DETROIT (WXYZ) — Today, Detroit leaders announced the second phase of a plan to put solar fields in Detroit neighborhoods.
Nine finalists were chosen from a starting pool of 27 potential city neighborhoods across the city.
I got a chance to talk to the mayor and some of the residents who will live and benefit from the solar fields if they’re chosen.
“You’re seeing a lot of fights in this country over, ‘Why are you taking our agricultural area for your city?’ And I thought, what if the city of Detroit became the first one to say, ‘We’ll build the solar panels in our own city. We’ll power our own buildings with our own renewables,” says Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan.
Duggan says the plan is to power 127 city buildings with a total of 250 acres of formerly vacant or blighted land.
“I promised the public when I ran every neighborhood would have a future. There’s some neighborhoods in this city that are really far gone,” says Duggan. “And this was a way to take six of the most blighted neighborhoods in the city, take out the worst of it with solar fields, and invest in every house around.”
That’s because neighborhoods will receive $25,000 dollars of benefits per acre and neighbors located in the footprint of the solar field sites will each get between $10,000 to $25,000 of benefits per home.
One day soon, homeowners like Linda and Keith Kelsey could be looking out their front door, seeing solar panels - and benefitting.
“We’ve been in this neighborhood for 30 years and we’ve seen it go down. And to get something is very rewarding.”
They’ve been involved from the beginning, pushing to make change to the neighborhood they say was once filled with families.
I asked, "Do you think it says something about the direction Detroit’s going in?"
“I think so. I think it’s going to be a good thing for us, especially in this neighborhood. The ones that want to sell, let them sell. The ones that want to stay, let them stay.”
Mayor Duggan says homes in the planned solar field boundaries will need to be taken through condemnation. But the city is offering double the fair market value, and no less than $90,000, even if a property is only worth 10 or 20 thousand.
“As far as the city of Detroit perspective, I think it’s great for the city. We could use all the positivity we can get. And we do have a lot of land, vacant land, vacant homes, empty houses," Duggan says. "At least we’re doing something with it.”
"They asked us, ‘What do we want?’ We talked about it, discussed it, voted on it,” the Kelseys say. “They always stressed, ‘We’re not forcing this on anybody, we’re not making you do it. If you don’t want to do it, we’ll move out of here and go to another neighborhood.”
Linda Kelsey knows many people wouldn’t choose to look at solar panels but, “A lot of people might not like it but I’d rather look at a panel than look at this mess over here.”
The final decision on those 6 host neighborhoods is expected next March.
Mayor Duggan tells me he expects it to be very competitive and the main criteria is showing there is overwhelming community support.
