August 14, 2018
Good Morning! In this morning’s eBlog, we consider some of the fiscal and physical challenges and changes to one of Detroit’s oldest neighborhoods, Corktown, before venturing to the warm Caribbean waters to witness incipient signs of fiscal and physical revival in Puerto Rico.
Motor City Revitalization. The City of Detroit, first settled in 1701 by French colonists, was the first European settlement above tidewater in North America, founded as a New France fur trading post, before becoming, by 1920, a world-class industrial powerhouse and the fourth-largest U.S. city. One might describe it as a unique municipal center of nations, as the first Europeans to settle there were French traders and colonists from the colony of La Loisiane, today’s New Orleans—traders who were forced to vie with the powerful Five Nations of the League of the Iroquois—setting the stage for what became the Beaver Wars in the 17th century. The greater Detroit metropolitan region of those times flourished as a center of the nation’s fur trade, so that the Crown’s administration of New France offered free land to colonists as a means to attract families to the region—a perennial challenge, and one of the city’s greatest fiscal challenges today. It was in late 1760 that Fort Detroit was surrendered to the British, in the wake of the fall of Quebec—so that control not just of the Detroit region, but of all French territory east of the Mississippi River, was formally transferred to England via the 1763 Treaty of Paris. By 1760, a British census counted 2,000 hardy souls in the city in the wake of the Seven Years’ War—a head count which, as would happen in this century, dropped 30% by 1773, a decade after the English had reserved the territory, under the Royal Proclamation Act of 1763 for the Indians—land eleven years later transferred to Quebec. In a census taken during the American Revolution, Detroit’s population had soared to 2,144, making the city the third-largest city in the Province of Quebec.
Today, Corktown is the oldest surviving neighborhood in Detroit, with the neighborhood named for its early Irish immigrants, who by the early 1850s, made up half of the residents of the 8th Ward (which contained Corktown), but it is a part of the city which has been reduced in size over the years by dint of numerous urban renewal projects, the construction of light industrial facilities, and the construction of the Lodge Freeway. What remains of the residential section is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. It is a neighborhood slated for change in this time of radical changes wrought by the emergence of the self-driving car era—so the Ford Motor Co.’s plans to renovate the historic Michigan Central Depot has raised apprehensions with regard to the potential impact such a large-scale project could have on the area and surrounding neighborhoods with regard to affordability and diversity—enough of a concern that Detroit’s leaders and officials have commenced what is to be a yearlong process to gather feedback from the community regarding the future of the neighborhood. That municipal effort is coming in tandem with a separate effort by Ford to collect input on its proposed plans to revitalize its iconic 100-plus-year-old historic building.
Officials with the city and Ford say they are committed to working with the community as they navigate their plans. The company, on June 20th, had announced its intentions to purchase the abandoned Michigan Central Station, a hulk of a building just blocks from where Kevyn Orr had his office on his first day as the City’s Emergency Manager charged with taking Detroit into the nation’s largest ever chapter 9 municipal bankruptcy—and fashioning a plan of adjustment to be approved by the U.S. Bankruptcy Court. That 18-story building, which starred as a set piece for the flick Batman v. Superman, has been described as representing a “deep, complex wound…a physical reminder of what the city was, and what it many thought it would never be again.”
Simultaneously, the city is seeking to create a strategic framework for the Greater Corktown neighborhood to address the area’s potential for growth, even as it seeks to preserve its heritage and integrity, officials say—a framework which is to detail both a short-term implementation plans and long-term goals for the neighborhood’s development: Detroit’s Planning and Development Department expects, before the month is out, an RFP for a consultant to conduct a series of community meetings in Greater Corktown, with said selection to be announced by the end of next month: the study itself is projected to lead to a recommendations of a final framework in a year.
Not Self-Driving. The city’s plans for Greater Corktown, just one of the city neighborhoods in various stages of planning, was in the planning stage prior to Ford’s depot announcement, creating some governing challenges, or, as John Sivills, the project manager with Detroit’s Planning and Development Department, put it: “The Ford announcement certainly does add a great sense of urgency to it so we can have a plan in place rather than tail-wagging-dog scenario.” That is, as he added: “That the city can have a plan in place such as bring in Ford and provide for inclusionary growth.” Similarly, his colleague, Steve Lewis, central design director for Planning and Development, noted that Detroit’s plan will craft “a vision for the future of the neighborhood that either by optics or by reality is not seen as being dictated by Ford.” Their study is expected to address challenges and opportunities for a number of issues, including zoning, landscape, historic preservation, and housing development.
Will They Drive in Tandem or Self-Drive? Ford is planning to create a 1.2 million-square-foot campus with its anchor at the Michigan Central Depot, with plans to occupy the depot by 2022: the project will include the Grand Hall, which will be open to the public, along with retail space: the 18-story tower will have office space as well as residential space on the top two floors. In addition, Ford intends to develop other buildings on the campus, including the former Detroit Public Schools Book Depository, where Ford plans to house its autonomous vehicle business on the Corktown campus. Ford is, at the same time, seeking community engagement for its Corktown expansion, with the company asserting: “Detroit and Corktown, North Corktown, there’s opportunity and so much potential, and they’re already doing such amazing work that Ford can really just be a platform to shed a light on the work that they’re doing…Maybe help them scale.”
Indeed, scale, as in any city, is an issue: because of the large-scale of the project, it falls under the city’s Community Benefits Ordinance, one approved by Detroit voters in November of 2016, which targets developments worth at least $75 million, if the development gets $1 million or more in property tax abatements or $1 million or more in value of city property sale or transfer: under said ordinance, a neighborhood advisory council is assembled to provide feedback in meetings during the ensuing two months, with the advisory council subsequently working with Ford to create a community benefits agreement.
To date, Detroit City Council President Brenda Jones has selected Hubbard-Richard resident Aliyah Sabree, a Judge in the 36th District Court; City Councilwoman Janee Ayers chose Sheila Cockrel, a Corktown resident and former Councilwoman. The community elected Jerry Paffendorf, co-owner of Loveland Technologies, and Heather McKeon, an interior designer with Patrick Thompson Design. The Detroit Planning and Development Department will name four appointees, and City Councilwoman Raquel Castañeda-López will name one appointee.
Concurrently, Ford has feedback boards and comment boxes in its Ford Resource and Engagement Center, where questions posed include: “Where do you go to get ___ in your neighborhood (nails, hair, dry cleaning, etc.?); What are the top three things you want to see changed in your neighborhood?”; and “Who is an unsung hero, organization and/or business in your neighborhood?” The company reports that it has already received feedback from excitement to issues of apprehension on issues ranging from housing, to jobs, to traffic, and to culture,” adding: “We really love that the community values the diversity of the neighborhoods from Corktown, North Corktown, and Southwest Detroit. We’re really understanding the importance of that. We’re also understanding the importance of workforce. Recognizing that there’s not only potential construction jobs, but also long-term what are some ways we can build a pipeline or clear pathways for some of the other jobs that may be available in the future. Technology jobs, things of that nature. Jobs around (electric and autonomous vehicles.).”
Some have criticized aspects of the Community Benefits Ordinance and the Neighborhood Advisory Council process. Alina Johnson, a resident of the nearby Hubbard-Richard neighborhood, which will also be impacted by Ford’s project, said she feels residents should be trained in advance on advisory council work in order to be most effective on a tight timeline—or, as she put it: “Right now, the main concern is making sure that the folks who have been selected will be able to be inclusive and able to communicate to the public and serve everyone and not necessarily their community in terms when they’re discussing benefits by those impacted by the train station development.”
Blowing Fiscally Back. Despite a double fiscal and physical whammy of hurricanes, and being in the beginning of this year’s hurricane season, Puerto Rico FY’2017 General Fund revenue came in 1.5% higher than budgeted: total revenue was $9.31. Puerto Rico Secretary of Treasury Teresita Fuentes noted: “The level and behavior of tax collections during the past fiscal year in comparison with other years is considered unusual due to the economic effect of hurricanes passing through the island.” That is a sharp fiscal blowback to FAFAA Executive Director Gerardo Portela Franco’s warning last December 5th that he expected Puerto Rico’s fiscal year General Fund revenues to be 25% less than budgeted. Secretary Fuentes reported that unexpectedly high revenues from April to June had allowed the government to exceed the budgeted number, while Puerto Rico Secretary of the Interior Raul Maldonado noted: “To a large extent the [revenue] increase is attributed to the temporary economic activity of companies associated with recovery tasks and the flow of insurer and federal government money after the hurricanes.” He noted that the greatest increase was derived from the island’s corporate income tax—some $260 million; however, Puerto Rico’s sales and use tax revenues returned $26 million less than projections from the start of the year. Secretary Fuentes said that many businesses had either been closed or had operated partially in the weeks following Hurricane Maria and that in the period the sales tax on restaurant food was temporarily eliminated; however, the sales and use tax revenue rebounded in the last quarter, with Secretary Fuentes pointing in particular to hardware stores and department store sales.
Back to Escuela. Puerto Rico Governor Ricardo Rosselló Nevares has announced the territory will provide more than 2,000 regular slots to temporary teachers—a step by which he hopes to alleviate the recurring challenge of recruiting educators at each school start—as teachers are often attracted to more generous salaries and benefits on the mainland. His stated goal is for these educators to be recruited under 10-month contracts by September: “We are going to make an effort to convert thousands of temporary places in permanent seats in the education system.” The Governor noted that his action is intended to make it possible to clarify the system and end current uncertainties which have left teachers in the dark with regard to whether she or he still has a job—an apprehension not just of teachers, but also parents, who are confronting their own choices with September looming.
Two years ago, in the midst of an election year, the Governor acted to convert some 1,519 temporary teachers to become full-time employees, noting, then: “You have teachers who were not sure, and now they are going to have certainty, and you have a school system that did not have visibility, now we are building that visibility,” adding that, in his view, this governing decision would not have an adverse impact on Puerto Rico’s budget—and, ergo, not trigger PROMESA Oversight Board fiscal preemption: “If there is any philosophical consideration that they may have, that is another thing. For us, it gives certainty to the system, particularly in the area of needs that we are going to have to supply.” The Governor explained that the measure was possible thanks to two fundamental actions: the creation of an electronic platform which has facilitated the ability of Education Secretary Julia Keleher to assess where staff is needed, especially with regard to what levels and subjects: that is, via the human resources platform, the Secretary can assess, as the Governor noted, the educational organization of each campus, including how many teachers are transient and what subjects they teach. This could be a valuable fiscal step, because online registration will facilitate the ability to confirm the number and location of students—a critical step for the completion of the school consolidation process.
Sec. Keleher has explained that the system will take into account, first, the educators who occupy places where recruitment has proved difficult, such as Special Education, English, and Math—noting the human and fiscal challenges: “You have to honor the transient teacher. It does not seem fair or correct in terms of the reality we want to offer. This is not a good deal for a person who is giving 100% for their students: The Secretary noted the determination is aligned with the anticipated tax revenues. Her request, this year, is for over 5,500 transitory positions—or, as she notes: “The idea is to have the teachers ready for the start of classes, the week before they know where they are going.” Puerto Rico’s statute 85-2018, the Law on Educational Reform “establishes that the Department, in areas of difficult recruitment such as teachers of English, Mathematics, Physics and Chemistry, will promote the permanence of the same within the term of one year, if fiscal availability of the square and of being the same vacancy.”
The GMU Municipal Sustainability Project 