The Detroit City Council Public Health and Safety Standing Committee, chaired by Councilmember Gabriela Santiago-Romero, convened on June 22, 2026, for legally required administrative appeal hearings on approximately 20 properties deemed dangerous. The committee heard testimony from property owners, considered recommendations from the Buildings, Safety Engineering and Environmental Department (BSEED), and debated a temporary pause on demolitions amid concerns over contaminated soil cleanup costs. Several properties were ordered demolished, one was withdrawn, and two were sent back to BSEED for further action.
To call back to order our public health and safety standing committee for the purposes of our dangerous buildings hearings. May the clerk please call the roll. Councilmember Gabriela Santiago Romero. Present. Councilmember Denzel Anton McCampbell. Present. Councilmember Mary Waters. Present. Madam Chair, you have a quorum present. Thank you, Madam Clerk. Given a quorum, we'll go into the hearings for today. As I mentioned, we will turn it over to the administration first to share with the public what they can expect from these hearings. And it looks like Mr. Washington is on now and can be promoted if we see him on. If we can please make him into a panelists, has he been promoted to a panelist? All right. Thank you. Mr. Washington, good afternoon. Good afternoon. Apologies for the delay. For owners of property here today, if city council orders your building to be demolished, you have the opportunity to go to the building safety, environmental and engineering department, located in room 418 and request a deferral of the demolition order. This means that you must do the following. Provide proof of ownership or interest in the property, pay all required inspection fees, secure all openings on your building from trespass and the elements and remove all exterior debris, abandoned vehicles, overgrowth, et cetera. Pay or make arrangements regarding anti-delinquent city taxes, obtain the necessary permits to bring your building into compliance with all applicable codes and submit a clear deferral application. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you, Mr. Washington. I'll turn it over now to LPD. Thank you, Madam Chair. In addition to the important information just provided by the administration's representative about the nature and incidence of these hearings, people should be away their legally required administrative appeal hearings from previous hearings held by at B seed for all the buildings that are on the dangerous building list today. And this is a legal requirement to have such a hearing, and this is the council committee's opportunity to either concur in the demolition or deny it. Thank you. Inspector. Thank you, Madam Chad. My name is Diliporte. I'm the assistant chief at the property maintenance B seed. Thank you both for joining us. We will now begin the process of our hearings. As I mentioned, folks, we have around 20 properties on the list. If you are online and you are here for a hearing, please raise your hand now. I try to respect your time and get you in and out as swiftly as possible. We're gonna begin to call out names for our hearings, and I'm gonna ask everyone to please pay attention. In order to do this uh efficiently, we will call out one name of the person that we're gonna be speaking with, and then we will call out somebody that's going to be next on deck. Um if you are on deck, please be prepared to share um once we've completed the hearing uh before you so that we're able to to move through this swiftly. Umce we've gone through a few of these hearings, you'll see the cadence of it. The questions are really the same. Um, and what we're here to do is to help you if you'd like if you would like to to help it keep your property or support you in demolishing the property um if that's what you wish to do with with it. Uh, we are going to begin with the folks that we have online. We don't see anybody here in person for hearings.