- Grixdale Farms was removed from consideration for Detroit’s solar initiative due to a lack of resident support.
- Residents voiced unanswered questions about the solar projects’ final appearance and the use of harmful herbicides amid calls for better city engagement and transparency.
- The debate highlights a broader dilemma on urban renewable energy strategies, contrasting large solar farms with alternatives like rooftop panels or rural arrays.
A contentious proposal for a solar power project in Grixdale Farms won’t advance after the city found insufficient support among neighborhood residents.
The lack of resident support means the area will no longer be considered as a possible site for one of six solar fields the city plans to develop.
Over the last several months, some residents raised concerns with Planet Detroit about the potential for the solar projects to harm property values and add to blight and crime in areas outside the project’s footprint.
However, others supported the effort, saying it would benefit the neighborhood by clearing out blighted blocks and providing an economic windfall for those selling their homes for the initiative.
Duggan spokesperson John Roach told Planet Detroit that the neighborhoods still in the running have all documented “overwhelming support” among homeowners willing to sell and nearby neighbors. He said the city plans to submit six finalists to the City Council for approval later this spring.
Several residents say questions about what completed solar fields would look like and whether harmful herbicides would be used for maintenance were not addressed before they were asked to vote on the projects in January. The issues remain pertinent to the eight neighborhoods still under consideration to host the 250 acres of solar installations required to offset energy consumption in 127 municipal buildings.
Most of the proposed sites are east of Woodward Avenue, and two of them, the State Fair and Greenfield Parks sites are close to Grixdale Farms.
John Gruchala, a Parkhurst Street resident, lives roughly a block from the proposed Greenfield Park project. He said he worries the large solar fields could be unattractive, pointing to the DTE-owned O’Shea solar park as an example.
Mayor Duggan cited O’Shea as an example when he announced the project. Although renderings for the 10-acre project showed trees and fields of wildflowers, the completed project has little today in the way of landscaping.
“I’ve driven by that O’Shea Park multiple times, and I never got that huggy, warm, ecological feeling that I wanna go there,” Gruchala said.
Groups say some residents weren’t contacted on solar power plan
A memo shared with Planet Detroit from Detroiters Working for Environmental Justice and signed by some of the organizations the city used to engage with residents on the program offered suggestions for improvements or future efforts.
The memo said the city should involve residents earlier, indicating that some impacted residents had reported no contact with the city.
Grixdale resident Asher Van Sickle expressed frustration that the potential solar developers weren’t required to submit proposals until Feb. 15, two weeks after neighborhoods voted on whether to move forward. He said information from the proposals could have given residents a sense of what projects would look like and how they would be managed.
“Every aspect of the project is kind of subject to change,” he told Planet Detroit before the Grixdale Farms project was removed from consideration.
Roach said the city engaged with residents for eight months, including neighborhood meetings and door-to-door visits. He said the city was placing solar projects in areas with “strong, unified neighborhood support.” However, he didn’t respond to questions about what specific threshold of support was needed or if these results would be made public.
The memo also recommended offering direct and ongoing community solar benefits, allowing residents to subscribe to third-party-owned solar arrays in exchange for energy bill credits instead of solar projects in neighborhoods that don’t power local homes and businesses.
Concerns about herbicides and maintenance
Van Sickle supported the project in his neighborhood but was concerned that potential herbicide use would work against broader sustainability efforts.
“We’re fighting for urban gardens and bees, and the idea of herbicides flies in the face of all of that,” he said.
Roach did not specify whether the city would allow herbicides for maintenance. He said landscaping, fencing, and maintenance issues will be worked out between neighborhoods and solar developers in the coming months. He said the neighborhood will review and agree to these plans prior to submission to the City Council.
One resident expressed concern about glyphosate, an ingredient in products like Roundup, has been linked to DNA damage and potential cancer risk in male farmers, leading to calls for its ban by political and environmental groups in the United States and European Union.
Is large-scale solar power the right approach in Detroit?
Although the Detroit solar initiative was introduced in June, City Planning Commissioners were still trying to understand its rationale at a Jan. 18 meeting.
“I’m wondering why having huge solar farms is the solution here, as opposed to, for example, helping residents put solar panels on their homes throughout the city, or putting them on commercial buildings or even municipal buildings themselves,” City Planning Commissioner Rachel M. Udabe said at the meeting.
“We are all trying to get our heads around exactly what is proposed here, what the benefits will be, what the motivations are,” Marcell Todd, director of the City Planning Commission, said at the meeting.
Solar power advocates previously told Planet Detroit that installing solar panels on city property or residents’ homes could offer more direct benefits by generating power “behind the meter.” This would allow the city or homeowners to fully avoid the cost of that energy rather than rely on a partial credit for power generated off-site.
Roach defended the city’s approach, saying that solar power on city-owned sites would not be adequate to meet the city’s goal of offsetting municipal energy use. He noted that available roof space on a police precinct or firehouse is often less than 5,000 square feet—too small for solar panels.
Cities like Cincinnati and Chicago have built solar arrays in rural areas where land is cheaper and negative effects, like the removal of shade trees, could impact residents less.
Gruchala shared some of the concerns discussed in the planning commission meeting, saying he would support solar projects in locations like brownfield sites and as part of large industrial developments. But he suggested Detroit should follow the lead of other cities when it comes to large-scale developments.
“Why did Chicago (and) why did Cincinnati build theirs out in the country?” he asked. “They want to use valuable urban land to increase the population in their city to increase the tax base.”