Ken Cheyne says trash piles like this one are evidence that the city of Detroit has abandoned Eliza Howell Park. (Photo by Sarah Hulett)
Have you ever given someone a
gift, only to have that person
break it, mistreat it, or take
it for granted? Well, the grandson
of a man who gave a big chunk
of land for a city park says
that’s exactly what’s happened
to his family’s gift. So he’s
going to court to get the land
back. Sarah Hulett has this story about the dispute –
which highlights a problem facing
many cities:
Transcript
Have you ever given someone a
gift, only to have that person
break it, mistreat it, or take
it for granted? Well, the grandson
of a man who gave a big chunk
of land for a city park says
that’s exactly what’s happened
to his family’s gift. So he’s
going to court to get the land
back. Sarah Hulett has this story about the dispute –
which highlights a problem facing
many cities:
Eliza Howell Park is an oasis from the blight, traffic, and hard-knocks neighborhoods that surround it. At almost 140 acres, it’s one of Detroit’s biggest parks. It has woods, and trails, and a pair of rivers that come together at the south end.
But it’s also got some problems.
“Those little red posts, that’s actually a picnic table. It’s all gone, people have stolen, broken everything. All the sewer grates in the park have been stolen. They maintain nothing.”
That’s Ken Cheyne. It’s his grandfather who deeded this park to the city more than 70 years ago, with the requirement that it be used “for park and recreation purposes.” Now, he says, the city has virtually abandoned it.
“There’s been burned out cars in here. On the south end there was a boat for over two years. Just this old, awful, derelict, broken boat.”
The city has also barricaded the park’s entrances at times. Cheyne says that also signals abandonment. But it’s open to traffic today. As Cheyne drives around the park, he’s got to steer around huge potholes in washed-out parts of the road. People have dumped trash in the park. And the grass is waist-high.
Cheyne says all this adds up to neglect. So he’s asking a judge to give the land back to the family. And Cheyne, who’s a developer, says, if that happens, he wants to build new retail stores on the land. He also says he’ll keep part of it a park that the public can use. But he says he’ll pay to have it maintained so it’s much more attractive than it is now.
“It’s a land grab.”
That’s Larry Quarles. He’s the head of a group formed to help fight Cheyne’s effort.
“It’s pure and simple. If the land goes back to him, he’s going to develop it and this park is gone forever. Kids from now on will never have a chance to play in this park. It’s the wrong thing to do just because this city has fallen on hard times.”
And Detroit is not the only city struggling to keep up its obligations when it comes to maintaining parks and vacant land.
“It’s happening all over.”
Robin Boyle is a professor of urban planning at Wayne State University.
“Many of these cities are facing similar problems. Nothing quite to the scale of Detroit. The story of what’s happening in places like Flint in Michigan, or Youngstown in Ohio – and these are just the poster children for this challenge.”
Last summer, the mayor of Toledo, Ohio asked residents to bring their lawnmowers to city parks, and spent several Saturdays cutting park lawns himself.
A recent audit of Milwaukee County’s park system suggests selling some parkland to help deal with a maintenance backlog.
And just two years ago, Detroit’s former mayor pitched a failed plan to sell 92 city parks to help close a budget deficit.
Detroit’s attorneys are trying to hold onto Eliza Howell Park. They say even if a park is barricaded to vehicles, or the grass isn’t mowed, it’s still a park.
George Bezenar agrees. He comes to the park with his dogs several times a week.
“Just because the lawn isn’t mowed all the time, that doesn’t matter to me because, to me, it represents more like a natural preserve, where you see birds, you see deer, you see fox. You see everything here.”
Including things you’d rather not see in nature, like bags of garbage, and rusted playground equipment.
Neighbors like Bezenar say they hope Detroit will someday have the money to properly maintain this park.
A judge is expected to decide this spring whether the city gets to keep the parkland.
For The Environment Report, I’m Sarah Hulett.
