense of hope. And we've talked about banners, but it's much bigger than banners. This is about infrastructure and operations that I'm seeing. So before I throw any of that into executive session, we'll have a conversation offline, and then we'll go from there, but really looking again to identify how this body, me in particular, certainly in district one, can help get these things past the finish line that we've we've worked on. So thank you again, and madam chair you the floor.

Thank you so much. Department, no member Callaway has joined us. Member waters,

good morning. Morning. I

guess the first question I want to ask us, are

you able to use incentives to create housing with more than with units of two to three bedrooms? You know, we need more of those. And also, in addition small housing units with 10 units or less, we have a lot of families now, who you know folks with children. We're not we don't have enough two to three bedroom housing. So are there incentives that you can use to do more of that?

Dave, you might want to speak to the the market and what developers are sharing with us relative to the demand piece of it. So there's a market response, and then there's the financial support response and so that. So that's probably what you're going to hear, but I certainly

want to know more about the market. Yeah, yeah. So

yes, thank you through the chair.

So we are actively engaged with the development community about the size of the units in the one bedroom, two bedrooms, three bedrooms. What's in demand, what makes financial sense? We have heard from developers as well as lenders, that three bedroom units are a not in demand, and then incredibly hard to finance. And when we look at the numbers, what we found is, in certain cases, the benefit of adding a three bed you three bedroom unit is not justified by the cost, and you would have to charge quite a bit, and it would price out the very people that you're trying to help, because it would cost a lot to actually pay for that unit. And

so what we're going to do about these, these pairs of children. I mean, that's, that's all I'm saying. What we're going to do that, you know, the kids need their own rooms. I mean, I hear what you're saying about and

actually, to follow up with that, we've been in conversations with HRD and we have learned that there are about 16 different affordable or tax credit deals in the pipeline that have three bedroom units. So from it, it takes an incredible amount of subsidy to actually build three bedroom units, and a lot of that subsidy has to come from like, for instance, low income tax credits, which are really not a part of what we see at DEGC, in terms of what comes through Our door, pretty much handled by HR data. Yeah, all right.

I look forward to talking a little bit more about the other types of developments that we had some discussions on. Look forward to that I want to go on to next up, 313,

I'm very excited about that.

Yeah, I met with a group of Gen Zs. They were pretty excited about it themselves. So, and they're doing something right now, you know, an activity. And here's the picture they're posing that they're a whole group of them. They are excited. And so with that, Madam President, I'd like to add to Executive Session $1 million for next up 313, I want to put next up 313, the entire program in the budget

in Executive Session, rather and

and with $1 million that will be funding additional staff, along with startup grants for these young people, we had some a lot of more Young on Friday that was in the auditorium, young entrepreneurs, and these were women entrepreneurs, and then there were at least about 413 year olds there, and they talked about how they want to start their own business. They were there to listen and to be inspired by other women who were there. And so I became even more excited about next, up, 313,

so at any rate, did I do my motion?

Yes, the motion has been made to add that program to the executive session with a $1 million allocation. Any objections, hearing none that action will be taken. All

right, so So thank you, Madam President. I think that that was my two questions, but I look forward to working with you all a lot more. Thank you.

Member Benson,

thank you and thank you all for being here today. Great information. Is good to see how the city's investment is playing out and being leveraged. So about a $3 million in investment from the city, $821 million in investment in 2100 jobs that eight, that $821 million investment, that an annual number, is that a number over the entire lifetime of the DEGC that was, that was annual. That was from for 2024 makes it even more impressive. Thank you, sir. That information, um, just looking at the on the operation, managing the crosswinds runway conversion project total grant, $13 million haven't heard a whole lot about this. This was something that was a conversation agreement between the mayor and city council of how to move Detroit City Airport forward by also making that space a job center. Can we talk about what we're getting for removing the crosswind runway from Detroit City airport

there? Yes, through the chair, the council member Benson, what we're getting is 60 acres of usable land for development. So right now, we're working cooperatively with the FAA. Unfortunately, their staff is a little short, but that has created some challenges, but we're continuing to move forward with that project, so we're in the planning stages and working with them. Okay?

And so we say that with the laugh, but mean, when you don't have staff to move something forward on the federal side, that can pose some serious obstacles to the future development of that site. What are our obstacles there, and have we taken a serious what we're going to be able to do within the next four years if we don't see a return of staff into that department

through the chair council

member Benson,

I just have,

I don't necessarily, I can't really speak to a great extent on that, but it can slow things down quite a bit. But we, but in regard to the airport, within four years, we optimistically feel that we'll have some development there. Okay?

And then that $12 million haven't seen a uses. I see the source within the uses of that $13 million what are we doing there? I know the 60 plus acres. I mean, what is it going towards? Are we looking to do any type of development or attraction around businesses? Are we going to be removing underground obstruction? What are we using that money for? We're

using that money to do just those things. We're using it to demolish some of the existing hangers. We're moving some we're moving some concrete. We're we're relocating some electronic communication lines and things of that nature, and also preparing it to make to remove the contaminants from that particular site, so that site will be pristine and ready to go. Okay,

when we expect the complete expenditure of that $13 million grant?

Well, right now, it looks as if we may not we're moving forward, and that timetable is we haven't really narrowed down that timetable. I optimistically, we hope to get started by next year. Okay?

And then this is something I'm not sure if this has been in peds committee with updates through to the pro tem through the chair, as this project been in P D, and so I haven't seen it in any referral, so I would, I would make a motion to request to the Chair of P D, to line item this project. And I'm thinking quarterly, is that too much, or is that just enough for an update? Just to keep City Council abreast of those activities, we'd be

happy to report on a quarterly basis, yeah, yeah, we'd be happy to do that into

the pro Tim. Is that

okay? Thank you. And then just looking motion,

right, motion has been made, any objections Hearing none that action will be taken.

Thank you. And then just looking at the dbls and you all are doing fine and fantastic work. And when I talk to small businesses, they know who, who heat is. He's thoroughly engaged with our small business community in the third district. But I'm not seeing our financial metrics, this salary, these investments, this initiative is resulting in what, when it comes to sales, in what, when it comes to job growth, job creation, tax revenue to the city of Detroit. It's great to have these engagements. I would like to get a deeper dive from deg staff into what type of financial returns we're seeing, not just on a more qualitative measurement. I really want to see a quantitative measurement on what the return on investment is for the DBL, not questioning that there is one. But if we don't have those numbers, we can't definitively say that we are seeing quantitative results from the investment and the initiatives. Do we have any quantitative

through the chair, what we will what we will have to do, and Sean, I'll have let Sean gray speak in a second, but the DBL do a significant amount of outreach, as you know, and I am, if you measure their impacts. For an example, if a dry cleaner was on the brink of going out of business and as a result of the intervention of the DDA that saved the dry cleaner, how do I, you know? How do we put that in $1 amount that would say, Were it not for then this wouldn't this business going off the record, going out, losing two employees, blah, blah, blah, and so we, I think we have to condition our our our dbls, not that they don't have the capability, but to start to Think about it from a financial impact perspective versus we've, we've liaised between you and permitting department. You got your permit, or we resolve this issue. You know, go forth and prosper and that be the measure. And what you're asking for is more of a financial implication resulting from the work that the DBL is doing. Am I? Am I tracking you? You're

tracking and so if you were a private sector business, and you were making this investment into your DBL team, they would need to show return on that business's investment. You would have to be able to show how and why you are benefiting the larger corporation, ie the city of Detroit, and if you're saving a business, that is the tax revenue that is not going to be lost, that's being saved, that's the income tax revenue that's not being lost because it's being saved. It's a corporate tax, it's utility tax, it's all those things that would have ceased sands your support and intervention, and that is a return on investment which should be captured even with even in other ways, if you're hoping to expand a business, those are new jobs, new income tax, new growth. And so we need to be capturing how that arm is financially benefiting the city of Detroit. Now we're really like to see that in addition, the dbls and I see that they're doing work when it comes to street skates, corridors, cultural events, I would really like to see them intercede, and we now have a viable corridor where, the past, we've had organizations that were an impediment to the success and forward movement of a commercial corridor that's a Van Dyke corridor. We now have new leadership there. We have a liaison, the tmso, who's organizing the community. And what I would like to see is, and this will be my motion, $250,000 for a to engage, have PDD, CPC, DEGC, to work with the van dy corridor businesses to redevelop and implement a corridor strategy and hard street scape improvements for the tmso overlay district along the Van Dyke corridor. And that is my motion,

right? A motion has been made. Any objections,

hearing none that action will be taken.

My next motion will be for the closing resolutions to strongly encourage PDD, CPC, DEGC to work with the Van Dyke corridor businesses and the tmso liaison to redevelop and implement a corridor strategy and hard street scape for that corridor as well

any objections, hearing none that action will be taken.

And then I also like to say just thank you all for your your encouragement and your support of cultural events throughout the city of Detroit. And so my next motion will be to add 10,000 excuse me, $20,000 for the continued support of cultural events throughout the city of Detroit,

any objections

hearing, none that action will be taken. Thank

you. And then this, lastly, I also use mentioned it in your presentation the education series, and that for me, has been a huge benefit when it comes to talking to residents within the district at my community meetings, when I go to police meetings, educating people on how development incentives truly work, because the misnomer is we just cut checks to large developers and corporations versus actually providing coupons to discount property taxes and how those development deals actually have grown our general fund over the last 11 years by over $500 million and that's a direct result of income tax. Without those type of development incentives, we would not have seen this level of growth within an 11 year period. And when you're looking at that, you're looking at the nation of China, type numbers who grow at about 4% so we have outperformed China when it comes to growth of our general fund and as a direct result of your efforts and your work. And then I remember the time that Mr. Head and I went and spoke to DEGC and asked them to become far more conservative in their underwriting practices. So with everything, didn't look so flowery, but now what we have is a far more stringent underwriting practice, and we still outperform China. And so as we want to thank you for that, Mr. Head, as well as DEGC implementing that level of underwriting standard and still ensure that the city is able to move forward, I also want to make sure that we're able to continue with that education series, and now it was not funded. But I want to make sure, is there going to be a problem moving that forward, or does there need to be some funding attached to it? Yeah, please,

through the chair to Councilman Benson, we've had two presentations this year. So we have not stopped, and we are going full steam ahead with that effort. So I don't, I don't see a problem us continuing the effort

without additional funding. That sounds good to me, but

it's kind of we've kind of socialized that operationally, that that's something that we will have to continue to do. The better educated our citizens are, the better outcomes we expect. Not to say that we get. You know, Grade A every time we go out and do projects, but at least we told you how it goes down and how it works. And I think that that's benefiting all of us, that we can educate. So it's it's schools open, so no need for additional funding. I'll take No, I'm just not. So

then my motion will be for the closing resolution for DEGC to continue with this education series on tax incentives and how they work, and

just discussion on that motion. I just want to ensure that during those sessions that there is an opportunity for the public to ask questions. I know there was a a comment that I hosted one, and I thought it was great. And I think even though we are educating people. And I think is great. Some people still just don't agree, and that's fine, too. And I think we have to allow that space to exist, where you can educate as much as you want and push the factual information. And some people just don't necessarily agree, and no matter how much education you give them, they have a belief on tax abatements. There's two sides of it, regardless of how much education we push. But I want to ensure that people are in, though, in these forms and spaces, that people do have the ability to ask questions and have that dialog. Is that happening in each one of

those? Yes, absolutely discussion. Okay,

I just wanted to make sure yes, it

does. Want to further

ensure that they've done two in a third district. I'm a champion of development since, since I've I've been here, I want to make sure that everything is factual. And there are those who do disagree and those who disagree and they don't have the facts yet. They still have the right and the opportunity, and they've been given that opportunity to speak loudly and wrongly about their their interpretation, but they're still been given that. And I do appreciate that, that they are allowed to given a space to make their comments, and in that same education space, which is an opposition what's being presented, but they're still allowed to make that those comments right?

Just wanted to make sure we push the series that that is a portion of it, so customer mentioned motion is to add this to the closing resolution to continue the series. Any objections to that hearing, none that action will be taken. Are you done? Thank you. Okay. Member Callaway,

yes. Thank you Madam Chair. Good morning everyone. I'm just still on cloud nine from the the Detroit legacy business project experience. Thank you Madam Chair, and thank you pro Tim Tate. Three of us were there, and we had that experience. And I'm hoping I was watching online. I'm hoping that we will right. Oh,

we were all invited. We were all invited

because you're we were all invited. They were there were grants from every district across the city. We were all invited, but some of us didn't come, and three of us did. So anyway, going back to what I was saying, I had a wonderful experience, and I'm hoping that money was put into the budget to increase it, to increase it, because it was amazing. And I heard what the Council President said on my way into the office. She was saying that these are businesses that are being acknowledged and rewarded for sticking and staying. They stuck and they stayed. They didn't go across egg mouth, they didn't flee. They didn't flee because we have a lot of businesses across eight mile that says Detroit, so and so, Detroit, so and so. They started here, but they fled. They left. So I'm happy that three were in district two, and I was there to honor them. It was I'm going to take this opportunity house of Morrison shoes. They were one of the $50,000 recipients. And so she's getting a new roof, and that that is like a third generation shoe repair shop right there on the avenue of fashion. And they have stuck, and they have stayed in that very, very cramped space, but they do an incredible job with shoes.

And council member Calloway, I apologize for interrupting, but not only did she, and I love Rhonda, and she knows that, but she was also a motor city match winner at some point, I forgot which round. So she's, she's, and you see the result of her, she invested the resources in the business. And I can say that unequivocally, she does. And, you know, it's good to see her apprentice there. That means now there is a, you know, a succession plan that she's putting forward. And I think she's just really, really a prime example of investing in our small businesses and doing it the right way. So I just wanted to illuminate that she also received the most city management award back. Forgot which Roundup, but I just want to

say, and I know they, they are grateful to the opportunity, but I'm glad they're going to get their roof, because they've been suffering over there for a while with, you know, problems with the roof. So I'm very excited about that. And then we had the which I was not aware of him in my district, 10535, West, seven model Chapman's jewelry. And I think someone was there who got their engagement ring from your staff, Madam Chair. So someone from her staff got her engagement ring from Chapman's jewelry. And somebody mentioned that that night. So I didn't know that they were there. That's a third generation jewelry store, black owned right on West Seven Mile roll. So they they repair clocks. I When my clock breaks, I just throw it away. I don't even because you can't find anywhere to fix them. Now I know they're somewhere in my neighborhood to fix my clocks, to fix my watches, right? I just throw them in a box, and they're there. And, so I'm so grateful to the Chapman family, the uncle who still runs the shop, the sons, the nephews, the brothers, amazing. And then lastly, Mac galleries, Mr. McKissick, and they've been there for a while. He was at Cass tech when his dad started that back in the 90s, and he is still there. And I'm just grateful that he was a $15,000 recipient, and so was Chapman's $15,000 and that $15,000 may be small to a lot of people, but it was a lot of money for them. So thank you for that. So I'll proceed to my questions. Did you get my questions? I sent over about eight Yes,

ma'am, okay, and I'll just wait. Yeah, we are will be sent. We

send it tomorrow. I

haven't gotten the responses

finalizing what you don't need

it because I have a hard copy. We have,

we have it. We'll send you our reply probably by close of business tomorrow. Okay,

that's fine, okay, um, my question is, of the eight that I sent, can you describe the process for canceling or calling back brownfield tiff for tax incentives from a stalled or abandoned project? I can mention a couple that they got. You know, some tax incentives when I came on the council, and the project hasn't started yet. And I know there was a huge one on Woodward, and they got everything under the sun, and I have not seen a shovel in the ground yet. And I don't say, you know, I'm not going to say any district, but because it's not in district two, but I voted on it. And I just want to know what is the process when a developer, I'm not saying, reneged, but is not holding up their end of the bargain with respect to shoveling the ground, start date and an end date. So are these tips and incentives stalled? Or can we call them back? Because I know that lead Plaza, I was over there the other day, I still see the orange plastic around the building, and I know the lions heads were stolen years ago. They ended up in Chicago. I read that article, but that's just an example, not in my district, but I voted for it or against it. So what is the process to claw back?

I have a team member online. Jennifer, are you? Are you online?

I certainly am you

speak to that for council member Callaway, please.

Certainly Good. Good morning. Honorable council members. Jennifer Canales from the DEGC council member Calloway, in order to claw back a brown field plan was actually called termination under the statute, if a project hasn't moved forward within two years, we have the ability to terminate the plan. And the process for that is is the plan first goes to the board to be terminated, a 30 day notice is provided to the developer to provide them an opportunity to speak at the board meeting, and then we submit it to this honorable body for termination. Typically, we give it longer than two years, because, you know, sometimes it depends on the project, and they all have different circumstances around them. You know, sometimes it's longer than two years, we don't automatically, you know, cut a brownfield plan off after two years, we try and work with the developers. Sometimes it's financing, you know, sometimes the project changes but but the statute allows, after two years, to terminate a brownfield plan that hasn't moved

forward. Through the Chair. I didn't get her name, Jennifer.

Through the Chair. Jennifer Canella, Jennifer,

so after two years, is that a state law that requires us to terminate the Brownfield or the tax incentive, but the city chooses, or you choose, or DEGC, somebody's choosing to extend it, just working with the developer beyond the two years, if they're like running into money issues or materials issues, what would be a reason why to extend it beyond the two years? And do you come back to the city council to apprise us of that or not,

if I may, through the chair all very good questions. The statute allows us to terminate after two years. It doesn't require us to terminate after two years. And so every project has its own circumstances. We do if, if it goes past a certain amount of time, we may go to the board and ask for an extension. So it's not automatically two years, unless we know for sure that the project's not going to happen, we typically work with the developer and stay updated with respect to financing. You know, sometimes it may take three years for the for the project to get off the ground, particularly with the recent economy.

Okay, through the chair. I guess I could put this in Executive Session, I just want to know what projects have gone beyond the two year period in the last seven years, the last seven years, how many projects have gone beyond the two year period, and how, how often do you come back to the council to apprise us of that, to to let us know what's going on With those developments. Because if you don't tell us, how would we know? Yeah,

but just to go a little further, so in regard to brownfields, if the investment isn't made, then the developer doesn't benefit, because they only benefit with increased investment, so without any increased investment. So if they don't do the work, they don't receive any investment, they don't receive any benefit. So I just wanted to point that

out, okay, through the Chair. Thank you. Thank you. Mr. Here. My question is, again, is, do you does your body come before this body to let us know when this is happening, that you're monitoring your tracking, but this development is not on time, is being delayed for whatever reasons. Do you ever come back to the council to tell us when this is happening, whether or not they're benefiting or not because they have been approved by this council, even if they don't use that benefit for whatever reason. Do you ever feel the need to come back to let us know what's happening with those different developments? Because I can name about three right now. I have not seen a shovel in the ground yet.

The Jennifer also can weigh in on this. But when we do encounter those that goes to the brown back to the brown back to the Brownfield Redevelopment Authority to update them on the status of the projects. And certainly there could be an action whereby we come back, concurrent with us, sharing with the Redevelopment Authority Board the same information that we would provide to them. We could certainly provide that to city council.

Yeah, okay, thank you. And instead of there being speculation, and, you know, just conversations, we just need, like, I like definitive information. So when I'm driving past the development, I'm like, that should have started three years ago. We approved that in 2022 we approved that in 20 so instead of me, like speculating in my head, like I thought we voted on this, I would like reports. So do we need to put this into Executive Session, Madam Chair? Because I believe that we deserve that, because this is the body that approves everything. And if you don't come back to us, and I'm driving past this development like Lee Plaza, and I'm like, they're not doing anything over there. It's very minimal.

So you had another comment? Can

that go into Executive Session? Just this, this component is that the motion, that's the motion. Madam Chair,

alright, there is no objections. We will add that portion to our Executive Session. Mister Corley, you have it?

Okay? Okay, thank you. Thank you so much. Yeah, I'm just real concerned about there's a huge project that we voted on in 2023 and I've not seen a shovel in the ground yet, and not going to mention any names other than the one I already mentioned. All right? And then, you know, you have my questions. My second question is, can you explain the Detroit DDA describe how you can assist building owners to convert from office space to residential units now? This is what I predicted would happen about two years ago. This is what I told the mayor. And I told I was on this body we were in the auditorium. I said folks are going to cherry pick office spaces. When new ones open, they're going to leave their other spaces to move into the new, shinier ones. I said it is on the record. That's exactly what happened when the Hudson's building opened. GM moved from the Renaissance Center. We haven't talked about that yet. 2000 new jobs were promised. That's not going to happen, because you can't take old jobs, they were already in existence at the Renaissance Center, and then move them over to a new building and say those are new employees. They're not. Those are new jobs. They're not. You're moving jobs from an older office complex to a newer complex. So my question is, how can the DDA assist building owners to convert from office space to residential units? And then, do you have an idea of how many vacant office spaces we have just downtown? Don't even go, you know, don't even go beyond I guess what? Kirby, we don't have to go into the new center area or the cultural district. Let's just keep it downtown. Do you don't have to give me the answer now, but I'd like to know how many vacant office offices we have downtown, not the cultural center, not Midtown. And then how can you encourage affordable housing at 50% AMI, can you work with those who own these office buildings? Because we have lots of empty spaces, and as I indicated earlier, there's going to be a lot of cherry picking. People don't want to be in older buildings. They want to be in newer buildings. So is there something you can do to assist building owners? They have a ton of office spaces to convert those office spaces to residential units

through the chair

Councilwoman Calloway, yes, there is, and we have done that. We have started in 2023 we started, uh, or or modified our housing fund to incentivize the type of development you're referring to, the 50% AMI, the 60% AMI levels where building owners in the DDA can get from the DDA, very flexible, low, very flexible debt with low interest rates. And we and that fund specifically to encourage affordability in the DDA. So we've we've done it again. We established the fun in 2023

I will know that

the challenge with converting office to resi is a you need a vacant building, not just vacant space in an office building. You've got systems, electrical, plumbing, HVAC systems that you would have to drastically alter to accommodate two uses in a in a particular building, office and residential. Then there's the safety issues with respect to allowing folks access to all of the floors. So there are some challenges that increase the cost, but nonetheless, we have established that fund to incentivize the very type of housing that you're referring to. Yeah,

thank you. And through the chair, it's happening all over the world. It's happening in Grand Rapids right now, one of their older municipal buildings is being converted to residential as we speak. It's happening everywhere, but not enough here, because we have a lot of vacant buildings downtown, lot of office space. Nobody's talking about it, but we do, you know, can go to the Bucha building. You can go to the Penobscot building. Those could, I would hope, could be converted. They would be beautiful living spaces for folks, right? So I'm hoping that we will be more assertive in our efforts to convert office spaces, at least continue to have the conversations and make the funds available and see how we can make this happen and put people in homes, and we would never, ever have a homeless issue, if we would just do our part. And then lastly, any projects in district two

is really not a joke, but we anyway, you know, I'm working hard on it. Council member Calloway, we are

okay. Well, I know one thing that's happening is the Fred furniture store. I'm so excited about that. Yes, over there in my neck of the woods, Green Acres, and right there at North Polk and Livernois, I'm very excited about that happening. I'm glad that they're going to be partners over there. They're going to participate in our biz that we're trying to develop over there. They're going to work with new prospect missionary, Baptist Church, and I know they're going to work with pastor. Those children over there need support. We need a pantry over there. We need a clothing closet for those children who come to school with no coats. So I'm hoping that the developers would work with me, to work with those to the church and the school, to make sure those students have coats and proper clothing and food, right?

Oh, by the way, I wanted to share something with you, yes, sir, the bank that you said was going to be the number one bank in the district, first Merchants Bank, they opened this week.

Yep, they opened on March the 10th. Yes, yeah. They opened on March the 10th, yes, but they didn't give me enough information, so I could be there, but we're going to be number one. I told the regional

manager, they're having a grand opening in May, so that's what we'll do. And

we are going to be number one, of course. Thank you so much. Thank you so much, sir. And I can talk to you, and I'll make sure you know, we can get these answered. And then district two. Thank you all so much. Thank you, Madam Chair, thank you

member Calloway, Council Member Young.

Thank you for Johnson. Good to see you and Mr. Head, always a pleasure. I'm happy for where you're at, but I'm not happy to save time because I miss you and I don't like change and I don't get to see you over there anymore. So just want to get it off my chest. Um, before I begin, I wanted to just talk a little bit about the green grocer program. So before I introduced money to revive it, it was it created, I think, about $50 million in new construction, expansion and renovation. Uh, it's about 115 jobs, about $25,000 in grants and about a million dollars in facade improvement. I just wanted to ask you, do we have an update of what that program has done in terms of those economic metrics, and we also have an update of what is done for black families, particularly a single mother family, those are the largest people in the city of Detroit is a single mother with two kids or three people. Do we have any under understanding what kind of impact positively has had since 69% of the city is food insecure, and I think 65% of the city struggles to find good

food to eat. Sean, you want to address the impact of the green grocer program for

and make sure that you know you like really be bold about this, since this program was financed by Coleman Young at district number uh, city council number one, just

you know, yes, sir. Thank you.

You really lay it thick.

Thank you so much through the Chair, if I may. And thank you, Council Member young for noting some of the earlier some of the outcomes of the earlier iteration of this project. There were significant amount of resources invested in attracting and supporting existing grocery stores, helping in the beautification of some of the grocery stores. I think you know, as a person who lives, you know, in the neighborhood of Detroit, you know some of the grocery stores had older visages or fencing or things that kind of almost cage in their parking lots and their shopping carts that made them less welcoming. And so this was a project for years that we use to help beautify and make our grocery stores more welcoming. And so there are, there is data that exists from that iteration of the project. Thank thankful to your support and kind of insightfulness and helping bring this back into the conversation in 2023 cycle, what we did at that time was refocus it on smaller format, full scale grocery stores, because we understand that some of the neighborhoods have difficulty attracting smaller stores. We've kind of seen the spread of the kind of medium sized stores. We've seen some of the supermarkets come to certain neighborhoods, but we know that that last mile of food support to get food access into neighborhoods might need to look like smaller format stores that do still offer a full slate of groceries. This project, the green grocer project, in its current iteration, over the last two years, has seen projects in five of seven council districts. We've got six new store locations, and we've got two convenience stores as well. Also the program so far has helped these grocers create about 32 jobs. We are hopeful that we can go and tackle more of this work and get resources out to deploy to help these businesses, also with distribution. Many of these businesses struggle with trying to get distribution, which is their ability to order at wholesale food and or products. And so there have been instances where we've seen or heard reports of small format grocery stores actually purchasing to replenish their shelves from dollar stores and other types of retail environments, which, of course, creates really big hurdles and burials barriers for them to be really profitable. So we have helped these businesses in terms of giving them access to technical assistance so they understand what type of grab and go items will work in the urban, small format grocery store. We do want to continue to go forward and try to push to support these stores in part with some of the types of changes that we could see at the federal level to snap and temporary assistance, there could be opportunities to lift up these stores as ways to get food into corridors, into neighborhoods that have difficulties with food access and food insecurity. So I will go back and see what data that we have that we can report out overall, other than jobs, I know, like I said, we had 32 jobs for these smaller format grocery stores. We're hoping to award three more grocery stores in the weeks to come. And we also are hoping to have some ribbon cuttings coming up in the spring for some of these grocery stores, which we will absolutely keep you apprised of, Council Member young and rest of city council. But we are very grateful to be able to steward this. This project, very important project,

excellent, and I appreciate that. I also wanted to say that this is also part of what I'll talk about with planning in terms of the 15 to 20 minute neighborhoods that every that you know, every service that a person can need, be 15 to 20 minutes away from them in their neighborhood. So grocery stores are a key part of that. I just wanted to say, and I want to appreciate you for doing that and the great work that we're doing, and I hope I can get more information just about the impact that it's had on food insecurity and families in the city Detroit as well. I know that's a big thing, and I appreciate working with you. I think you might have already answered this question, but I'm going to say it anywhere, just for clarification. But you know, as Detroit continues to attract new investments, such as 3d printing and other technology that driven by artificial intelligence and the Internet of Things, and expanding Wi Fi, and expanding digital payment solutions such as cryptocurrency and things that nature. It's it's a two parter. One are there, does the challenge grant that you just talked about? Does that cover that type of technology, or would we need a new grant program for that? And then secondly, I wanted to ask you for transportation. There's something called the Transportation Innovation Zone, which I also sponsor, but it allows, it's a permitting process, and it's also a testing ground for for technology like autonomous vehicles in a real world testing environment, if you're doing something where you're incentivizing like 3d printing, or incentivizing like demolition, you know, automated demolition, you might need a place to test that out first before you put that, you know, in the real world. Or, or, you know, or autonomous boats, you know what I mean, or, or Eva tall, if you will, particularly if it's autonomous. Are you in partnership with the Transportation Innovation Zone in terms of, if I go to Transportation Innovation Zone, I get the permits I need, I could also be able to fill out an application to receive a financial grant for my business. Is there someone there from DEGC that is part of that? Do those businesses go through that process or are those things separate? And are they separate for a reason? We're

not through through the chair, we're not directly involved in that. I would assume that if we were working with a particular business or client that is interested in that kind of space, we would make that connection. But to the extent of us having direct interface with that process, we don't, okay,

follow up on that. Yeah, through the chair. We market the Transportation Innovation Zone heavily to our existing and attraction companies. We market those services, but we do not. We're not at the table for the permitting process that's handled by the Office of mobility

information rightful. So I'm not talking about for the permit process. I'm talking about that after the permitting process is over, if I'm there because you're marketing it already. So after the permitting process over, I would like to receive a grant from my business to get started. Up, can I start that paperwork or start that process there? So it's kind of like a one stop shop for everything I need. I get the permits I need to get started, and then I can start on these for the incentives or the grants that I had. And are those grant? Is there a grant that already is the does the challenge grant already cover? Because I heard Smart City, these are kind of smart city technologies. Does the challenge grant already cover these type of industries, or what I have? Or would you have to come up with a grant in order to do that?

My uneducated response, Sean, you can weigh in on it. My uneducated response that I will get educated on shortly is that it appears that there's a linkage between that particular scenario that you, you painted to the ability to apply for the grant. Sean, the challenge grant, yeah, challenge grant. Sean, that

is, that is the intention of launching this this piece is to help us place this grant opportunity right up alongside the work that we're seeing, as was mentioned earlier, new lab, black tech, Saturdays, there is a really strong opportunity to partner this to that. So as we create this, you know, if we are fortunate enough to have the opportunity to create this grant pot, it would be very much deployed in way that you describe to help make sure people are using those existing, you know, innovation facilities and innovation opportunities, that this is deployed right alongside those so that's, that's absolutely the intention of how this will be deployed. Okay,

so it's so it's already covered. I don't need to make a motion for that. Okay, thank you. And I'll talk to you more online about the transportation innovations. Okay, I think you might have to expand it, because some of these programs I'm talking about are not transportation related, really printing. It's not a transportation related business. But that might be fantastic. So in that case, thank you, Mayor, President. I would like to make a motion to put the green the entire green grocer program, into executive setting,

Hearing no objections that action will be taken and Thank you. Member, young member, Santiago Romero,

thank you, Madam President, good morning, everyone. I will continue conversations regarding the green grocer program. Grocery stores are definitely needed in some of our neighborhoods, especially on Warren Avenue in four to 10 and along for street and four to one seven, wondering if we have strategic plans on how we focus, where we develop groceries. We know where the gaps are. Wondering if there are strategic plans when we can expect grocery investments in our neighborhoods.

Sean, you want to respond to the council member romero regarding the placement of planning regarding green grocer,

sure. Thank you very much through the chair. Great to see you council member as well. And so the we do not currently have a specific city wide strategy that covers, you know, where they should go. We try to follow the market and support entrepreneurs who are interested in supporting or opening spaces that they may already own. So we have, as you've seen, I know in District Six, we've seen a number of business owners who already own a space that they would like to activate for the use as a grocery store or as a small grocery concept, or even have square footage in other business models. So our current green grocer project, effectively, what we ask for any grantee or applicant is that they are willing to allocate, typically, it's around 25% of their square footage in their model to providing fresh food and produce. We have seen models that allow for a cooler or a a refrigeration unit to be placed in a business model that might be replenished by a third party or might be replenished by other partners. So I say that to say that we are absolutely open to having the opportunity to develop a specific city wide strategy for groceries. To date, we have been really market LED. So we follow wherever our applications come from in terms of people who have already identified an opportunity to create a grocery availability in their corridor, but we are very much open to studying and or looking for tools that allow us to be a lot more assertive about where we incentivize we also have worked closely with our development Team in some of the developments that you heard about earlier from Mr. How to figure out how to bring grocery into some of these residential developments, because, as we all know, having grocery facility makes a lot of these developments a lot more attractive. So we're very much open to supporting a overall citywide strategic approach, but as of right now, we've mostly been led by the market, by where applications come from, in terms of how we deploy these resources.

Thank you, Sean to the Chair, thank you, and I believe my colleague Coleman Young puts the green grocer program into executive session. We can continue this conversation because they are two corridors, really, in District Six that could benefit from grocery stores. So we can continue those conversations regarding streetscapes. This was mentioned that we are investing in streetscapes very much. Again, I will be very proud if we can build out our business corridor along Warren Avenue and fourth streets, but we understand that there are funds that are needed to be able to create this work. I work very closely with my colleague, member Johnson, in the equitable development task force, and there was a presentation shared before us, I believe, also in BFA, around a economic outlook study that would allow the city to see whether or not we are able to utilize current corridor, current resources, put those together to invest on a different corridor. So for an example, can we put monies together from our Southwest Detroit Business Association, from chicken Business Association? Can we put some monies together from either residents or investors that we can use this money to invest in other areas of the city that are ripe for development but that might need some funding? We're hoping that we can see whether or not we have the resources available in District Six to be put together, to invest again along Warren Avenue or Ford Street, so that we can continue to build business opportunity there. So would like to add $300,000 for LPD to conduct an economic outlook study for District Six into Executive Session.

Okay, are there any objections hearing? None that action will be taken. Thank

you, Madam President, because want to make sure that if it's possible for us to put our moneys together to invest in other places to do so. And thank you, Madam President, for the legacy business program I was unable to join, but was very, very proud of the businesses in District Six that were able to receive that funding. And thank you for setting aside the 500,000 for tech startups we were all reached out to by black tech Saturdays, and I did let them know that I would be making such requests as well. So if you wouldn't mind adding my name to the request of 500,000 for tech startups as well.

Mr. Corley, if you can, please note as well, that

is my last motion. Madam President, with that. Thank you all so much. We are in constant communication around the DDA, around how else we can develop and be equitable around the city, so we'll continue those conversations. Thank you. Thank you, Madam President, okay, thank

you council member, Council Member Johnson,

thank you, Madam President, Good Good morning, everyone. Thank you all so much for for being for the presentation. I want to start out by saying thank you to Kevin Johnson, to Derek head to David Howe for supporting the Developer Summit that we hosted last July and the continued webinars that we've been doing, they have been a great success. And although my focus, of course, is on District Four and encouraging developers to come into District Four to not only understand the land and property that is available that city owned, but to also provide small developers with opportunities and information on how to put these deals together. And so we appreciate you all for being there and continuing to support those efforts. I'm hopeful that developers will come in and work throughout the city, just having all of this information in one place, I have had several people reach out and say the web page that we keep now is the most comprehensive web page that they have discovered as it relates to developing in the city of Detroit. So I'm glad that you all were apart and helping to lead that effort, so we greatly appreciate it. I do want to ask my first question around tax abatements. So when you all are considering providing a tax abatement to a particular project, how do you assess the success of a developer's past projects before providing future abatements. And the reason the question is asked is because of a particular project that I have been made aware of recently that may need to have their abatement revoked. And so if you can just speak to that, and then maybe talk about how you go about that process. If a project is in receivership or it goes through a an ownership change,

yeah, so I'll start with what the last things that you mentioned, receivership or ownership change. So if a particular asset ends up in receivership, the well, I'll back up and say the the tax abatement and is governed by a tax abatement agreement between the developer and the city. So if there's if the developer doesn't live up to what is outlined or what is promised in the in the abatement agreement, then certain actions can be pursued, one of which is revoking the tax abatement.

What was your first

the first question was, how do you assess the success of a developer's past project before providing another or an abatement for a future project that's being proposed?

So we do our own due diligence in asking,

I the developers

history and understanding what they have developed in the past. So that's part of our due diligence, looking at the current development but like part of the quantitative analysis is looking at past projects in history. Have you done what you said you were going to do? The other thing that that kind of is supposed to act as a guard rail. Guard rail is HRD, when HRD actually negotiates the tax abatement agreements, tax abatement agreements. So in the in that process, if there was a another issue, on a on another project that would come out at HRD as a as

a standard course.

Okay, thank you for that. And so then we'll ask some follow up questions to HRD specifically about a particular project that has come to my attention. But within that would HRD initiate revocation, or the possibility of

through the chair, yes, that that would be HRD, you know, working concurrently with the law department, because I was actually involved in in, in having two abatements revoked. Council President Pro Tem may remember, we had two tax abatements at the time. It was just a planning development department. They they in the law department brought that to city council. City council drafted a resolution. Well, actually, at the at the urging of David Whitaker, I actually drafted those two resolutions. Resolutions. Those were passed, and those two tax abatements were revoked. So that's how the process works, essentially.

All right, thank you for that. And I do want to say thank you for the work and support of the projects in district four that are coming online. I'm looking for some grand openings and ribbon cuttings and all of those things happening in the near future. I do want to ask you a question, though, relative to small businesses that do receive tax abatements, particularly those that are in our neighborhoods, is there anything do you all have any long term strategy to help them to be able to sustain their business when the tax abatement expires.

That is something that we are dealing with now, to be quite frank about it, there are about 263 active tax abatements, about 50% of them expire between now and 2030 so we are engaged with quite a few owners who have contacted us, or we have contacted them, because this is A concern property taxes, the mill rate here at 84 Mills, is one of the highest in the state and highest in the country. And we are working, along with the mayor's office, to try to develop some strategies that would require some things that happen at the state level, because the state enabled legislation, but we are actively a working to come up with a plan to address this cliff frankly, we're facing, and then, particularly Where we are concerned, particularly with neighborhood projects. Most of the most of the abatements that are expiring in the next five years are downtown, midtown, because those were the that's where the activity started. So we are looking at what's going to happen with all these new neighborhood projects, what's going to happen in 10 or 12 years we will be at the same place. So we're actively looking at ways to address that, all

right. And I look forward to hearing suggestions, ideas, thoughts. I know I have some as well, but I think we all collectively just kind of talk about our millage rate, and how do we drive that down to be able to avoid having to give a tax abatement, making sure that we can help sustain those businesses, and especially those within our neighborhoods, after putting forth all of this effort to get them to opening up, we certainly don't want them to close up shop, because their property taxes skyrocket after the abatement expires. So thank you. I have additional questions that we'll send over to you all. Thank you so much. Thank you, Madam President, thank

you. Member Johnson. Member durha, thank

you and good morning to you folks.

Kind of dovetailing off a member Johnson, because I was going to go into that the abatement cliff is probably one of the biggest issues that we face here in the city. I know we mentioned downtown Midtown, particularly concerning in Corktown when we talk about the abatement clips and coming to the end and the so I want to make a motion to put into the executive session a study of how to expand the abatement cliffs.

Sorry, to how to expand the abatements for

projects who are reaching the abatement Cliff from from 2015 to 2025

any objections, hearing none that action will be taken, and

noting that any changes that are made. Thank you, noting that any changes that are going to be made obviously have to go through the legislature because we are talking about public acts, but I do think it's interesting or an important time to discuss what that looks like and start to work on that. And abatements are not just expiring here in the city of Detroit, but it may be palatable because they're expiring in other cities or municipalities across our state, because we are so reliant on property tax here, we can't go back to 1994 unfortunately, but we are now getting into a situation when we talk about revenues, property tax is not as sustainable as we would have hoped. Our tax base is not growing, but our property values are so it increases the but for so that's my two cents on that one. But getting into development, we talked about the DDA and we talked about the expansion. I know I do talk about the expansion of the DDA. We've seen it done here before, as we expanded it out close to where the district Detroit is right now. LCA over in that area. And so I know we have also made, or some of my colleagues have also put into the budget. About corridor store corridor studies, I want to put, I want to make a motion to put 1.7 5 million into executive session to expand the DDA throughout commercial corridors.

Any objections?

Hearing none that action will be taken. Did you have a response? Thank you.

And noting, I think he wanted

to respond as well. Member dura or not, I was

just going to add to that, if I may, there's legislation that enables Corridor Improvement authorities, which are essentially little mini DDA, that could exist outside of the traditional DDA that exists now, and we'd love to work with you in that effort. We I see that as a very viable option for continuing the drive development in the neighborhoods. It functions just like the DDA, and if we could just utilize those in our neighborhoods, that that would go a long way. So you

read, you read, you're reading my mind. That's, that's Christmas, you know, that's, that's the ability to create a main street in every neighborhood here in the city of Detroit, and we seen it. We got the eight mile Woodward corridor area. We saw some of that development spawn over there by the Old State Fairgrounds. That's how you get a Myers. That's how you get access to fresh groceries, a pharmacy, retail, and some of these corridors. So I, you know, I love to have those further conversations, but as the wheels are turning, these are the things that we think about, if we talk about creating generational wealth here in this city, having a place where small businesses can thrive, it's got to be in those commercial corridors adjacent to those neighborhoods, and that's how you create a walkable community. Many metropolitan cities across the country right now are doing that. So excited about that. I don't even think I asked a question yet.

So the things into Executive Session, Mr.

Head, did you want to amend your resolution? I mean your

your request? Yes. I mean LPD to know if we can amend the request as well to, you know, establish those neighborhood commercial Corridor Improvement entities. We can add that too, and that's my motion as well.

Okay, so this is the amended motion. Any objections?

Discussion member Callaway, yeah. Discussion, real quick.

What's the difference

in terms of what member der Hall is saying, which is awesome, then a biz, which is what I think the avenue of fashion is engaged in conversations now. So I heard you say a little DDA. So the little DDA the same as a biz, because if not, then what's No, I think the based on what he's saying,

the biz adds a fee, if you will, to the participants, tax bill that you know, goes into a pot, if you will, and is used to address things, and then along that corridor that the biz board deems,

you know, appropriate,

the Corridor Improvement authority X, similar to a DDA in that it has a board right. And then the incremental increases in taxes within that particular district are captured, and then that board determines how that, how the incremental increase in taxes is spent. So one is capturing taxes, the incremental increase in taxes within a particular district. The other the biz, you know, kind of adds a fee to the taxes that all of the businesses that agree to participate pay.

All right, thank you. Thank you so much.

Thank you. And to that point, member Callaway, member durha, thank

you. And to that point, the idea is, as we talk about keeping wealth in our communities. We are folks talking about that all the time, keeping the dollar circulating throughout our communities. That's that type of idea. In those commercial corridors. When those taxes are captured, they go right back into those commercial corridors, allowing for improvement, allowing for small businesses to thrive. Getting to my question, talking about small businesses. Obviously, we know that the Motor City match program is an amazing program in this budget cycle. It has moved over into HRD and their cost center, and we know that a lot of ARPA funding has gone into the Motor City match program. What are some of the ideas about how we keep this program going that has been such so instrumental here in the city of Detroit and finding funding mechanisms to keep this going.

I'll also let Sean gray respond, but my first comments regarding your question, Council Member durhall, one of the things that we most certainly benefited from was ARPA funding, because we were able to expand and provide more resources into the small business ecosystem, and it was very viable. Obviously, those days are days gone past this, and I must say this, and I don't mean this to be provocative, however, if we were exposed to more ARPA funding right now, I don't know those resources will be available to us, given the current state of affairs And our with with the federal government this point in time. So I would say commitment that you've already made to the program is the safest and most secure way to for continuation. There was a time in my CF Oakland long can attest to this, where where private sector and philanthropic funding was aligned with the City Council's investment, the federal government's investment, and we had philanthropic funding to support Motor City match. Two of those three are no longer as available to us as it once was, because priorities have changed, obviously. So the answer to your question is, I think the most secure way at this point in time, and we are always out trying to find those philanthropic dollars. So I don't want you to think we abandoned that strategy, because we haven't. Matter of fact, we hosted a big breakfast last week talking to potential philanthropic funders about all of our programming, from legacy business to Motor City match to 313, next, we told them about all of it and say, Look, if any of that is attractive to you, for you to invest in, please let us know. So we're out doing that and to the degree that they respond to though that that outreach, we will insert those dollars in in partnership with with the city. So that's kind of how we see that at this point in time. Sean, you may have some other comments about that, but that's where that's the status of things at this point in time.

Thank you very much. Kevin through the Chair, thank you for this question. Council member Hall, as you know, we really do pride ourselves on making sure to support and uplift businesses across the city. You know, when we looked at the last round, round 28 of Mercy match, we had a lot of demand, and we think a lot of that. You know, when you have the ARPA injection, it expands how you can market. It also expands how you award. And so there's a lot of demand we have seen, you know, we did have to let go of the restore quotient of Motor City match, which was the facade improvement portion of the program. We have actually pitched to a couple of partners that we could do a limited version of restore in certain districts, and so we're hopeful that those conversations continue to Kevin's point. We are also hoping to utilize, or kind of talk through opportunities for philanthropic partners to join us in this work as we approach the 10 year anniversary of Mercy match as well. So we're hoping to leverage that conversation and celebration as an opportunity to invite and continue the conversation for philanthropic parties or partners to join us in the work of Marc city match as well.

Alright, I would agree. I think that that is one of the things that obviously we have to look towards it is no secret that public private partnerships here in the city of Detroit, as you know, they've been instrumental in our rebirth or growth. We've got to keep that going, but even on our end, I think we've got to make a deeper commitment. You know, this is a program that helps the hopes and dreams of those folks who want to become entrepreneurs or small business owners. And we talk about this a lot of times here in our communities, talking about poverty and talking about, how do we create generational wealth? A lot of folks in the early 40s, 50s, 60s, here in the city of Detroit, and even a little bit before that, they had to do for self, but it created a lot of businesses that you saw in corridors like Grand Boulevard, Grand River, and then a lot of those businesses dissipated. But to my to my point, even with the greatness of Motor City match, there are still issues that exist. We want to ensure that those businesses stay open more than one to two years. Because when you have entrepreneurs that start, it's great. They go through the Motor City mesh. We help them. They get to cut the ribbon the business is open. And then they get that first utility bill, or that water runoff or whatever the case is, and they say, wow, like this is there's some real difficulties that exist. So with that, I want to make a motion to put $1 million into the Executive Session for a motor city match business support, kind of on the back end, like a wraparound services to assist current businesses and future awardees.

Any objections,

hearing, none that action will be taken.

Thank you. And then I think my final question would be just about, and I think member Benson touched on is just the educational component about tax incentives and tax abatements. I say this because we do a lot of engagement. And what I will say, I appreciate you guys coming to the council districts, engaging with residents. I think that's great. I was watching old YouTube video from the Detroit historical society about the DEGC, where they explain what the DEGC you probably seen, and, I'm sure, and they talked about Detroit means business and and all of these, you know, all of these great entities. What are we doing to get that word out there, not just by having some of these forums that we have, but marketing really, like they kind of used to do back in the day, market really the importance of the DEGC, the importance of the DDA, and in a way, whether it transcends or goes into social media or even TV commercials, what are we doing to get the word out in that way,

through, through the chair council member all, I have to admit that we have not been, at least locally, as aggressive and sharing the impact and the resources and the support that the DEGC has provided in the past, our structure to provide that currently, Council Member Benson has been on my on my head about that for a while, and we just get so focused on the work that we have, we don't really think through okay, let's make sure that there is a public service announcement about what what It is that the organization does, and that's been intentionally unintentional for that because, you know, kind of let our work speak for us kind of thing, and speak for the city and and that kind of thing. So I can't say at this point that we have a strategy more than it is work that David Howe does when he goes and speaks to the developers, work that David White does when he's around the you know, the country's talking about the virtues of doing business in Detroit, the Motor City match program and others. But collectively, we haven't. We haven't done that, and I think we have to give that a little bit more thought, if that is of value that we see is important, but I just don't want to take our off the work that we do, not that it has to. But you know, we need to make sure that we're doing the kind of work that you all need us to do in order to keep this economy flowing. And that's my that's my first priority.

Yeah, and that was not to say that I don't think you do that. Thank you. Guys actually do an amazing job of that. I think even to member Benson and we both have kind of been unapologetically supportive of abatements and incentives to move things for it here in the city of Detroit and development, it's also about the narrative, right? The narrative that not only exists in the community, but the narrative that exists even to attracting potential developers here in the city of Detroit, if we say, and just for an example, we say that, okay, you're going to go through a community benefits, or you're going to get a project that's triggered by you got to go through the CBO, and then you got to go through the CBA, get a CBA, go through the NAC, okay? And then you finally decide what the community has stated to you that they wanted to see you. Come up with that agreement, and then it hits the council table, and then we're still saying, No, we need to add more. We have a level of unpredictability here. When it comes to development in the city of Detroit, if you're a developer, you don't know what, how much your but for is going to increase by the time you cross the finish line. And so it becomes really daunting. If you are a business, or if you are a developer, even smaller developers, even minority developers, you don't have that level of predictability. And I think part of that is driven by the narrative, and changing the narrative of what these incentives and these abatements mean we can talk about the pilot Fast Track ordinance, which is, we just pushed that forward. That's an incentive. And folks were a little bit daunting, you know, or it was a little bit daunting for some folks, but now we're looking from 30% all the way to 120% AMI, there was a concern that more folks were going to apply to get the abatement at the higher AMI rates, but the majority of the applicants now have been between 30 and 60% but it's all about how you push that narrative out there, and I think we've got to have a concerted effort as a city to say that this is the place that you want to do business in. That was my point. Yeah, I feel you when you looked at that Detroit Historical Society video, it says Detroit is the place to do business. They're showing at that time, which that we hoped it was going to be vibrant, the Renaissance Center, but they're showing Millender center, right? They're showing the residents and Millender center, they're showing the people mover, they're showing all of these things. The narrative is absolutely important, and I think it has to reach all platforms of our residents, including having that educational component, to understand that we've got to continue to do development here, because that is the only way we're going to generate enough revenue to fix the neighborhoods, to fund public safety and to keep the city going. So I'm gonna get off my soapbox, but with that, I would like to make a motion to put into Executive Session. I don't have an amount yet,

funding

for marketing of the DEGC, the DDA and all the other entities relative to development,

any objections

hearing, none that action will be taken. Thank you. And

finally, thank you, Madam President. Finally, I'd just like to say thank you again for all the work that you do. I look forward to having further conversations with you as well as we talk about how we're going to lower property taxes here in the city of Detroit, which we have become overly dependent on, but we've got to keep the city going, so please keep doing the work that you're doing and connecting these dots, because it really is helping here in this city. Thank you.

Thank you, sir. Thank you. All right, that will conclude our hearing for today. Thank you all so much for being here. We appreciate your time, and that will conclude your hearing. Thank you. Thank you very much.

Appreciate it. Appreciate you. Thank you,

Mister poorly, I see we have 1130

Great Building Authority. I don't see anyone here from that department. They're in other offices. They just checked the hallway. Didn't see anyone out there. Did we see it?

Okay, have you seen him? Mr. Poorly or okay? They are okay, perfect. Thank you. Member Young. All right, we will move now to our next Hearing, which will be for the Detroit building authority. I

Good morning. Good

morning. Council members, council president, council pro 10. How are you? So we won't keep you long. We'll just give you the overview of the Detroit building authority. As most of you guys know what we do and how we do it again, I am Tyrone cliff, and I'm the director of the Detroit building authority. I'm enjoying today by Miss Donna rice, Deputy Director of the DBA, Mr. Roger short CFO, for the Detroit building authority, and Miss Jill Bryant, who is our real estate project manager. DBA was created on October 30, 1973 in accordance with the ACT number 31 of the public acts of Michigan, the building authority's function that's provided under law is to provide, is to acquire, furnish, equip, own, improve, operate and maintain city facilities, including parking lots and structures, among other things. Example of some of the capital projects that we have ongoing and are doing is the DDA new Coolidge bus terminal facility on West Side, the Central Services parking lot renovations for Detroit water and sewage, which is a very important project for them and their employees, the Water Board, main office building downtown, penthouse renovation, facade repairs for General Services Department. We have a B Ford Park renovations that are currently ongoing. We're also doing a project here at kmac, another project here at kmac, as you know, we've done this room that we're currently sitting in. We're going to do the electrical vehicle charges in the executive parking lot. General Services Department, Department of Public Works. We're doing a city service yard consolidation, which is a significant project that's important to operations. Obviously, we have the housing and revitalization department, commercial real estate agreements that come to the board annually that gets approved, that we provide those commercial real estate services under we have another project that we are working with the Detroit Public Library to do the skillment branch renovations and improvements that will have to come before this body for approval, municipal Parking department, Ford, underground parking garage repairs and structural improvements and multi space parking meters programs that you see out on the streets. Also the DDA provides commercial real estate services for the city of Detroit through the housing revitalization department DDA of city departments in carrying out their capital improvement programs. Currently, the funds for capital programs come from city's general fund, grant funds or federal funds, and are provided by the relevant department after city council approval. Our goal is to provide proficient, efficient, quality and user friendly services to city departments. DDA project funds are presented to the following five member board of commissioners for approval, Deputy coo Jessica Parker, who's the chairperson mayor's designee, Christopher Jackson, who is the treasurer appointed by city council, Clarence Gayles, who's our secretary appointed by the mayor, Maggie DeSantis, who's a commissioner appointed by city council, and retired Judge Edward Thomas, who's our commissioner, which was the joint appointment by city council in the mayor's office. Closing remarks, I would like to honor thank this honorable body for giving us the opportunity to come before you this afternoon to share with you the DDA and what we do. DBA real estate manager, Miss Jill Bryant will now walk you through the City of Detroit's commercial real estate website. I know that this was a talking point in the past, and we want to just show how to get there efficiently. Yeah, he's

here. She need to share her screen. Are you? You have to log on, okay, who has

a standard computer, and everyone can just log in, and then she can,

you have a slide. You just

going, Oh, just going to the website, showing you how to get there,

share your screen from yours where you are, and go to the website, and then we can walk it through that way. That's easier.

And as we're getting this going, do you have anything else additional from the present for the presentation. No, ma'am. All right, so we will see if all you can pull that up. There it is.

You might want to, you might come in, or you want to bring your laptop to her, and That way you walk in. There.

Please, go on. I

you turn your mic off. Good

morning Council members. Morning Council President, thank you. A lot of times what we get on. I got the wrong glasses. I am so sorry right now, sorry.

Okay, a lot of times the

main questions we get when people call in is, where is the list? Does the city have a list of city owned properties I can purchase? And so I'm going to pretend that I am that citizen. I'm here at the city's main website, I'm going to type in List of city owned properties. I'm thinking, that's what that's one of the things an average, you know, average citizen, average person, would do if they were interested. And as you see, this site comes up and it has by publicly on property. So I would tap on there, and so on this web page, it gives you the process, gives you background on buying property. Oops, I It also explains that the city accepts unsolicited offers, which means there are properties that are not on the marketing list. On here, you see marketed property, so you would click here if you want to know what properties the city is marketing.

And this and the DDA has contracted with summit commercial to provide brokerage service, so the properties that are being marketed are on their website. And if you scroll down, this is the website and how it looks. So properties are listed, price is listed, information about the property is listed. And when you click on the flyer, it lists the

broker that you can contact. So

you might have to sign in Sure.

Yeah, they have a setup where you can log in and see the information, but if you go back to buy publicly owned property, I

if you scroll down,

it has a layout of the process and a flow chart so it explains the process and buying publicly owned property. And we are continuously working to update that and up and make it more concise and more friendly usable, so that is clear, so that the citizens can understand, applicants can understand what the process is. We're also doing. We're also making upgrades to the purchase application again, to assist citizens with providing the city as what's needed. I mean, to provide the information that is needed to make a determination on selling the property.

And then if you tap on what I just I'm sorry, I got to speak. But with the name of that tab was, this brings you to the front page of the city's real estate website.

So if the person clicks here,

this is the property application. Click on the property application.

Application pops up. I think I was going too fast. Okay,

okay. And so this is the the starting of the application. So they would click on here start a new application.

That's how you get to the application.

Click back

again. Here is by pub, by publicly owned property. This talks about the process. A lot of times, people do ask for a list, and no, we do not have a list, but what we do is we direct them to this map. And with this map, you can click on it, and you can filter for our publicly owned property. And the filtering is here on the left, publicly owned properties for sale.

Click on that,

and you see that the publicly owned properties pop up in green, so we've tried to make it as user friendly as we can. Again, we are working with our partners in HRD to continue to upgrade this site and upgrade the application. Again, this is where the commercial properties that the city is marketing for sale are here, and we've also built this web page and with Detroit land bank, so they have their information on here, the application goes into a portal. And so both land bank partners and and City of Detroit DBA partners review that that portal.

Thank you.

Okay, thank you. That concludes your presentation. Okay, thank you all so much. And just to my colleagues, we are at 1230 I know there's a one o'clock committee, and we still do have to do public comments, so just want to cost making a caution on time. I will start with you. Council member Calloway,

I'll just ask more questions. I sent my questions on the 13th of March. Did you receive them? Sir chair, yes, ma'am, okay, so you know, I'm not going to ask any questions. I've already put them in writing. I'll await your response. Thank you, madam. Chair, that's I will do it. Thank you.

Thank you. Member Calloway. Member Benson, all right,

thank you. Just quickly, you may have stated it when I walked out just see the $180,000 increase over the year for your budget. Just what's the reason for the increase,

just salaries and fringes. Okay, thank you.

Thank you. Member Vincent. Member waters, I

pro Tim Tate, thank you, Madam President, thank you. Thank you all for what you do. No questions at this moment, but I do appreciate walk you walking through this process, because that is one of the most common calls that we get from folks, the list, the list, the list. And when we tell them, there's no list and we're now, we have someone we can guide them to, and user friendly, we're actually going to what it may be helpful if you all do a tutorial. I mean, I know that sounds and what you just did was very simple, but unfortunately for some, when they see all these letters and, you know, prompts, it is intimidating. And you know what is a publicly owned asset, city owned, right? I mean, so some of that stuff may be just as I always say, you have regular Jeopardy and celebrity Jeopardy. Some folks need celebrity Jeopardy, but it's still celebrity Jeopardy. It's still Jeopardy. So if there's an opportunity to record it working with media services, I think that would be a wonderful opportunity. Wonderful opportunity, but I really think that's a great tool folks have. Thank you. Thank you, Madam President,

thank you. And just quick question for me, I mentioned to the demolition department a situation where commercial property was purchased, the purchaser was not notified of the condition. As far as blight tickets in that it was already, I guess, on a list for demolition. And I'm hearing that this may be happening more frequently, that there's no notification of that at the time of purchase. So can you just speak to a little bit more about what that notification process looks like when people are purchasing commercial properties. I mean, she's invested significant amount into the building now she's being told that the property will be demolished, that it was already on in the queue to be demolished, but that was never notified to her at the time of purchase. So what is the communication at the time of purchase for those who are purchasing sure commercial property, the overall condition of the of the property

through the chair? What I would like to say to that is that we do work with the demolition department, and we let them know the properties that we have in the queue to sell, and then, and likewise, they also let us know what properties they are thinking of demoing. And so we do have that communication in place that being said, we do need to do something further, and we will do that,

but that's that's how we

typically have that handled. Need to do further exactly well,

if so, a lot of times, people will apply, and it is not once they apply, and between the time of them applying and the time of them actually getting to closing, time has passed, and so we need to come up with a process to have something in the middle to reach out to demo once we have a purchase agreement, say, Okay, we need to reach out to demo to see is this property on the demo list so we can do something like that?

Okay, I would like to add that portion. It won't be any financial ask, but just into our closing resolution to strongly encourage that that process be implemented or created from a notification standpoint, to the Executive Session, is there a motion to do so? Motion, okay, Hearing no objections. That action will be taken, and we do have other questions that we'll submit in writing as well. Thank you, Council Member, Young, thank you.

I love you. Some celebrity, Japanese, um, I would ask you really quickly, let's it's kind of a hypothetical. But if I wanted to convert old motels into housing for homeless, like they've done in New York City, I know you talked about your partnership with HRD, does it include doing things like that because of the housing crisis at all? It keeps explaining how that works. So

typically, we're not involved in housing, but when it comes to capital, like of HRD, and we've had these conversations in the past, what would it take to put this level investment in this type of facility so we could meet some sort of number or goal, we can provide that type of detail and that type of support on the capital and build outside. I mean, right now it's going to be terribly expensive. It's probably going to be like 400 to $500 a square foot, depending on the condition of the whatever that facility is. So that has to be a factor in if it's if this is truly affordable. Okay,

so it turns in, when somebody buys that bill, absolutely how much work he would go into actually doing you buy that on that capital. So is there a connector program or anything at all? Someone goes and says, and I'm looking to build this building, and I'm looking to buy this for this purpose. Is there are, is there any communication at all with HRD and you for these properties? Would they recommend? Somebody saying, Well, maybe you might want to go look into this if you're looking for a location. Let me send you over. Here's this list. Does that happen at all? Or no, that's a

great, great point. So yeah, oftentimes, with our brokers, we'll an entity or someone will come in and say, we're looking at this to do this at this location. And we might advise like I don't think you're going to meet your numbers at this location. However, here's something that's more densely populated that might meet that number, or something like that. So we advise like that that's universal with HRD planning and development and a lot of other voices too, chiming in. Okay, thank you. I appreciate that. Thank you. I'm done.

Thank you. Member, Santiago Romero, thank

you, Mr. President, through you Good afternoon. My questions were also the list. Thanks for going through that and agreed having a tutorial or video for us to follow along would be great. I was following along with you, and I got lost with our city website, which I know we are also updating, so that would be very helpful. So my other question is around incentives for developing historic buildings. So we are trying our best to save what we can when it comes to historic properties, and I know that each DAB knows us of some incentives to be able to to preserve do you guys work closely together at all? Do you know of such incentives so that we're able to preserve our historic properties

through the chair, we work very closely with HRD and planning and in the historic division, and so we would, you know, send people there to get that type of information.

Okay, good to know. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. President, thank you. Member Johnson,

thank you, Mr.

Chair. Good afternoon, everyone. Thank you to Jill, Brian and Felicia. Stud Steele for joining us in the Developer Summit and sharing going through that process to show people not only where you identify publicly owned properties, but also or city owned properties, I should say commercial properties, but to also walk them through what is required when they submit an application. So we certainly do appreciate that. I am not going to ask any questions. I am going to send some questions over. I am really interested in LP these questions, though, and more particularly focused on any capital projects that the Detroit Building Authority will be taking on this fiscal year, 2026, all right, thank you. Thank you. Mr. Chair.

Thank you member. Durha, thank you, Mr. President. It's good or good afternoon now to you all. Only question I have is just about priority access to purchasing properties for Detroit or minority business owners. Do we have a program like that right now, or is there access to be able to do that through

the chair? What we do is we, I won't say we have a Priority program, but what we do with the application, we do ask for their contact information, and so that does include, you know, city state that they are in. And so as the applications are reviewed, that's taken into account the city residents. But you know, that's not always the leading but that is taken into account. And I can say, based on our sales for 2024 we had about, we had roughly 60% city of Detroit applicants. So I'm not saying, I'm not saying they live there, but that's the address that they put on the application. And so we've been running at about that amount for the last couple of years.

And I just asked that because looking for opportunities to expand, just access more to some folks who are here, or even our retirees. You know, we're going through our retiree Task Force, some of them have mentioned open up small businesses. So any other questions I have, I can ask offline. I know how to get in contact with you guys. You guys have been phenomenal. Let me say that though, for some issues that we've had, contacting you relative to buildings, and even access to the website and navigation. So I like, I like to make a motion on mr. President to put into executive executive session the creation of a program that would give priority access to Detroit residents and minority owned businesses.

All right, colleagues, there's a motion on the floor. Any objections Seeing none that action shall be taken. Thank you, Mr. President. All right. Well, thank you so much. We appreciate it. We are going to wrap up the budget hearing for the DDA, we appreciate the information and opportunity to have those questions. I will now go to public comment. If there's anyone from the public would like to speak, please raise your hand now. Going once, one, twice, one, three times. Election of public comments have now concluded. I see one hand in the Committee of the Whole Mr. Fauci, if you can come on up.

I think we have

10 total callers. We're going to give everyone a minute and a half and we're

going to get that clock up. And when you see that clock,

the really

appreciate Alright, Mister Fauci, the floor is yours, sir. Yeah.

Good morning, good afternoon. I just wanted to say I appreciate this council as a body, and it's been some individual things, but overall, I don't recognize you all as individual free speech, because you can't speak for each other, and so individually, the body have to speak as a whole. And so there's been some conflicts with that, but I want to just speak on behalf of our citizens here, most of our citizens here, they get reverse convictions, they get appeals and all these other things. Imma give some names here. Executive, Robert Ficano, Judge Hathaway, Council, Monica CONUS, Officer Joseph weekly and more recently, Officer Jawan Brown, were all defended by the city's most high profile lawyer, the number one gangster lawyer, Steve fisherman, who won the right to counsel award, not only him, but other council members currently, was defended by him. Are the citizens paying for this? Are the citizens paying for government, people with education and degrees to defend themselves criminally. My question is, what makes government any different from any gangster out in the street? What make your credentials any more qualifying or less qualified from anybody out in the community, if you can't police your own and so I'm sick and tired of the constant feedback from one individual when it comes to free speech and his body not addressing it. Thank

you so much, sir. I will now go to our public commenters online.

Who was our first caller?

Good afternoon, Mister President. First caller is we see you alright. Caller, the

floor is yours you have a minute 30 general public comment,

good afternoon and through the chair. May I be heard? Yes, yes. Thank you. Mr. Foster, yes. We are fighting for our voices to be heard. You all sat here at the table. We don't need the gegc or any of those people to do any of the things they said they would, they would do. We can do those without them. One of the most important questions asked at the table was quantitatively, return on our investment. What are the numbers they gave you a song and dance, but they're not giving that to us. You all need to listen to what the people are saying to you, because this pork field sham of a hearing where everything is already determined for you, but they allow you to throw a few million here and a million there in for your own sales, but we understand what's going on at this table. Tell to tell the people exactly what you have been doing now, all of a sudden, we're going to have the state come in and say, Oh, these apartment buildings. That are these, these, these, these office buildings you've built. Nobody. Oh, well, let's give them some state money, and then we'll supplement them with city money to turn them into housing. That was the plan all along. They have never told you how these office buildings are being filled, but they just keep building them. But that's for another reason. You are everybody in this city is not crazy, even though you think we are we're not. Thank you. You

are very welcome. Next Caller, please.

The next caller is master plan, alright.

Caller, the floor is yours. Have a minute 30 general public comment,

yes, good afternoon. Can you hear me? Yes. Ma'am, yeah. Um, wow. So what I didn't hear in the last discussion was any effort by the city to implement some more solar, like on the parking structures. So is the city's only goal to do solar is just to clear people out of neighborhoods against people as well. Because what I don't understand why the building authority isn't a bigger partner in this so called effort to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, like he talked about certain parking structures and building his work on just wonder why we haven't had that conversation. Could you ask that to and why are you letting the department heads leave when residents still have questions again? Even charity Dean last year, who used to be the head of creo, was shocked at the way these hearings were held. She said, I always stayed during the budget hearing so I could address resident concerns. So very disappointed about this process, and also I keep asking about more meaningful inclusion in the master plan. Update, thus far, I've seen no meetings that are geared toward the cluster areas that people live in. So we were just talking about that, you know, people weren't developing the neighborhoods, but let us be a part of that and not have more secretive planning.

Alright? Next Caller, please.

Next caller is William M Peters, mister. William

M Davis, the floor is yours. You have many 30 general public comment.

Uh, good afternoon. Could I be heard? Yes, sir.

Pardon, yes, sir. Oh, okay,

the first off, we're talking about like, say, the first item on your agenda, all these groups with these letters. You know, I think that any of those groups is getting any type of money. The whole public should know who they are and what city they live in. I think all these groups you know, at least 80% of their board should live in the city. At least 80% of the management should live in the city. Also, I think a greater effort needs to be made for the city to help to coordinate for the various businesses throughout the city of Detroit to so that they might be able to get, you know, better purchasing power on buying stuff. Because far too often, we seem like other groups that operate in the city, sometime be proud of a group that helped them purchase like, say, be it gas or whatever, and you know, it wholesale rates, far too. Many of our businesses don't get that same type of opportunity. And they should also, I think the building authority should be more a little bit more transparent. And also, they shouldn't be leasing these buildings and structures for such a high rate to to the state of Detroit and the city Detroit needs to be owning, not leasing places, especially some places that don't even have parking lots. Thank you.

Thank you. Next Caller, please.

Apologies I was muted. The next caller is Steven Harring, can

I be heard?

Yes, awesome. Thank you. So you know, overall, with the CG, I love the work they do with encouraging developments, Motor City match, but you know, my company, I worked with the de CG a few years ago as a vendor for Motor City match, and it was one of the worst experiences I ever had. A lot of bureaucracy, rude employees. I know this one particular, I'm not going to say, is no longer there, but you know, we were, I was treated in some of the most disrespect you can imagine for a contractor with the EDC that you know, since that one lady who was my contact, who was a total I'm not going to say it's not there anymore. Maybe it's changed, but I just want to make sure contractors and the businesses are being treated fairly and with respect, because I had clients, and I had a lady come calling me crying because she was disrespected so bad by the de CG, so I think there needs to be some look at kind of the interior of The organization. I don't know. It's probably changed a lot since it's like all new staff from when I had that bad experience, but I agree with Mary Sheffield, or Councilwoman Sheffield, you know, some people are just not going to listen to that information.

Next Caller, please.

The next caller is Eddie a Varner, it's

Betty Avon at the floor is yours. You have a minute 30. General public comment,

good afternoon to all within the sound of my voice, and I meant to say this this morning. Good afternoon to Officer Knox, it was a pleasure speaking and meeting you yesterday at the city wide neighborhood black club meeting, I'm asking that the council consider a program and allocate monies for Association and black clubs for their projects to improve their neighborhoods and communities, and also allow monies for funding to improve the corridors throughout the city of Detroit that aren't being funded, but organizations are working to get their corridors improved. So please consider that also help organizations who aren't 501 C threes with the fees that they must pay to become a 501 c3 also allocate monies for the Detroit home Accessibility Program and the senior and disabled home repair program to help us seniors, people who are disabled to be able to stay in their homes. And the senior disabled accessibility program, think it focuses on making their homes handicapped accessible, and also the Detroit home accessibility.

You next caller, please.

The next caller is Monkey. Ren true, Ruben,

James Crowley Junior, the floor is yours. You have a minute 30 general public comment

now I've been watching y'all put all this money in the executive section, millions of dollars, and y'all they said nothing about the youth here in the city, the black youth, especially the black youth, but you gotta cheated in city councilman district seven, Brad duel Hall, sitting up there putting monies in Executive Session, and Gina Avey Walker and Janice Winfrey been over the cheating in elections with this absentee ballot fraud, and he cheated in district seven. Got numerous Detroit voted trap houses, numerous ones. He got all these absentee ballots, well over 60, and that's what he won election by now, these fraudulent absentee ballots. Just yesterday, a citizen came down, Malik Shelton, with affidavits, signed affidavits, under the penalty of perjury, of people who show up on the voting rolls and they ain't voted. Now, that said this, I got a question for all y'all, because all y'all cheated in, the school board cheated in, board of police commissioners cheated in. Dante Goss is on record Detroit unity website right now. I just put it up to the top post. You can listen to the man. He sounds like an imbecile. Now I'm just wondering,

what is y'all going to do now?

Y'all busted.

Next Caller, please.

The next caller is Steven Boyle.

Call of the floor is yours. You have a minute 30 general public comment.

Thank you. I attended the block club meeting last night, city wide block club meeting, which is highly overdue and needed. It was interesting that they asked all of us attending, where's our youth? We need more young people involved with our block clubs. So I tuned in specifically on this session to listen to how developers, these economic growth organizations, are looking at how transit is needed, and we also need to look at putting some business loops in to connect all of these streetscape projects on the for example, on north south, like figure eight, on the west side, to connect all of the streetscape projects because they don't have any access to the opportunities that are showing up. Um, I also am a bit concerned about public lands, then we need to get some more public development instead of private development all over the place. It's like colonizers took it over so taxpayers could benefit from businesses leasing public space, if we just develop it as public space, instead of continuing to realize that, oh, it has to be a private corporation in order for it to develop space, we have to do something different, because what's working right now is not really working. Thank you.

Next Caller, please. The next caller is Cindy Dara. Cindy Dara, the

floor is yours. We have a minute 30 general public

comment. Yeah, Detroit

building authority, whoever that was, who said it cost $500 a square foot to rehab a motel for homeless people. It's ridiculous. Ridiculous. Anyway, I knew somebody used to live in one of those on the east side. So it's been done. I don't know how it's done. I'm I'm running for City Clerk. Anybody wants to help me? I'm just thinking that I need help getting the signatures. We got to have 500 for city clerk, and if you want to run for mayor, or I think at large, it's 500 and otherwise it's 300 there's nobody running in district one right now, as far as I can tell, unless they've gone to get the petitions for police commissioners. So if you don't run somebody, then it leaves it to the mayor to appoint the vacancy, which is not good. The history of Detroit Economic Development Corporation. I knew them back when the whole block got demolished on third between Charlotte and temple. It's still empty. That's that was back in probably 82 or three. They demolished that whole block, and it's still standing vacant. So keep on demolishing and don't involve people. I don't know how you're going to get more people besides the ones that are

you next

caller, please. The last caller for the morning public comment is, call in user three.

Call in user three. The floor is yours. You have a minute 30. General public comment,

can I be here? Yes, ma'am.

Good afternoon. I would like to state that I'm very disappointed that I've had to ask for two years all of you all to get this light at this Valero gas station up so that it reflects better lighting at the bus stop on limb Ward and West Grand so that the children coming from Northwestern High School during the evening can have adequate lighting. I'm always brushed over. Somebody will get back with me, or I'm given a lot of attitude. People want to talk about what they might have done in the past, but nobody can get this light on, and that's my number one concern. Member Tate, I would like it if, since you are the pro tem, if you can actively see why this gas station won't put a light up in this Michigan Lottery pole, not the sign, but the pole itself because it reflects adequate lighting. And why is it okay for those that are Caucasian descent to sell drugs and be on public main intersection without visible license plate, yet, if they are black men or women, they're taken to jail or have their car confiscated even when they have registration and license that is valid, it's a different standard.

Thank you. Ms, Shea, we'll continue to work with your district council member on those issues. It takes us to the end of our public comments, colleagues, if there are no objections, we show a stand in recess until two o'clock for our municipal parking public hearing. So stand in recess.