The Detroit City Council Planning and Economic Development Standing Committee met on July 9, 2026, to hold four public hearings on proposed developments and rezoning requests. The committee considered projects including a mixed-use rehabilitation on Warner Avenue (Uniland), a Woodward Avenue mixed-use redevelopment (Landy Land LLC), a rezoning to allow an aviation maintenance training campus near Detroit City Airport, and a rezoning to permit a drive-through for Michigan First Credit Union. Several items were advanced to formal session, and two public hearings were continued.
Planning and economic development standing committee back to order. Madam Clerk, will you please call the room? Councilmember Letitia Johnson present. Councilmember Gabriela Santiago Romero. Member Santiago Romero did indicate that she would not be present today. Clerk has noted Council President Pro Temper Comune the second. Here. Thank you. We are back in session. And we will return back to the 1020 public hearing. And my apologies, Mr. Rosenhouse. You may proceed with your presentation. Sorry about that. Absolutely. Thank you so much. My pleasure. So as far as uh construction jobs and the construction component of this project, Uniland works with all of our subcontractors and local suppliers and encourages them to source Detroit-based workers, many of the contractors and a few of the suppliers. And please keep in mind nothing is in contract right now, but uh are intended and are currently Detroit-based companies. Uh we also encourage our contractors as well as any self-performing staffing needs that Uniland may require uh to use Detroit at work as a resource. Uh and then, you know, we are uh uh contractors as well as we have uh partaken alongside Bobby in uh our little part of redeveloping a few buildings in the city, and we have found uh not only to it be an advantage to the city, but frankly an advantage to the project uh when we do source Detroit-based workers and contractors, and that is our plan uh for ultimate success for this project. You're muted, Bobby, if you're talking. Next slide, please. So in terms of uh community engagement, uh wanted to be noted that we are working with a uh third-party vendor mission list to um really leverage the um potential in terms of reaching the community in a way that we really get the feedback to have their input that's gonna guide us and uh bringing this project to market. Um this just lists some of the things that have already happened. Um we've uh done some cabin thing between um Central and Wildermere going door to door. Um the next one just shows some of the partners that we are working with already, but that's not an inclusive list. We will expand that. Um the last one is the uh a naming process. If that was something that um the community would want to do, and we we feel strongly enough about this building, this project, um bring it back to the state of usability by the community. That um you know, if there's a desire to put a name to the building, then we certainly engage that process as well. So I want to conclude this uh slide by getting some feedback from um uh from Luis, who is a resident of the area. And if you could add your comments in terms of our community engagement, that would be helpful. Yes, uh happy to uh being a resident of these district and uh an architect of El Barrio of the region. Uh, have done many projects and I have seen many on Werner. I think this portion of Werner really is needed for the community. It it needs opportunity to bring uh affordable housing, but also um uh some interesting businesses to the side of of Werner, that is a kind of uh getting quiet as it goes to their one. Uh so I think it uh the community and what they have expressed all the time is is about re-engaging and getting all these vacant lots and and buildings that are empty and not functional backing in in the works in this side of the community. So very excited that this project is going forward and and happy to see it on my neighborhood. Thank you, Luis. I think that concludes our presentation. Thank you. All right, I will kick things off um with a few questions. Just curious to know if the the back of the building, if you will have any fencing or if it is open to the Joe Lewis Greenway. So the intention is that it would have uh around uh five feet um uh gate that is semi-transparent. The gates can open. So the idea is that obviously for safety and things like that, it would stay close, but it's semi-transparent. And then use light it to completely open the backyard for for people and things like that. So and also it's five feet, so you really can see on top of it. So it's not intended to be a 12-foot uh fence, it's in intention to be a low a low fence that interacts with the Joe Luis Arena.