Several townhouse residents used their 2 minutes of public speaking time to read from a report by Kay Sicheneder, an arborist hired by the cooperatives. The arborist expressed concerns that not all plants were accurately documented in Detroit Thermal’s plans, and her report said 23 trees would be injured by the construction, rather than seven, as Detroit Thermal stated. Sicheneder also expressed concern that damage to tree roots may not be visible until the future.
“My fear is that they will go forward with their plan, which does not protect the tree roots adequately,” Sicheneder told the commission. “Trees will suffer. They will start to decline — and it often takes years, because trees are big things, and it takes a while.”
Detroit Thermal’s plan initially guaranteed plant well-being for two years after construction. When questioned by the commission, David Scherer, the arborist hired by Detroit Thermal, said damage to trees can take up to five years to be visible.
In response to Sicheneder’s report, the commission added conditions to their approval of the plan, including that Detroit Thermal monitor trees that are replanted for four years after construction and replace them if they die, and that they do a comprehensive tree survey. Additional conditions that Detroit Thermal tie tree branches rather than cutting them, and replace grass with species that match the existing grass, had been suggested by staff prior to the meeting.
In a statement following the meeting, Detroit Thermal spokesperson Harvey Hollins III expressed gratitude for the commission’s approval of the steam line plan.
“We appreciate the commission’s thorough and demanding application process, which included two public hearings,” Hollins said in the statement. “We also appreciate the many public and private comments we received from Detroit residents during this process.”
The ongoing battle between neighbors stems from the 1300 Lafayette co-op building suffering a failure of its boilers two winters ago. Since then, it has been using temporary boilers parked in semi-trailers on-site at a cost of about $30,000 per month, as Crain’s previously reported.
The building had previously been connected to Detroit Thermal’s steam network — which services more than 100 buildings in the downtown Detroit area — and the co-op board in recent months began discussions with the company to reconnect to that system.