trampled part three

March 25^th, 2017

the neighborhood association meeting was scheduled. Our fearless leader, timothy shaw-harrison had done a lot of work to get the FORD land people to show up. They were rather unprepared – and while i was angry about the project – i felt sorry for the people who were trying to explain to a crowd of many that things were gonna be alright.

I had contacted as many people as i could about the meeting. It was held at whitmore bolles school, like all our other meetings. Usually there is a small and dedicated crowd. But on this night – there were at least 135 people. Younger people and the FORD land team did not know the history of the area. They were uninformed about the issues that had unfolded before, in the 70s and the 80s when the campus was open to workers walking onto it through gates and school kids cutting through the lots on bikes and workers parking on side streets in front of homes they did not live in to have easier parking. FORD was unaware of the Edison school closure, of the need to close the military street entrance and build a berm in the road – in the middle of elmdale – the berm that separates the neighborhood on our side of the complex. They knew nothing of the many times trees had been planted and died and replanted and died and finally never replaced. The crowd hit them with so many questions they had no answers for.

The FORD team brought a video that would not work. They tried to explain in words what they were doing. The team threw short erik under the bus and had him stand at the podium and try to field questions. He claimed he did not know which streets were which, or where we were asking questions about, even though he had been at my house and deb';s house and knew exactly where we lived. He could not answer questions about WHERE exactly was the border of the FORD property – as many questions dealt with exactly how close the new parking decks and buildings were going to be to our houses. Was the border the curb along elmdale? Was the border where the fence sits, which is anywhere from 50 to 150 feet from the curb? Was the border actually on the side of the houses – and the street was theirs? No one had answers for us – no exact answers.

It was during this barrage of questions that an even more important issue came up – which is why so many people had come to this meeting. The other side of the complex from where i live is a high school. FORD R&D has 2 entry points along Rotunda that are across from the high school. These residents wanted to know how was FORD going to protect their children from being injured or killed by a now doubling of cars trying to get on campus at 7am each day – at the same time their kids were walking to school and getting off buses and trying to cross the street. They said children had already been killed in the past by FORD workers in a rush in the morning,a nd how was traffic going to be handled so all the kids were safe? Short erik said there were traffic studies being done and there was a plan to close the entrance nearest the school and ask everyone to exit the site closer to oakwood, or off oakwood. The crowd started complaining all at once.

You see – the area of outer drive, oakwood, rotunda, and michigan ave are already extremely busy when the FORD complex lets out each day. Even with staggered quit times, if you are in the area of the complex, on any of those roads, btwn 330pm and 530pm – it's a madhouse,. And that is with 12,000 employees on site. The new plan is to at least double that number. There is no way to widen any of these streets – traffic is going ot be a nightmare. And in the midst of all that traffic is a whole high school of kids coming and going to class, to sporting events, to everything that goes on in a school setting.

Finally, short erik was able to leave the podium. That is when barry murray – the city's economic development head stepped up to the mic. Barry is a politician. I think of him as a slippery fish – you cannot get ahold of him or hold him to anything. He also did not know the borders of the FORD land, but tried to reassure us all that there were "rings" of how construction next to residential areas could be handled. That within the first so many feet you could only build to 75 feet high, and then the next inner ring you can build up to 100 feet high, and on the interior you can go as high as 150 feet, which he was not aware of the project needing to achieve. And yet he then told us he had seen no plans for what FORD was doing, that FORD only had to ask the city for a variance if something they were doing was out of the norm, and as citizens we would be given no information or asked our opinion unless an actual variance had to happen. AND since this was all FORD land – they really had the ability to build what they wanted where ever and when ever on the acreage they owned....

so as citizens living all around this 340 acre overhaul – we did not have to be told a thing. FORD did not ever have to meet with us, talk to us, give us info, ask permission – nothing. They were allowed to do whatever, and we simply had to deal with it.

The crowd asked for a central point of contact – would there be a website set up that anyone could view that would have information for all of us? Could there be a single point of contact with a member of one of the neighborhood asscs where ford would tell them and they could relay it onto us? Over and over this was asked, and an answer always seemed t be "contact us later and we will see. We'll see what we can put together.

Ultimately frustrating. I kept looking at the plans displayed on all the major news sites and on the youtube videos, and over and over i was saddened. I wrote the mayor, and i sent that letter to many of the city council people. I was not shy in telling him my thoughts, my fears, my anger. I said it was not fair to build the parking decks so close to our houses, so close to the park where all the little kids play. I said that our neighborhood should have been given an advance warning so we could move if we chose to, to escape the impending upending of our lives – because construction is loud and dirty. We should have been warned about a ten year overhaul of the earth mere feet from our homes, and how our homes were going to be destroyed if that kind of violent shaking happened over and over to build so close to us. And, that if our neighborhood fell – if so many houses went up for sale at once due to the issues, he would be dealing with a whole strip of neighborhood that would be filled up by undesirable home owners and renters. That next to the city's pride and joy – the historic ford homes – would be a stretch of homes not cared for and turned into rentals. I begged him to get FORD to rearrange the plans for the campus – to put the new walkable green space on the sides where our homes sit, and not to have it all in the middle with tall concrete and reflective buildings walling off our view on the outside edges. I asked for the green space to be a moat around the complex so workers could look out into the neighborhood and see happy homes and people and want to live here, instead of simply parking in a huge deck and walking the opposite way.

this picture shows an earlier plan - where 3 huge parking decks would be built along the elmdale side of the complex. they are the buildings on the left with the dark squares on the roofs. 

Yeah. It is hard to be a human with feelings, and to want to stand up for not only yourself but for those around you too. Except, not everyone wants to be helped. Or sees eye to eye. And as i've already explained – dearborn is the city owned by FORD. They are the religion of this land. There is a whole city in need of a million things and they want FORD to bring them all back to us, to all of us. So for me – the small ant – trying to move mount everest – there was no contest.

I had been warned by neighbors that in the 80s – the last time FORD expanded the R&D complex, homeowners near where i live had stood up and tried to stop the changes. They had written newspapers, they held meetings, they petitioned the mayor. And any of them who also had businesses in the city had been threatened with lawsuits. Either back off or get sued or run out of town. It was not so long after writing the mayor and the council people that we were asked to move our business out of the building we were renting. Even though the building owners knew we desperately wanted to put our home on the market and move before any construction started – they asked us to move out of their building. Of course they said we could take our time, but when you suddenly feel as if you are not wanted somewhere – why stay? And besides – people from all over town were telling us that it seemed very political to them......who is friends with who and why and connect the dots.

So in the summer of 2016, when i truly wanted to be selling our house and moving to get away from what i knew was coming, we had to move our shop instead. That is how we spent our time – find a new space, get it ready, pack, move, try to advertise to let people know that you moved again after only 20 months in the previous space......

in the past – i'd see the mayor at events and we would talk. Now, whenever i see him, he quickly walks the other way.

September came, and the FORD land people held an informational meeting again at whitmore bolles school. It was organized by tim again, and as in the past i was happy he was working so hard to help us as a community. There were boards and pictures and drawings. The main parking deck closest to our house was moved over some, making a small amount of green space that we would be able to see out our living room window. The plan was to move it down some – and it now stretched all the way down to the end of the block and the end of edison park. It meant that all the houses along elmdale, even the ones who do not face the street but their side yard is along it, would suffer equally to my house. That the woods near those houses which previously was a buffer for sight and sound, would be clear cut and the deck would be there for all to see.

Some of the boards showed multitudes of trees being planted along the fence to help shield the ugliness of the deck and new design center, but so far only one small patch of trees has been put in. Right in front of deb's house. And i'm glad for her – but there is another 1,000 feet of fence line that needs trees and shrubs and enhancing. I'm also not sure the non-evergreens planted in the late fall actually made it – they look dead. Not sleeping - dead. No one ever came to water them. And the week they were planted was hell – loud trucks and constant beep beeping of trucks backing up. Heavy planting eqpt that tore up the grass and left deep ruts. Just a big mess and mud all over the sidewalks and trees that maybe did not live through the winter. So many things point to a lack of respect for humans living in this area.

revised  - our house sits btwn the small long parking deck on the left side of this plan, and the huge white rectangle which will be the design center. our house is on the curve of the front of the p

dark grey is flat parking - lots of flat parking. and no close buildings - just a lot of sun and sky and moonlight at night.

My husband kept telling me to stop worrying. He did not think any of the things i kept ranting about were going to happen. He was sure the plans would be changed and there would be no big tall buildings near us, that we would not lose the view of the moon rising at night, or the view of the fireworks form our upstairs, or any of it. Until the first morning in oct when the pile driving started in the center of the complex. At 7am. He literally sat up in bed and said, "we're moving.". The fact that the building across from us had already been worked on on a daily basis had not bothered him. The fact that construction hours were said to be 7am to 330 pm mon-fri, but the work began at 6am and often times lasted until 10pm (honest – they jackhammered on the roof and side of the big brown building for 2 or 3 weeks in the autumn until 10pm each night), but the pile driving at 7am finally got him. It was too late by then.

Our house went up for sale in november. We would sit with our dogs in the car and wait for people to do viewings. But it was the holidays and who sells their house at thanksgiving? Or at christmas? The timing was wrong. Then – on about january first – the cranes came. FIVE 100 foot tall cranes that rumble and shake and belch exhaust – came and parked right across the street form our living room window, just inside the road that lets you drive all the way around the complex. So then – we would sit in the car with the dogs and watch people show up to view our home, and they would stand out front and point at the cranes. They would stand in the living room and point at the cranes. They would come during the day and there would be loud shaking belching cranes doing work of all kinds. And in the end – it was those cranes, and this project – that made the appraiser deduct 30% of our home value and therefor the buyers could not get a loan.....this plan that is supposed to help all the people in dearborn, bring jobs, bring money, tax dollars, increase our home values....just cost us 30% of our home value. And, if you haven't looked at home prices in dearborn right now – there was about nothing else in the city we could have afforded for what a small amount our home was valued at. To see the prices of so many homes bought in 2010 go up 50%, or 75%, or even double – and ours was barely more than we had paid back then.....

you can see the parking deck in the center of campus now. Everyone is surprised. Wait till that same thing is on the edge of our street, the edge of our park. Wait till your kids play in it's shadow when they used to play in the sun. I did not want to wait for it – i wanted to get out. Now i can't.  

trampled under foot part two

March 24^th, 2017

i first read of the plan to expand the FORD R&D campus in mid-april 2016. to say i was horrified is an understatement. I typed out letters and left them with neighbors who all seemed to think i was a lunatic. I posted questions and information about it on many facebook forums, and was instantly denounced as being a lying, slanderous, spreader of misinformation. No one took me seriously.

Well, mostly no one. The neighborhood association i belong to took interest, which i am still very thankful for. They planned to have FORD LAND representatives attend the next assc meeting so they could give us an overview of the project. Before this meeting happened, though, the test piles were started. Each parking deck was going to need many piles to hold the weight of the structures being constructed, and FORD had to make sure the piles would hold the way they should. While eating breakfast one morning in early may, our house started shaking and the windows were rattling. I was about to leave for work when my neighbor deb was on the sidewalk in front of my house. She was beside herself with worry. She asked me what was going on, and i told her about the FORD plan and the testing and the upcoming meeting. She lives in the only other house on elmdale, and the test pile was quite literally across from her front door, and about 300 or so feet from my front door. She said her whole house was shaking and the glasses in her cupboards were rattling and she was scared. I took my husband to work and then emailed the only contact i had for the FORD property – a land manager named Joe Vicari. He is our neighborhood contact for any time the complex gets too loud – like when a building is belching or the resurfacing crew works too late at night. He is in charge of keeping the peace btwn the home owners and the R&D complex. He agreed to meet me at the house, and when he arrived around noon that day he had another man with him who i will call short erik. They came into our house, listened, looked around, mentioned that they could see our windows moving, and asked if they could come back the next day with different members of the work crew and investigate further, as tests would be ongoing for a few days. I said yes.

The next day (and yes, somewhere i have dates for all of this – i wrote down notes as often as i could remember) my neighbor deb came over and we waited for the FORD guys. We talked about how awful it was to have our houses shake like that. How we worried about the damage that was going to happen from that kind of long term movement. Just before 11am, the 2 FORD employees came, tall erik and short erik, and they were cordial and friendly. They stood in my living room and we waited until 11am when the testing was going to resume on the pile just out front of deb's house. 11Am came, and nothing happened. Tall erik said the crew was testing – he had been on the phone with the foreman, right as work began at 11am, and obviously there was no issue at all with what they were doing as the house was quiet and nothing was shaking. Deb and i both protested as this was not at all what had been happening the day before. Tall erik assured us we would have no problems with the construction. He explained a parking deck would take 8 hours of pile vibration per day for 8 weeks, simply to get the footings into place for them to build on. Deb and i were horrified. We were sure our houses would have collapsed by then.

This whole time, i had been looking out the window. I could see the pile from the living room. This particular morning, with the two eriks in my house, there was no crane near the pile, no machinery to shake it, and no workers. Deb and i kept telling the two eriks that nothing was happening, and tall erik, who was on the phone with his crew, swore they were working. He finally suggested we walk over to the fence that sits btwn our houses and the construction site and see it all in person.

The four of us walked over to the pile. There was no crane, no vibrating machine, no workers. Deb and i looked at each other in astonishment. How was this man trying to tell us work was being done here?

Tall erik looked around and said the crew must be done already. And then deb and i protested. We had not seen the crane today, we had not seen any workers. Deb asked where was the big blue machine that sat atop the pile and shook it so vigorously? Tall erik told us repeatedly that they workers were already done and gone. And we would not let him out of it that easily. We bugged him until he called the foreman of the crew and asked what was going on. The foreman said the crew was working – they were testing a pile right then – just not the pile tall erik thought they were testing. They had not been in front of our houses that morning, and tall erik had spent 45 minutes trying to convince us the noise and vibration would not bother us.......when tall erik said the crew had actually been working elsewhere, short erik looked at him and said "oh great" with an incredible snarkiness in his voice. Tall erik said the crew would be back in our area at 2pm and they would return at that point to meet with us again and see what was actually happening in our homes when the pile was being vibrated. The 2 eriks left.

Deb and i sat on my porch and talked about how upset we were and how we felt we were being lied to and bamboozled. We felt extremely alone and forgotten about. Hopeless.

I went inside and emailed the main page of our neighborhood association. I told the whole story of all the stuff that had happened that morning, and said it was very difficult to feel like deb and i were alone against the world. The president of our neighborhood association, the SODA group, works from home some days. He was home, and he took time out of his afternoon to come over at 2pm when the pile would be tested again. He came over to stand with us and help us feel not so small and insignificant. Tim Shaw-Harrison. Boy was i surprised to see him, and very glad. We also had one more neighbor join us for the 2pm event. FORD LAND had the 2 eriks return,and one more man who was monitoring vibrations, and we all stood in the living room of my home while the pile vibration started. This time – there was no denying what was happening.

We all experienced the windows move in and out. I have old casement windows and their metal frames most certainly heaved in and out, each time forcing a wall of air into the room. This was amplified in the back of the house, and in the upstairs bedrooms it felt as if we were at a loud rock concert – that wall of sound hitting you in the chest, except this was air from the windows heaving. All the plants in the house shook. All the dishes in the kitchen, the toaster oven, the walls. My whole house was moving in direct response to the vibrating pile that was 300 or so feet from my home. It was awful. And all the FORD workers could feel and hear it.

Then we walked down to deb's house – directly across from the pile testing. And immediately inside her house i had to sit down. I have vertigo. It is set off by loud sound, low bass rumbles, and floor movement. Her house was shaking so badly i could not stand up in it. I had immediately lost my balance and was very sick to my stomach. The noise and movement in my home had been bad, but in her house it was 10 times worse. Everythng moved, everything shook and rattled and you could see the vibrations going through every thing in her house. It was very frightening. My house was uncomfortable and scary to me, and her house was so much worse. How on earth were we going to live through this? Through a huge long term construction process that was going to ruin our homes?

The group of us returned to my house. We stood in the living room. Me, deb, diana, and tim, along with 3 FORD guys. And the FORD guys said we would have no ill effects from the construciton. That our houses would be fine. It was their opinion and experience that we would not suffer cracked walls or foundations, we would not have anything broken, we would not lose value on our homes due to damage from construction. Tall erik mentioned a program FORD offered to monitor our houses – said they would come in, film all the walls and basement, and place monitors on any existing cracks to measure if the construction caused any growth in them, and that FORD would help us with this. Short erik looked annoyed. The more tall erik (who was young and new to the project) talked, the more short erik (who was older and seasoned ) got irritated. Tall erik was out of bounds but did not know it. And he was giving away too much information. They all left, and deb and i felt no comfort, no ease of the panic we were diving into. We were very thankful to have tim and diana stand up with us. But there was no hope. And not a damn thing we could do about the situation.  

trampled under foot - life next to Ford Motor Company's billion dollar overhaul

today is march 20th, 2017.
it's been almost a year since i first heard about the billion dollar transformation FORD MOTOR COMPANY had been planning. in fact, i'd guess it was around april 11th of 2016, but i'm sure i'm off by a few days.

the citizens were not notified in any planned out or civic manner - nope. in fact, i'm sure there were reasons why all of a sudden, in the newspapers and online - there was suddenly this article about how FORD would be investing over ONE BILLION DOLLARS to completely transform the 340 acre Research and Development site that sits in the middle of the Ford Historic Homes District, The Henry Ford, Greenfield Village, The Henry Hotel, and the Ford proving grounds.

Oh joy!! the neighborhoods screamed!!! oh yes - the savior is upon us!!! thanks be to Bill Ford, thanks be to the almighty mayor of dearborn who brokered this deal! our jobs will come back! our tax base will grow!!!

The reality is that FORD is consolidating - closing 70 different satellite locations around dearborn and allen park, and putting all those workers on the same plot of land they have used as the research and development facility for more than 50 years. really - not so many new jobs. just a consolidation. really - not so many new taxes - as they will be closing and moving out of 70 buildings and no longer paying for or on them. nope - just taking a piece of land they already own, and increasing the number of employees on site from 12,000 each day to 30,000 each day. yes, i said THIRTY THOUSAND. almost 3 times as many workers, and cars.

oh joy!! said the neighborhood!! so many more mouths to feed!! so many more restaurants can open and prosper!! i guess none of those restaurants bother ed to read the articles announcing the planned upgrades, which  include amazing IN HOUSE food service and lunchrooms. plans that include an open campus in an effort to stoke workers creativity - and the availability of healthy wide ranging food choices for every single one of those 30,000 workers.

but still - the area is rejoicing. well, most of it. and they should - dearborn is no longer the prosperous place it once was. when FORD made huge cuts in staffing and laborers in 2001, and again in 2007, it affected this city as a whole. the saying goes that for each highly paid wage earner, 15 other people feed off that chain of money. for every 1,000 workers FORD let go, 15,000 others suffered. retail, food, city tax collections. people lost jobs, the housing bubble burst, foreclosures ruled the land, and dearborn suffered greatly. as of today - 70% of all school kids in dearborn schools are on free or reduced lunch. the city pools have closed due to lack of funds. the city libraries have mostly closed for the same reason. and now, as FORD says they are investing ONE BILLION DOLLARS the residents in dearborn rejoice in some false hope that the city can return to the greatness they once knew.


but FORD invests money like this all over the world all the time. why did it take so long for them to come home to roost? why can we read about investments and plant upgrades in mexico and canada and CHINA who got 1.8 BILLION dollars in 2015? really - china gets preference over the usa?


well, everyone is rejoicing. except for me. and maybe a few of my neighbors. and the reason why? FORD RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT is smack dab in the middle of a residential area.

in fact - i look at the back of the building my father worked in when he was still alive. and when we bought this house, it was essentially at the end of a dead end street, with a strip of park across from it, then a big flat parking lot, and then, abut 800 feet away, the R&D building he used to test ceramic engines in. it was quiet every day. the air was clean. the cars were quiet. we were happy. but now - now it looks like this.

in fact, it is so ugly, the pending sale of our home just fell through. due to the scope and duration of this construction project - our home has been devalued by 30%. while the rest of the city celebrates what they see as the return to greatness for a city as a whole - and homes are listed for $100,000 more than their zillow estimate (and selling for close to that) - i cannot sell my home unless i want to sell it for just a tad more than i paid in 2010. and, depending on the appraiser, and the actual work being done while they try to value my home, this 30% devaluation could go on as long as the construction.



in the near year that i have known about this redevelopment, i have been in contact with FORD workers in charge of the plans for the overhaul. repeatedly i have been told " Ford will not purchase neighboring homes or provide relocation assistance to homeowners; however, we will continue to monitor noise and vibration occurring at the property line. "


so - where does that leave me? in a place where i am forced to live next to construction and noise and air pollution and vibrations from the ground and from the heavy equipment being used. i have vertigo, which is set off by this type of noise, and so now, on a reg daily basis, i am off balance and sick to my stomach. unless i am willing to lose money on my investment, my home, i am stuck here, next to the world's worst neighbor, for the next ten years. because - oh yeah - the project is a ten year one. 


i am planning to write each day, to give a daily glimpse of this issue, so others can understand the horrors of it. of what it is like to be stuck in a place that daily is like war. and,as of today, i have discovered - my neighbors around the corner are now seeing this too, as FORD has cut down another large swath of trees and forest to make room for their parking decks. more deforestation. they drained 2 large areas of wetlands, too..........and no one has said a thing about it, except me, and when i opened my mouth last year - all hell broke loose. 


this is my story. i invite you to follow it as it unfolds. i cannot stop the impending changes, but i can give voice to the situation. to all of my neighbors, and to all of their children. to all the people who cannot move away for various reasons, who will now be stuck here, living in the shadow of a 60 foot tall parking deck that will butt up to Edison Park.......it will look a little like this - but this one is not done yet, and it is in the middle of the campus. 5 layers of parking deck right along the edge of our homes. why, exactly, are we supposed to rejoice about that? 

and YES i worry. i worry that opening my mouth now will cause all kinds of issues. i worry my home will be damaged, that i will be attacked, that my dogs will be poisoned - because this is big business. this is like trying to stand up to the mafia. i have already been attacked verbally on facebook pages across the city  called a bitch, been told to shut up, had people claim i am making false statements and miseleading accusations. all i have said, this whole past year, is the truth. and i've been shunned for it, and sworn at, and belittled. so YES - i am afraid. i'm afraid more bad things will happen to my business, also, as it is in the city and has been for 18 years. i am causing a ruckus. and the city does not like that. and neither does FORD. nor do any of the local publications, online or in print, as i have been able to get not a single journalist or paper to get involved here. nope - the stakes are too high. it seems to just be me against one of the world's largest corporations. one little ant getting trampled under foot while the magician levitates dollar signs........



so it is now a couple hours later on march 20th, 2017.
we walk our dogs each day here in our neighborhood. we have a pretty usual path, but lately we have done shorter walks, partially due to weather and partially due to irritants in the air around the construction site. tonight we discovered that ANOTHER large swath of forest has been clear cut to make room for parking decks and drive ways. this is the second large area very near to us that has been clear cut - and it must equal around 10 acres at this point. those trees were OLD - areas that had been allowed to grow for 30 years or more. incredible old oaks and then a plethora of underbrush that gave homes to thousands of birds and various other small wild life. ten acres of trees is an entire world for some animals. and now it is all gone. as is the sound barrier it created. two whole blocks of people who previously saw a huge dense wall of growth across from their front door and now seeing lights and buildings they have never seen before, and hearing all the loud furnaces and air processors and internal building sounds - remember - this is research and development - these buildings have loud things going on inside.........

where it used to just be us who looked at the back of a building - now there are at least 30 homes who have nothing btwn them and the construction site. you can see the cranes from all sides. you can hear the noise from all sides. and those people - when they try to sell their homes - will have the same issues we have had. person after person will come through, and look at a house that would be worth a good chunk of change on any other day, and then turn to see the cranes, and the deck being built, and will walk away, uninterested. all those homes will fall in value, as has ours, because of the proximity to the loud pollution filled work being done.


pollution. it started last summer. we would go out to walk the dogs, and night after night the area smelled like a dead skunk. except - it was more acidic than that. it was more chemical based than that. it was like burning rubber. night after night it stank for hours out side our home and in our neighborhood. we had to close the windows on many nights when we should have been able to leave them open. depending on which way the breeze went was where the burning chemical smell would be heavier. by the autumn, at least once a week, when i open our back door to let the dogs out into the yard, i am overwhelmed by air pollution, and i lose my breath and start coughing. i have to use my rescue inhaler, and i cough for hours after ward - my lungs irritated and inflamed. it bothers our dogs too, who sneeze when they go out side and rub their faces because their eyes are burning. what is living next to this mess doing to our bodies? and when the parking deck is built, right along the backside of the city park, and kids try to play in the park  - how many of them will suffer from the car exhaust? how will supposed extra tax dollars for the city be of any benefit then?


i tried last spring, the spring of 2016, to alert our neighbors about what was coming. it seemed like they were all on valium. no one really seemed interested - nor did they have the strength to fight against what they knew would be a losing battle. i love my neighbors - they are people who i am thankful to live near and share my time with. and so - i tried to stand up for all of us, even knowing there were issues behind closed doors i could not alter. i wrote to FORD, i wrote to the mayor,  begged to have the proposed plans revisited and for the green space FORD was championing to be along the edge of our homes - not in the center of the development. i stood up for the old people and the kids whose health would be affected. i stood up for the home owners who would lose value. and - i was met with disdain and abhorrence. no one liked what i was saying. no one believed me. and, as i said before, my business is in dearborn and has been for years, and when i should have been spending time packing and moving my home to escape in the brief window i had before construction really got going - i had to move my business instead. a hardship. it happens to those who speak out against the grain.......

now my health is suffering, and summer is coming, and i won't be able to use my deck during the day. or my florida room most nights. and who knows what will happen if i try to grow a vegetable garden. my windows will have to stay closed and i'll be trapped inside - in a house that has one of the only second floor florida rooms around (it's an amazing place to spend bug free summer nights) and a huge yard and deck - because of air pollution and acid rain. sure - i know you think i am exaggerating - but anyone with asthma would understand after just a few hours here on a typical day.


i am saddened by all of this. by trying to stand up for so many, and not even really being able to help myself. i tried - i tried to get away and leave all this behind, but i cannot, not without giving up a large portion of my life savings that are tied into the value of my home. and i tried to notify people to file complaints when FORD announced they would be draining acres of wetlands to build parking decks, but the info sent out lead nowhere - there was not a single way to access the forms they had supposedly filed to make any complaints about the draining. there have been no new plans filed to show they will create more wetlands to replace the old. and now - the second large acreage of trees has been lost. all that habitat for wildlife. i wonder if dearborn will see any more of these woodpeckers who were recently rediscovered? i am not so sure....

http://www.pressandguide.com/news/pileated-woodpecker-shows-up-in-dearborn-after--year-absence/article_15cc1500-0065-5f8b-aa47-ab5a5c89c85c.html


i have a lot of fear, and a lot of anger. had the area been notified a year earlier - we could have made the choices to move or stay much easier. but instead, a massive change was thrust upon us, and everyone has been caught off guard. stuck here, so to speak. most of the residents believe this will become the new SILICON VALLEY, as FORD plans to use this land to make it's electric and autonomous cars come to life. i do not have that kind of faith. i do not worship at the altar of FORD like so many other residents of this city. i bet most of them would tell me to move (actually they already have - i've had lots of "well then get the hell out" comments on social media). but right now i can't. and while i'm stuck here i will continue to tell my story, day by day, about what life here is like. thank you for reading.



part two - march 21st, 2017

in 2010, when my husband and i bought this house, which at that point looked out over a huge flat parking lot and then at the back of a big brown brick building - why did we buy it? why did we want to live here?

we were looking for a home. we had been in south dearborn heights for 20 years. near the airport, near the airport noise, in a small bungalow that had worked very well for us. but it was time to move and we had always wanted to live in dearborn proper. we had many friends in the area of the Ford Historic Homes and attended many parties and family events in this area. we found this home because it kept popping up in the side bar of the realty website we were using, and it was just so dang pretty. through a series of twists of fate - we were able to afford it, and we moved in at the end of december 2010. we had just enough days to put up a christmas tree and celebrate the holiday in our new home. that very first night, i remember, we stood in the florida room with our arms around each other and watched the first night of the holiday lights fireworks. it was all so magical.

this house was built by gustav kockrick in 1936. it has art deco plaster ceilings, wonderful hardwood floors, original fenestra windows. it has character like no other home i've ever been in. it spoke to us in so many ways when we first saw it, and has continued to make an impact over the past 6 years of living here. it is full of memories.

when i was a kid, my family would spend weekends up north at the cabin. a small cabin deep in the woods. my father worked for FORD and having a cabin up north is something many FORD workers know - it is ingrained in the fabric of people who work at auto companies. kind of the american dream - house in the city, cabin up north. it was small - just a one room square, with a fire place and an out house and well water. when my parents died in 1999 and 2001, the family had to sell the cabin. my sister and i went there one last time in the summer of 2001 and spread our parents ashes. no more visits, no more time up north, just memories. the cabin in the wood surrounded by oak trees was gone.


this house, the one i live in now with my husband and 2 dogs, is one of only 2 houses on our street. one of only 2 houses that "face the wrong way", as the neighbors say. instead of being at the end of the block, and facing the house across the street - our house was built facing the end of the street. which, when it was built, meant it faced the now gone Edison School, which had opened in 1931. next to the school was edison park, which is still there today, even though the school has been gone many years.

in the 50s FORD bought the land behind the school and built the beginnings of their R&D center. as it expanded, and times changed, edison school was demolished, and ford bought the parcel of land and expanded in the 80s. what had been a school turned into a flat parking lot which sat between what is now my house and the large brown brick building. no other house, no close buildings, nothing but some grass, some trees, and this parking lot. the view from our living room window has been rather odd and cinematic these years - odd orange glowing lights, test cars in clothes parked next to pine trees that are supposed to help hide them, and a big open expanse that makes it easy to watch the moon and stars at night.


we saw this house, and said we could never live by the big brown building. but we left after our viewing, and we cried. we wanted to live here with every fiber of our bodies. this house is surrounded by ten mature oak trees. the back screen door has the same hinge and slams with the exact same sound as the cabin door up north, in the summer, when you step into the kitchen, the marble counter tops have the same cool feel and smell of the well water up north, and i can close my eyes and be standing back in the cabin as a child, looking out the old fenestra windows, in the woods. and to top it off - that big brown building, well, it IS the building my father worked in. so in the absence of my parents, and the cabin up north, i could stand in my own home, with all it's similarities, and have that experience all over again. we bought this home for so many reasons - the solitude, the peace and quiet, the connection to a time long gone.


it has served us well. the yard is huge and we've built it into many outside "rooms" so to speak. we have a separate side yard the dogs cannot access which we use for growing a veggie garden. the area behind the house  is a meandering shade garden with beautiful brick work and pavers and a hosta lined stone path. the deck is secluded from view by a wall of evergreen shrubs, and the main side yard has beautiful rose bushes and wisteria. we look out our windows at edison park and the huge oaks that fill it. the old plaster work is beautiful, the floors soft to bare feet and warm, and the details are everywhere you look. we are artists and musicians - this is a place where we feel truly at home - truly ourselves. we love this house, and all spring and summer long, neighbors walk by and tell us stories of attending edison school, of having seen this house their entire lives and loving it, and they thank us for caring for it the way we do. we truly thought we would be here until we died of old age.



the shock of seeing the plans unveiled last spring floored me. a complete overhaul of all 340 acres. 6 parking decks. new facades that are all reflective. buildings that will be lit at night with blue led tops on them. in the midst of a neighborhood. a ten year construction plan that will not only include the 340 acres, but then the complete replacement of the street we live on, as all the gas and sewer lines into and out of the complex go through this neighborhood. some of our neighbors were ready - and have already moved. some are in the planning stages and are building their dream homes in other parts of the state. and many cannot leave due to finances or age. of course the people who work for FORD are happy, in that odd we love Apple products kind of way - it means they will still have a job and a paycheck. and then there is me - i found my dream house and had 5 wonderful years here, only to be now in the beginning stages of a ten year construction debacle with no way out. the dream house has become a nightmare. and i can't wake up.

april 12, 2016 - this is the first plan that was unveiled

http://www.detroitnews.com/story/business/autos/ford/2016/04/12/ford-transform-campus/82935594/



the first pic shows what campus is like now - all the dark grey areas are flat parking lots

i would also like to pint out that the entire left side is residential, the entire lower edge is residential, and the area on the right hand side along rotunda is a high school and then residential. while some days it feels as if it is only me who is in the mess, it really is an entire neighborhood.

and then this next pic shows what should be happening - which is a slight change from the original plan in hopes to make the project a tiny bit more neighborhood friendly.

my next segments will detail all the encounters i had with FORD LAND MANAGER employees last summer, and how truly important a strong neighborhood association is.