by Jena Brooker, BridgeDetroit
Co-published with BridgeDetroit
The abandoned house next door meant a lot to Christina Kary. For years, she tended to it, planting purple flowers, removing weeds and picking up trash. She attached locks to the doors to prevent trespassers from entering.
She had considered buying the property, located on the Cadillac Heights block where her family built the first houses in the early 1900s. Several years ago, she learned that the small home with a front porch was owned by the Detroit Land Bank Authority, which manages the city’s vacant properties. Kary, 86, said she told a land bank inspector she wanted to purchase it but didn’t follow up, thinking she would eventually hear back.
Then, one morning in 2024, she heard a commotion as heavy equipment squeezed through the alley. Kary watched from her backyard as the house was demolished, her feet vibrating beneath her. She marked the day in yellow highlighter on her paper wall calendar where she records other notable events like birthdays, doctor appointments and Bible study meetups. She would later learn that the city had sold the home to Crown Enterprises, a real estate firm owned by members of the Detroit area’s wealthy and politically connected Moroun family.
Over the last seven years, Crown has obtained dozens of parcels in Cadillac Heights and secured permits to demolish more than 20 structures. In all, the company now owns more than 160 lots in the neighborhood, most of which are barren. It also has erected a concrete-mixing plant just across the street from Kary’s home, creating clouds of dust, noise at early hours of the day and late into the night, and industrial lights that pierce through the area.
The company’s takeover of the southeast section of the neighborhood has marked the end of the community Kary and her neighbors knew — a process aided by the decisions of city officials. First, the city turned over dozens of properties to the company as part of a historic land-swap deal in 2019 and then gave it first dibs to purchase other lots, including the one next to Kary’s home, until 2034.
The city has also enabled the company in other ways, providing latitude on permitting and neighborhood maintenance. For instance, although city inspectors have repeatedly ticketed the company for violating rules limiting the spread of dust, the city also set up a system under which the company’s fines were dismissed.
As Detroit rebuilds from the largest municipal bankruptcy in history, major construction has reshaped the city: the first new skyscraper in 50 years, new hotels and sports complexes, repaved roads, and the renovation of Michigan Central Station, which had sat empty for decades while owned by the Moroun family and became a symbol of the city’s decline.
To meet the demand, at least three new concrete facilities have opened in the city since 2019. One is by a park, and two are in residential neighborhoods, including the plant in Cadillac Heights, called Kronos. The new concrete plants are producing materials needed to help rebuild parts of the city while creating a bitter irony for residents such as Kary. She said Detroit’s decision to turn so many properties over to Crown “guarantees the death of this area.”
In written responses to questions from BridgeDetroit and ProPublica, company representative Kenneth Dobson called Kronos “a good neighbor.” He said the company complies with all permitting requirements and city ordinances, and that it properly mitigates dust.
With City Help, Crown Moves In
Cadillac Heights’ most recent transformation began in May 2019, thanks in part to a vote by Detroit City Council to approve a nearly $267 million multipronged land swap orchestrated by former Mayor Mike Duggan. The deal delivered ownership of dozens of lots in Cadillac Heights to Crown. In exchange, Crown gave up land in another part of the city, which allowed automaker Stellantis to open the first new car plant in Detroit in three decades, with the promise of 5,000 new jobs.
At its prime in the 1960s, Cadillac Heights had been full of local businesses and community life. The neighborhood attracted a predominantly working-class community of Black families who lived in modest single-family houses. But over several decades, Detroit declined under the weight of the crack epidemic, massive population loss and disinvestment.
Detroit officials made other decisions, some in violation of city rules, that enabled Kronos to operate by summer 2022, before the company obtained a permit. The city ordered that operations stop. It then issued the permit without fining the company, and the concrete plant was reassembled.
“They Could Taste the Dust”
Since the Kronos plant opened four years ago, residents have filed about 80 complaints to both city and state environmental offices. They have sent photos, videos and pleas for help. “They could feel grit and debris hitting their eyes, that they tried not to inhale but they could taste the dust,” according to a state inspector’s summary of one complaint.
City officials, too, are aware of residents’ concerns. In 2024, the City Council passed an ordinance requiring companies to control the spread of dust or face penalties. Nearly half of the complaints submitted to the city’s dust hotline have been about Kronos.
Matthew Tomasz, who lived across the street from Kronos, filed complaints with the city and also ended up in a legal battle with Crown. “I feel like I’m staring into a wasteland every day,” Tomasz said. “There’s no peace to be had at my house.”
The city required that Kronos develop and adhere to a plan to limit the amount of dust. But despite five violations since Kronos agreed to adopt a plan, only once has the city’s environmental department fined the company for its failure to comply, because of a property maintenance agreement it signed with the city in 2022.
Residents Move Out
Some Cadillac Heights residents say they can’t coexist with the concrete plant. At least 16 residents who lived in the area closest to the Kronos plant have sold their land to Crown since the land swap, with an average 2024 purchase price of $114,000.
Kary, however, plans to live out her final years in her family’s home. She pays for grass seed to maintain the Crown-owned vacant lot next to hers so she can look out her windows at something nice. “It’s home,” she said. “I’m not leaving.”
This story was originally published by ProPublica, a nonprofit newsroom that investigates abuses of power. This story was co-published with BridgeDetroit. Sign up to receive Dispatches, ProPublica’s local reporting newsletter, in your inbox every week.