HDC says, "Advance to 'Go'"

The post is part three to the "Shit's Gettin' Realz" series. To read part two, click here.

It's easy to come to Detroit, with so many of its architectural treasures decaying or torn down, and assume that the people there don't appreciate what they have. Or, perhaps, think, like so many European post-colonialists, that the natives are simply ill-suited to care for what they've inherited. Most cross-cultural stupidity comes down to an overblown sense of oneself and a lack of knowledge of the other.

I didn't know what to expect from the Historic District Commission. Many of our non-Detroit friends figured that Detroiters would be thrilled to have someone want to restore a historic home and that they would gratefully grant us free license to do what we wanted without quibbling about details. But, with that aforementioned sensitivity in mind, I thought that pretty unlikely. What I was concerned about, knowing the history of  corrupt power dynamics in Detroit politics and the dwindling resources in the city, was that anyone with any amount of authority would milk it for all it was worth.

Considering the direction the initial conversations were going with the HDC staff about our application, my concerns were not assuaged. Maybe the entry portal and balcony we proposed were historic but they weren't historically appropriate for our house. Sure, the windows needed replacing, but we would be expected to replace them with rebuilt, wood sash windows (which are very expensive and energy inefficient) even though our neighbors clearly had modern windows in their historic homes. Maybe that plywood bay was rotting but it wasn't within our rights to tear it off and fill in the wall; we would have to rebuild it, even if that meant from scratch. Oh, and the HDC staff person noticed when she went out to our property that the dead tree that was visible in the picture we submitted of the back of the house had since been removed ... with no permit. Add on a $500 fine. (Yes, we had the dead tree removed because it was rotten through and through and could have fallen on the house in a storm. Our tree guy hadn't mentioned a thing about needing to get a permit.) The only real gimme was that the HDC staff agreed that the additions on the back of the house were too badly damaged to save.

Now, I hate conflict but I'll be goddamned if anyone tries to use me as a pawn in some nickel and diming scheme. I don't care how much I love this city.

But here's what I didn't understand: There's the HDC staff and there's the HDC committee. It is the job of the staff to point out every possible, little non-compliance to the neighborhood's historic guidelines. It is the committee's job to give individual consideration, clarify policy, and grant exceptions. If anyone (neighbor, city services, or otherwise) were to ever complain about what we had done to the house and it came down to the staff person having let something slip through, that person could lose their job. It's their obligation to be captious.

Fortunately, it was the committee's disposition to be reasonable, even downright generous. Before our appearance at the June meeting, Chai and I rehearsed our presentation over an early dinner. She was the more qualified in terms of architectural lingo and background knowledge to go in front of the committee, but we both agree I've got more of, shall we say, a way with people. It's probably the dimples.

The first guy on the docket had bought a house a few blocks up from ours in an auction. He claimed a small budget and no experience renovating, or even owning, a home. As a result, he had gone about replacing all but a handful of the original, wood sash, "6 over 1" windows (a top window divided into 6 panels hung over a single panel, bottom window) with vinyl, "1 over 1" windows before the neighbors reported him to the HDC. In front of the committee, he was all apologies and explained that he really had had no idea that what he was doing was wrong. He was polite and obsequious. It was hard to be mad at him. More than the owner, the committee members were pissed at the contractor that allowed him to purchase the windows for a historic home without telling him to get a permit, since they should know better. They could have fined the owner up to $5000 and made him throw out the vinyl windows and start over (which would have cost him thousands more). But they gave him a firm talking to, a $25 fine, and a directive to restore any of the windows on the front of the house that he could by moving any compatible, salvageable windows to their openings.

This gave me hope that the committee would be as cooperative with us. But Chai was pissed that this guy got off so easy since we were going to the trouble of doing the right thing (and would pay for it) and so had many of our neighbors. I thought she was overreacting until we later found out that a neighbor had indeed approached him before he installed the windows and told him that he needed to go through the HDC first.

We heard the committee review a few more requests (for signs to be installed on commercial buildings, for a fence to keep foot traffic out of a yard, for trees to be trimmed and/or removed etc.), then came our turn. They heard our logic about blocking up the rotting bay and one basement window and about the french doors and Juliet balcony we proposed for the newly rebuilt back wall of the house. There was some discussion among themselves and a few questions for us, and a bit of confusion on my part. Turns out that they were fine with what we were proposing and, if anything, were worried about our modifications looking too historic. They were glad we were preserving what we could of the home but didn't want future generations to look at the house and mistake our renovations as original. That actually gave us more freedom to make some less costly and stylistically unique choices that could give the place a tasteful, little, eclectic pop. Schweet.

Last came the fine for tree removal. All I could do was apologize. It had never occurred to me that "do not touch the exterior without a permit" included the damned trees. And our tree guy, who came recommended by someone who works for the city's forestry department, mentioned nothing about it. They wanted to know what kind of evidence we could give them that this was a tree that they would have granted a permit for anyway. We showed them the picture of the 12-ish foot tall, leafless trunk that used to be there and explained that our tree guy had found it to be so soft that he could poke his finger into it and feel it give way. In the end, they were OK with us having removed it and didn't even really want to give us a fine (considering everything else we were doing at considerable expense and by the book). But they had given the other permit violator a $25 fine and felt they had to be consistent. I could live with that.

As if.

We left with the understanding that they would grant our building permit once we had submitted pictures of the proposed changes to the details they wanted us to make less historic and we had paid our fine. We left relieved and went to Cliff Bell's to celebrate with a drink and, for one night, not think about where we going to get the money for this project. (We left, I mean, after first paying, $18 for 3 hours in the parking structure! Turns out that the posted rates were old and, based on how abandoned the garage was at that time of day, everybody but us seemed to already know it. Sheesh. Where we come from, on-street parking is more expensive than the structures. But I should know by better by now that, in Detroit, we shouldn't take things at face value because they are usually completely different from how we are used to thinking about them.)

While we were sipping cocktails and the marathon HDC meeting went on into the night, our rock star neighbors were forming a flash mob at the end of our street to stop what appeared to be scrappers making off with our hood's Elgin Marbles. If you aren't familiar with the Elgin Marbles, they were major architectural features in the Parthenon, to which the British Ambassador to the Ottoman Empire helped himself in the first decade of the 19th century. He had discovered that some other architectural sculpture had been ground up for its valuable lime content, and kindly "rescued" the remaining pieces from a similar fate by shipping them off to a British museum. The British parliament were not immediately enamored with these ratty, old things and didn't want to pay for their transport and storage. In the end though, they recognized their value and gave them "asylum" under a "free government". How thoughtful and selfless.

West Village has its own iconic piece of architecture, right at the gateway to the neighborhood. It is a 10,000 sf mansion that started life as the home of the owner of the Finck's overalls company (which later became Carhartt), has been a home to a famous fashion designer, was a restaurant for a time, and has sat mostly empty in recent years. One older neighbor claims that the Beatles and Mick Jagger once stayed there. It recently escaped foreclosure with a cash purchase by a Findlay, Ohio millionaire. The new owner had had contractors inside the house for a couple of weeks. Nothing suspicious about that, but the neighbors were curious to say the least. We had noticed the workers in the yard over the last couple of days and felt hopeful that something positive was being done with the place. But when the neighbors saw them removing the wrought iron balcony and decorative limestone features from the exterior and placing on palettes for transport, they flew into action.

As Chai and I had just learned quite well, nobody touches the exterior of a property without a permit from the HDC. The police came and put the workers in the tank until they figured out who the owner was. The new owner claimed he was merely temporarily removing these items to repair water damage and intended to fully restore the place. However, an anonymous tipster from the contracting company revealed that the owner, experienced with historic renovations in his hometown, intended these items for his private lake house. I'm sure he thought they'd be more appreciated there.

This is just a reminder of how people, looking from the outside in to Detroit, read the fatalistic stories in the national media and assume the city is closing up shop and having a fire sale. Despite appearances, people live in the city quite happily. Our treasures are not up for ransacking. If the signs of urban decay are anything, they are a reminder that it takes a collective to accomplish anything of scale. In the past, people expected that collective to be embodied by government. But government doesn't have the resources to keep up anymore. And Detroiters, after decades of failed promises and faltering attempts, are wary of rich saviors and quick fixes.

And here we are again, back to what I love about the city. It's all "do it yourself", and by "yourself" I mean the plural you--you the neighbors, the community organization, the social network, not just the individual. One returning Michigander said it best: “This city, man, you’ve got to leave your ego at the door. If it’s about you getting famous, or you moving ahead, then you’ve picked the wrong city because you will be sniffed out within moments.”

Stay tuned for the next post in the "Shit's Gettin' Realz" series in which I think my way out of my hyperventilation paper bag.