DETROIT (WWJ) – Detroit is one of the biggest cities in the country by physical area. But due to large population loss over the decades, the city is covered in vacant lots.
WWJ’s Zach Clark learns on a new Daily J podcast Mayor Mike Duggan is proposing a plan to bring solar farms to some of those empty lots – but at what cost?
The mayor said Wednesday night the city is asking companies for proposals to bring solar fields to Detroit that would be owned by the city.
“What we would do in that case is we’d contract with them to install the solar panels and put the power into the distribution system. Would you be willing to do that? We are going to lay the costs next to each other,” Duggan said.
Duggan says the city spends about $9 million a year on energy. So his thought is to spend a similar amount of money on renewable energy that down the line would cost the city less.
Duggan asked neighborhood block clubs Wednesday if they would like to participate in the plan. He says neighborhoods would receive $25,000 per acre of solar park in the form of community benefits.
While the plan certainly sounds enticing, Bryan Boyer, an urban planning expert at the University of Michigan, says it may not be that straightforward.
“When you go and ask someone to give up staying on a block where their grandparents lived, where their church might be located, where all their memories are, I think we can all understand that that’s a really tough ask,” he said.
Boyer says solar panels are fairly easily moved, giving the city and the neighborhoods the option down the road to move them to a different location, should plans change.
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