Had a permit issue that took 6 weeks to sort out in Detroit

I was dead set on renovating my storefront on Gratiot myself to save money. Figured a quick interior fix would take a week. Three weeks later I hit the permit office and found out I needed historical district approval. Six weeks and $400 in fees later I learned to just ask the city first. Has anyone else in the city run into the same zoning surprise?

2 comments

2 Comments

uma_williams4d agoMost Upvoted

Actually, Detroit doesn't have a blanket historical district requirement for the whole city. Only certain neighborhoods like Corktown, Indian Village, and parts of Midtown are under that. You might've been in one of those zones without realizing it. But if you were on Gratiot outside of those areas, the issue was probably a regular zoning permit or a commercial alteration permit, which is needed for any storefront changes even if it's not a historic area. The six weeks sounds about right though, the permitting office on Jeffries has always been slow no matter what kind of project you're doing.

the_mary4d ago

Okay, @uma_williams actually makes a really good point here. Used to think Detroit was just a blanket historic nightmare for anyone trying to do anything, turns out it's more spotty than that. Guess I was lumping all the city's red tape together in my head without realizing I was talking about specific areas like Corktown. Never really stopped to think about how a regular commercial alteration permit could cause the same headache outside those zones. Six weeks at the Jeffries office feels like a universal constant no matter what you're filing, slow is slow. Honestly, this clears up a lot of the confusion I had about why some projects on the east side seem to fly through while others stall out for months.