Duggan proposes plan to restore thousands of homes in Detroit and put Detroiters to work

DETROIT (FOX 2) - Detroit mayor Mike Duggan laid out a new plan Tuesday to rid the city of neighborhood blight. 

The $250 million bond proposal comes after the city council rejected a similar plan last year, though Duggan says this plan is "dramatically revised."

"We have to do not just something to improve the neighborhoods. We've got to put Detroiters to work," Duggan said. So what if roughly 8,000 blighted homes that are structurally sound could be saved?

"This city cleared out so fast in the last decade that people left behind all kinds of structurally-sound buildings," Duggan said. "Our goal in November was to get the ones down that had to be demolished. We're changing that approach now."

Detroit city council is now considering the proposal - called Proposal N, for Neighborhoods, to be placed on the November ballot. If voters approve the plan Duggan says the city would sell the bonds in December and the first priority would be to clean out the vacant homes, install secure exterior coverings - not plywood - and fix any holes in roofs to prevent damage.

"We lose them to vandals, we lose them to arson, we lose them to weather. This house just last August on Hamburg was absolutely salvageable and less than a year later it's gone," he said. 

Duggan said while the federal Hardest Hit program paid for about 15,000 demolitions it didn't allow any of that money to be used to rehabilitate homes that could be saved.

"This is a social and economic and an environmental justice issue that we can address now," Detroit city council member Scott Benson said. 

Duggan is also promising no property tax increases and that over 50% of all construction contracts will go to Detroit companies, adding that Detroiters must make up 51% of the workforce.

"This will help and be a model, I believe, to keep people in Detroit and bring people back to Detroit," said council member Andre Spivey.