B-C Dust

[detwaa84]

Local residents are complaining of dust from the Westin. Although I fully understand their concerns, mainly because the are senior citizens, but this is construction, and it is known to cause dust. I don't understand what else can be done if they are doing everything they could to avoid further problems.

http://detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?A.../707170415/1003

I pulled the hair on my head after reading this stupid comment.

"Too often people come to make money in Detroit but they don't care about the community," she said (JoAnn Watson). who else, right.

If these people didn't care about the community, then they wouldn't come to Detroit to make money and help the community benefit, moran.

[RustTown]

This has been going on for some time, now. I believe that we even discussed this in the B-C thread, or perhaps even its own seperate thread, in fact. Anyway, I'm not so sure if its clear that Ferchill has done everything it can to prevent as much of this as possible. The article is pretty vague (like before), a lot of "he said-she said".

I agree with Watson, though, I wouldn't (and I'm not sure she is) paint Ferchill as one of those companies she describes. It is true, there are a lot of big (and small) people and groups that care little about their effect on the people around them, and she is more within her bounds, and I think it is her obligation, to call a public hearing of department heads if only to allay the fears and concerns of the public, again.

I really don't see anything wrong with this, and the demands being made by the Downtown Public Safety Coalition don't seem unreasonable in the least. I see no reason to attack these residents, or any reason to think that anything that is being asked in unreasonable. These are normal issues cities see with development, and this is nothing out of the ordinary. I wish the citizens the best of luck and health, and hopefully, there is some simple solution to most of this.

I don't think this is an unreasonable request, at all:

"The Downtown Public Safety Coalition, made up of residents who live near the project, asked the city to make public a report on all the health and safety laws the project must follow, as well as make public all monitoring reports on the environmental impact of the Book Cadillac renovation."

It would't hurt for these departments to actually do a full day's work, for once. lol

[tapezord]

Dust control is a bare minimum requirement on a job site, typically, this is a requirement of a grading/soil erosion permit. Just because we're detroit and we're in awe of the BC development, it doesn't mean that conventional construction site protocol goes by the wayside.

The bottom line is that it is ridiculous that this issue had to make it all the way to council... and since it has reached council, i'm certain that the calliope music organist has already taken his place at the organ to provide the sound track to the ensuing crap storm that will rain down on the project for the next week.

In terms of the job site cleanliness, it seemed to me that the job has been very clean in all of my visits over the past few months. The only remotly dirty conditions i ever saw was for the Commerce Building demo, but they kept the site well-watered during demo.

[RustTown]

I'm confused, Trap, do you think there may be a problem with dust, or this citizens advocacy group is blowing smoke? I honestly don't want to speculate, but I'm not sure if city oversite is ever a bad thing. It is incumbent upon a city to protect its residents and investigate, in a timely fashion, whatever complaints they receive.

[tapezord]

believe it or not, I am siding with the residents if there is indeed a real problem as they indicate (I have not seen it)! As THRILLED as I am with the BC development, I simply cannot excuse a contractor from following the most basic requirements... keep your site clean!

THAT SAID.....

At the same time, I also indicated above that it really seemed to me that the site was pretty clean in general. from what I have seen I guess thats where we are all confused. The contractor seems to have taken every step necessary. They had visquene on all the open windows, the job site is swept and very neat and compact. And, as I said before, they kept the commerce building site well watered throughout the project. I honestly have more problems with the bus terminal site. That is a freaking dustbowl.

basically, I am just kinda confused, and with the city council getting involved, it can only get worse