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Council advances termination of two long‑dormant brownfield plans for East Jefferson/Uniroyal and Stone Soap sites
Summary
The Detroit Brownfield Redevelopment Authority requested termination of two brownfield plans — the East Jefferson (Uniroyal) site and the Stone Soap site — and the Planning & Economic Development committee approved sending both terminations to formal with a recommendation to approve after a presentation on why termination is appropriate.
The Detroit Brownfield Redevelopment Authority asked the Detroit City Council Planning & Economic Development standing committee to terminate two brownfield plans covering the East Jefferson (the Uniroyal site) and Stone Soap properties, saying both projects failed to occur and no tax‑increment financing was provided under the plans.
Cora Keppler, senior brownfield program manager at the Detroit Economic Growth Corporation and the Detroit Brownfield Redevelopment Authority, explained the difference between abolishing a plan and terminating one. “Abolishing a plan means that the project that was proposed within the brownfield plan has been completed,” Keppler said. “You can terminate a brownfield plan if the project has failed to occur, after two years from the time that the plan was approved.”
Why it matters: Terminating a brownfield plan clears the administrative tax‑increment financing obligation tied to a property, which can remove a lingering tax capture arrangement and allow future projects to proceed without the prior plan’s restrictions.
Keppler told the committee the Uniroyal plan was approved in February 2006 and the project did not occur; environmental remediation has been performed on the Uniroyal site but no TIF funds were provided to a developer. She said liable parties — identified in the meeting as DTE, DuPont and Michelin — completed much of the remediation work between 2011 and 2015. Keppler said the Stone Soap brownfield plan, approved in 2019, likewise failed to proceed and no TIF was provided under that plan.
Committee questions focused on why the Uniroyal matter is only now before the committee after nearly two decades. Keppler said the property’s extensive contamination, multiple liable parties and the scale of the proposed project resulted in a prolonged effort to secure cleanup and finance redevelopment, which delayed action.
Action taken: Member Johnson made a motion to approve the two termination requests; the committee recorded no objections and voted to send line items 6.4 and 6.5 to formal with a recommendation to approve.
Ending: The committee approved forwarding both termination resolutions to the next formal session with recommendations for approval. The committee and DBRA staff said terminating the plans would remove the old TIF obligations and clear the properties for potential future proposals.
