Grosse Pointe Appeals Detroit’s Nixing Of Public Works Warehouse

Grosse Pointe filed an appeal of Detroit’s decision to rescind a conditional use approval for a planned public works warehouse at 4849 Canyon, near Mack Avenue. The city filed their appeal Feb. 8, saying that Detroit’s choice to rescind was “unwarranted and improper both factually and legally.”

According to the Grosse Pointe News, residents near the planned facility “strongly opposed the plan on social media after an article on a Detroit magazine’s website insinuated the facility would be used as the City’s garbage dump. The Detroit neighbors fear a rodent problem, an issue raised by City residents living in proximity to the current DPW site on Maumee, and view the act of locating the City’s DPW in Detroit as environmental racism.” Grosse Pointe disputes these claims, telling the Times “the warehouse will be used to store public works vehicles and materials and will contain offices for our public works employees. It is not a garbage dump or a garbage facility,” and denying any current rat problem at the existing public works building.

The “magazine” that called out the plan in January is actually Metro Times, an alt weekly newspaper. Metro Times’ editor Michael Jackman’s second piece about the project described limited (or even nonexistent) efforts to reach out to Canyon Rd residents about the plan. “If the project is really as appealing as she insists it is, we suggested to [Grosse Pointe City] Councilmember [Sheila] Tomkowiak that perhaps more groundwork needed to be done reaching out to the neighbors of the proposed DPW site.”

For more coverage, read the story at Grosse Pointe News.

Rendering via City of Grosse Pointe.