DETROIT — A controversial plan to create space for a new Detroit apartment building by possibly demolishing two old houses in the city’s West Village neighborhood received tentative approval on Wednesday night.

Historic District Commission members heard a mix of praise and criticism during a public hearing for the proposed four-story, 47-unit development known as The Coe at West Village Phase II. Following a lengthy discussion, they voted 4-0 to grant the project’s developer a “notice to proceed.”

However, the commissioners attached two conditions to their approval that the developer, Clifford Brown of Woodborn Partners, must fulfill before any work can begin. First, a good faith effort must be made to market the two old and empty houses to anyone willing to save and relocate them. And second, the apartment building must be redesigned to be less monolithic in appearance, and the new drawings submitted to the commission for approval.

The commissioners briefly considered issuing a temporary denial until presentation of the new building design drawings, but changed tack once Brown told them that approval with conditions would allow him to obtain financing for the $16 million project while the design is adjusted.

“Our goal is to have a beautiful building,” he said.

Prior to the vote, about a dozen people voiced their opinions — with slightly more opposition than support — during the public hearing. Some were firmly against razing the two houses on the development site at 1514 and 1532 Van Dyke. They are among the oldest houses in the West Village and are believed to date to at least the 1890s.

Others spoke out against the proposed design for being out of place in a historic district.

Resident Joanne Warwick called the design “boxy, bougie, ugly.”

“There is so much vacant land in this city that this does not need to be done here,” Warwick said. “It is totally out of character for a historic neighborhood.”

And Robert Rhoades noted how The Coe at West Village Phase I, which opened in 2017 with 12 apartments, was also a contemporary architectural design.

“Maybe something can continue to look like a historic neighborhood when one modern building is built,” Rhoades said, “but if you build another and yet another … when does it stop being an historic neighborhood?”

But other speakers praised Brown for holding numerous community outreach meetings about the project and said there are many groups and individuals who do support it.

Resident John Bolt said it would be wrong for the commission to reject the plan and the developer’s significant investment in their neighborhood.

“I just can’t think of a more parochial institution than a historic district blocking real growth for a community for plainly subjective reasons like this,” Bolt said. “No one wants to buy those houses. They’re not nice homes. They’re damaged dramatically — it’s going to be very costly to fix them.”

Brown told the commission that he hopes to essentially give the houses away for $1 to someone who can relocate them. The cost for such a relocation, he said, could be about $400,000.

Although the commission previously issued a “notice to proceed” for the development in 2022, including with potential demolition approval of the houses, the developer recently revised the project’s design for cost reasons, so a new approval became necessary.

Following Wednesday’s meeting, Brown said he believes he can satisfy the new approval conditions and get the development built.

“I appreciate everybody’s patience, even the people who weren’t for it,” he said.

Editor’s note: This article first appeared in the Detroit Free Press and then was distributed on the USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect.

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