Detroit Mayor Duggan touts work demolishing vacant buildings before leaving office

Detroit mayor's mission to fight blight

Mayor Duggan was at the Detroit Police Department headquarters giving his final residential blight removal report, stating that when he started his term 12 years ago, Detroit had 47,000 abandoned Land Bank–owned homes.

DETROIT (FOX 2) - Mayor Mike Duggan is tying up some loose ends before he leaves office. He’s done a lot to get rid of Detroit’s blight problem, but he says there’s still a long way to go.

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Mayor Duggan was in southwest Detroit talking about the blighted, vacant old hospital coming down and a soccer stadium going up. He says getting rid of blight all around the city has been one of his proudest accomplishments.

Mayor Duggan was at the Detroit Police Department headquarters giving his final residential blight removal report, stating that when he started his term 12 years ago, Detroit had 47,000 abandoned Land Bank–owned homes.

Now it’s down to 942, with 240 on the demolition list and 702 to be sold. This was all under the "Hardest Hit Fund" program and "Proposal N," involving millions of dollars in federal funding. But he also talked about the potential of contaminated soil at demolition sites and the efforts the city is taking to remove it and hold companies accountable.

What's next:

Right now, Duggan says there are a pair of investigations into Iron Horse of Michigan and Gayanga Co., who allegedly used elevated contaminated backfill while contracted with the city.

Duggan says every site they’ve tested so far that had elevated contaminants has been addressed.

"Fifty-four sites we’ve gone in and pulled the dirt out and are in the process of putting in clean dirt," Duggan said. "This is the way we operate. We remove the dirt immediately and we deal with it afterwards. And the reason we did this basically is this: from a health risk standpoint, the primary health risk you’re looking at in the neighborhood is what they refer to as direct human contact. If you were to dig through a foot of topsoil and spend a lot of time digging in the dirt, long-term human contact is a health risk. The second issue is I do believe the day is going to come when we are building new houses on these lots and in these neighborhoods."

Duggan also says he’s left a $15 million reserve fund for the next administration. The final 942 homes will be demolished over the next six months.