'Venice of Detroit' faces a flood fix that could close its canals

It's the Metro on WDET. I'm Robin Vincent. You can get to Coriander Kitchen and Farm by car, but some people come by boat, down a canal on Detroit's far east side, pass backyards and boathouses. They tie up at a dock beside the striped umbrellas of the restaurant's new outdoor bar. Coriander Kitchen is located in the Venice of Detroit. A web of canals running inland off the river. Now, the city is weighing whether to close the canals. It's a flood fix. Nearly every parcel in this neighborhood sits inside a federal flood hazard area, and the city has money set aside to change that. But the very idea of closing canals has residents up in arms. They fended off a version of this plan a few years ago. Allison Harris is chef and co-owner of Coriander Kitchen, built into a fish marina that once sat empty. Tracy Rubin chairs the Jefferson Chalmers Water Project. That's a residence group that's been working on this flooding for years. Welcome to you both. Thank you. Thanks for having us. And I want to note the city of Detroit has yet to respond to our request for comment. Detroit Building Authority Director Tyrone Clifton recently told Fox 2, we're going to look at all the options and one option could be closing canals. But it has to be a factual option we can bring back to the community so they can understand everything behind it and how it affects them too. Tracy, you've lived with this a long time. Help me understand how bad a problem flooding is in Jefferson Chalmers. It's a very bad problem. It's a hazardous problem. But some of the misconstruement, I'll say, it's not just flooding from a rain event. It's also flooding from the city backing up. The pipes backing up or the freeway drainage not being open like it should. So we're the lowest point. It ends up in our basements. It floods. We're going to get into that in a little bit because I realize the Army Corps of Engineers, their report does not cover. That aspect, the different ways that you all are experiencing flooding, that it is not just an issue with the canals and the river. But first, I want to know this. Back in June, the city said it was hiring someone to come out and talk to the people this flood plan affects. That was a couple months ago. What do you actually know right now about what's coming? Well, I've spoken to her. I was at the DBA meeting when she was introduced and she was actually approved for the job. It's Ms. Kayana Sessams. The Detroit Building Authority meeting. Yes.

And Tyrone did send her, have her call me and we had a meeting. And we, I toured the area with her and showed her what's going on. And we started at Coriander Kitchen because that's the best place to start. Why is that the best place to start? Just to see part of what's going on in that neighborhood, how the canals come together, the people come together. You've got your dogs there. You got dogs walking across street. You got the ducks walking past, you know, the beavers, everything. And then you got good food, just a meeting place if you want. Right next door, you got the Detroit River Sports. You can sit there and see families get on the kayaks and then just walk over to the water. What, eight steps, ten steps, and see him. What was her reaction? I mean, I think about the first time that I hung out at Coriander Kitchen and it felt like this real authentic kind of community crossroads. It is. That's exactly what it is. Allison and everybody involved has done a great job. And Allison came in. helping the neighborhood, having free barbecues for the neighborhood. So everybody could see her at the church doing a chili cook-off so everybody could taste some of the food they had. So... You're going to make me cry. No crying. No crying yet. We're too early in the conversation. So Kayana, when she got there, we had our lunch. It was really nice. What we ate. And I said, okay, you ready to start the tour? She said, yes. I said, okay, follow me. We walked to the edge of the property. to the canal. And I said, okay, look out over the canal. And we saw the kids go and everything. I said, this will be closed down. I said, this will stink. This will be a hazard if these canals are closed. And she was pretty surprised. Yeah, what did she say to you? She was, I could see the look on her face. She was very surprised because that was part of the issue. When I went to the DBA meeting, I invited everybody. Come out and see. what this proposal will do, what it is that you're planning to understand and understand the people here and that what the main thing that they said, it doesn't need to be. We don't need that. We don't need the canals closed. And one of the things I asked them, just help us keep the water where it's supposed to be. Don't take the water. Well, what do you mean by the canals becoming a hazard if they close? Well, it's a natural waterway. There's animals. And then you still have Gross Point, who's allowed to dump their sewage into the water. Okay? So if you take the water away, what happens? You have turtle eggs laid down there, duck eggs, everything. And then you have sewage. It's going to stink. So this is a potential real issue, not just for people. This is a big environmental concern as well. Yes. Allison, about six months ago, we had Blake Granham on the show. She's a longtime resident of Jefferson Chalmers. I want to listen to her speaking about the neighborhood.

The places, it's too special. It is not unsafe. It is actually a very safe place to grow up and live. I get emotional because I look at my childhood and I look at where I am today. And I feel like I'm such a kind and giving and empathetic person. And that came from my neighborhood. I feel like the coolest people are from Detroit and just a... Just a few of them are from Jefferson Chalmers. It's so quiet. It's so peaceful. And people, it's just amazing. That's not an option. The flooding does not outweigh how amazing it is to live over there. Allison, your restaurant Coriander Kitchen has a street address that some of your customers never use. They come by boat. Put me on that dock on a Saturday afternoon. Yeah, well, we live in a waterside city, which I don't think is the way that a lot of people experience Detroit. I'm really excited and proud of a lot of the work that the Parks Department has been doing to revitalize the waterfront and make it accessible to people. And... While that's all happening, I still feel like most of Detroit doesn't know the most interesting part of Detroit waterways, which I'm probably biased, but for me is the canals. Anybody who comes to visit me and I take them out on a paddleboard around the canals and onto the river, they're just blown away because it's not just this waterfront with this big static drop-off. There is all these natural areas. There's yesterday morning. sat out on the dock writing my prep list and got to watch Terrible Tom, my nickname for the gray heron. He's not terrible. He's just doing his job, but he hunts and stalks in the morning and looks very devious. I'm glad you clarified he is not. He's not terrible. And I saw a green heron the other day. We see mink, all those things regularly. And When I first experienced Fisherman's Marina, which many residents still know it as Fisherman's Marina. We actually haven't taken down the old sign. It's a bit in disrepair because we don't know what to do with it because we want to keep it, but it's an expensive project. This is where the restaurant is located. Yeah, Fisherman's Marina. It was also known as Tommy's Boat livery. A lot of people still call it Tommy's. And so when I first experienced that space... When I, my business partner's husband, Alex Howbert, showed us the space. He had purchased the building because he grew up kayaking and sailing in that area. And it had been his dream. He'd gone to Tommy's as a kid. It had been his dream to revitalize that property. And he came and he showed it to me. And truth be told, I never thought I would actually open a restaurant. And you're not supposed to fall in love with a place. When you're doing restaurant business, you're supposed to think of all these other things first. But I fell in love with a place and said, like, we need to make this waterway and this dock available to people that they can come and enjoy its beauty and sit together and feel what it feels like to be on the water because that's part of who we are as Detroiters. And I want us to be able to, like, expand that experience to more Detroiters.

So you saw an opportunity for some true transformation? Yeah, I mean, it was a huge transformation for sure. You and your business owner, Gwen Meyer, grow the food. She farms, you cook, and people paddle in to eat it or drive in. Your menu changes with the solstice. Many things your business runs on are out of your control. The soil, the season, the water. I see you nodding over there. What is that like? I mean, it's really insane. Everything's out of control all the time. The only thing we can control is, you know, how we show up and the values that we hold doing the work that we do. And that is really what informs, you know, how we operate. It does take an incredible amount of resilience. and grit to do it, which is part of the thing that is so alarming about all of this for me is the fact that there's a lot of people in the community who have made huge investments. I mean, we obviously ourselves and our other business partner, Amy Hammerel and Alex, Alex Herbert have all made huge investments in that space with our time, with our money. But. the neighborhood overall, the residents, not just the residents on the canals, but the residents in the neighborhood as well, are like what is making this neighborhood so special and revitalizing it right without help. You know, and so. That's what's so special to me and the idea that we're already contending with all of these things that are so far outside of our control with the weather, with the federal government, with, you know, how small business lending is working, all of these things. Like the current status of like financial, you know, help for small business has been really up and down a lot in the last few years. And so to then add on top of that, we're going to take away this thing that, like, never in my wildest dreams did I think could be taken away. And I remember when the original proposal came out, which everyone, you know, really reacted very vehemently to. You're talking about a couple years ago, the one that residents fended off, that included potentially closing the canals. Right. I said, there's no way this is going to happen. And then when it came back around again, because I just seemed so ludicrous, it's like if you, I mean, you wouldn't see this. And no one would suggest this in Gross Point. No one would suggest this in St. Clair's Shores. We're going to think about that, too, in a moment, how different things are across city lines. But I want to stay on this idea if we could.

that the canals bring a lot of joy, but also a lot of uncertainty. And one option to deal with the uncertainty of flooding is a gate that shuts during high water. The Army Corps of Engineers says it could stay shut for long stretches of the season. How would that affect coriander kitchen? I mean, I think as Tracy pointed out, it would... cause the water to be stagnant. I don't... Your business, what would it mean for the restaurant? Right. Well, I'm saying if it would cause the water to be stagnant, I think it would start to smell. I think the wildlife would not stay there. It would become a much different... place. And it's hard for me to understand how bad it could get. But I know that it would definitely impact my business and probably greatly, depending on the impact on the waterway and how that feels to the customer. Because we are not a restaurant that people happen upon. If you get to Coriander Kitchen and Farm, you are trying to come to Coriander Kitchen and Farm. You're a destination restaurant. Right. And so. If the canals were to start being closed for significant portions of the year of this season, I don't think the restaurant would continue to exist. I think that the nearly million dollars we've invested as a restaurant, the 15 years I've spent in my life building up to this project would... You know, I'm never going to say completely wasted because, you know, the journey is part of the, the journey is part of the process, right? But it would be devastating. Tracy, there was a protest in June. Residents set sail on a flotilla to raise awareness about the potential closure of the canals. At the time, you didn't talk about the view or the vibes. You said people make money down here. Boat rentals, bait shops. a restaurant, as we've been talking about. Why lead with that? Well, it's the economic times. You know, it's already hard for a lot of people. And they've found, like, their niche, what they can do to help supplement their income, you know, in a beautiful way. Like, I can say my neighbor. She used to rent her boat wells to the fishermen. And the fishermen show up 5 o'clock in the morning. You hear those doors shut. And they come from all over the state. You know, when I was on the water with another reporter, we passed by two other fishermen. He said he was from Alginac. You know, so they come from everywhere to be there. And like her, she's on, she's retired. You know, she has a fixed income. So that took away some of her income because she had to fix her CWRSA. So now she's not only lost income, she's paying. She's still paying for that. So there's a lot of people. If you ride down the water, you'll see. You can see where people have boats stored. Do we want to take more money away from everybody nowadays?

It's the Metro on WDET. I'm Robin Vincent. I'm speaking with Tracy Rubin. She chairs the Jefferson Chalmers Water Project and Allison Harris, chef and co-owner of Coriander Kitchen and Farm. We're discussing how the city wants to help stop flooding there. Closing the canals that define the neighborhood is one of the options on the table. Tracy, I realize you do a lot of outreach. in the neighborhood. Last fall, your group surveyed nearly 300 waterfront properties. Yes. What did you find? The report, it showed how many properties there were, how many seawalls were in disrepair, properties that were either owned by the city, the land bank, or people in the neighborhood. And it shows which ones needed a little bit of repair, a lot of repair, or just, okay, let's start over. And it showed which ones who had maybe riprap, which is more natural shoreline resilience versus the seawaw. So the people who did that, they documented every single property. You know, they got a grant to do that. This is stuff the city should have been doing. I want to think about a canal in the neighborhood called Fox Creek. It runs a little over a mile inland from the river. And it's also the city line. Yes. You've both brought up Gross Point. There's Gross Point Park on one side, Detroit on the other. The Army Corps found a solid steel wall running the whole length of the Gross Point side. And what you've been telling me is on the Detroit side, it's whatever each property owner put up. Or it's just there. The property I have on that side, because I have property on both sides of the street. The property I have, the Army Corps engineer built it way back. And it's dirt. sandbag, rocks, it's natural. And it didn't flood. It didn't get breached. My neighbors got breached. And the house to the right of me belongs to the land bank when it got breached. What do you make of this contrast between the two cities here? It's horrible. And Detroit helped pay for theirs. And then they immediately got out of the floodplain with theirs fixed. You know, we get people who, like, I do a lot of tours for people to see what's going on, see it in real time. And then I'll just show them everything and I'll say, okay, you want me to show you one of the big giant things that can fix all this? They're like, sure, take us to it. And I go, no, look over there. Look across the water. It's the fixed. It's the major fixed for the whole area. And just that alone could get us out of the floodplain, not stop logs, not Bill Gates. But you're saying you need the help because four in 10 households in Jefferson Chalmers are living in poverty. There's great need in this part of the city. But the city doesn't have a lot of money. Yes, they do.

Well, Detroit has a lot of poverty. We know that much, specifically child poverty. So. Someone hearing this might say, why should the city prioritize Jefferson Chalmers when there's so much work to be done on things like public transit, on education, on getting more money into schools and ensuring that people have jobs and enough food to eat? What do you say to that? I say there's already $20 million sitting with the city that has been allocated to get this done. Oh, go ahead. Well, I just, I'm glad you brought that up because there's a gap in what your group found could help solve this issue versus how much money the city has. I want to kind of lay that out. The high number comes from the Army Corps of Engineers. They looked at keeping the canals open and building up the seawalls instead. And it priced that at $88 million. Your side did its own survey this year and came back with just $17 million. The city has 20 million to address this. The city didn't respond to our questions about this again. But why do you think there's that gap? I'm going to say people not doing their due diligence and coming to physically look at the situation. Even in the city's new Robert F. Kennedy Jr. that they just put out August 7th. It says in there all this different stuff about put your proposal in and do this and do that. And then maybe on the eighth page, it says, take a tour. Shouldn't that be done first? I would also say that I assume that that $88 million includes the repairs of city-owned properties, which were taken out of our... Well, not actually. Because, and I don't know where they got the $88 million. I know what my neighbor's paid. My neighbors paid $20,000 per lot. My one neighbor has two lots. She paid $40,000. We have companies already who've worked in our area. Have a couple other neighbors who've done theirs. It does not equal $88 million. It doesn't even equal $20 million. And some of them can be riprap. or natural stone, which is just something that's engineered. It doesn't take 88 million. When the city started repairing seawalls for low-income homeowners this year, you welcomed it. So I want to put this last question to both of you. I mean, I realize you're not against everything that the city is doing here. You just want to be heard more precisely from the city. What would you say yes to next?

sea walls and shoreline resilience rip rap natural keep it the way it is yeah i would say um Let's find a way, which in my opinion is exactly what Tracy said, to continue the unique nature and unique landscape that we have that, as Tracy has said, is providing income to people and is also providing property values to people, which is so important for the city of Detroit that people's property values continue to gain traction. And so the idea that we would forfeit the idea of this unique place that is allowing those gains for residents in order to have a simpler, cleaner. solution that doesn't involve having to work with residents and individual residents just seems like a really short-sided plan to me. And so, yeah, what I would welcome is us figuring out a way to help people get the seawalls that they need and to figure out a way going forward to have ordinances that allow us to make sure that the work that needs to be ongoing to continue to happen. Alison Harris is chef and co-owner of Coriander Kitchen and Farm, and Tracy Rubin chairs the Jefferson Chalmers Water Project. Tracy, Allison, thank you. Thank you. Thanks so much.

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