Detroit As the broken city thinks big and radically about its future, a developer is stepping forward with a revolutionary idea: Sell the city's Belle Isle park for $1 billion to private investors who will transform it into a free-market utopia.
The 982-acre island would then be developed into a U.S. commonwealth or city-state of 35,000 people with its own laws, customs and currency.
City officials are likely to reject the plan. But on Jan. 21, supporters including Mackinac Center for Public Policy senior economist David Littmann, retired Chrysler President Hal Sperlich and Clark Durant, co-founder of Detroit's Cornerstone Schools, will present the Commonwealth of Belle Isle plan to a select group of movers and shakers at the tony Detroit Athletic Club.
Among the confirmed reservations of about 50 people who will hear the pitch are Sandy Baruah, president and CEO of the Detroit Regional Chamber, and Beth Chappell, president and CEO of the Detroit Economic Club, organizers say. It's not clear if they know what's in store.
"We are among the people looking for answers to the city's problem," said Rodney Lockwood, a Bingham Farms developer who is the driving force behind the idea.
The former chairman of the Michigan Chamber of Commerce and current board member of the free-market-oriented Mackinac Center for Public Policy has written a self-published book about the plan called "Belle Isle: Detroit's Game Changer." A website called commonwealthofbelleisle.com debuts on Jan. 22.
Lockwood readily admits the idea has no political traction.
"You have to put ideas out there especially now, when so much is up for debate," Lockwood said.
The idea won't go anywhere, said George Jackson, president and CEO of the Detroit Economic Growth Corp., the quasi-public agency that promotes development for the city.
"Belle Isle will get fixed," Jackson said, referring to an agreement to turn the island into a state-run park. "It won't be that plan. But it will be fixed."
Last fall, Detroit Mayor Dave Bing and Gov. Rick Snyder forged an agreement for the state to operate and manage Belle Isle. But the City Council refused to vote on the proposed lease amid outcries that a city jewel was being sacrificed. Council members repeatedly voiced concerns about leasing the park to the Department of Natural Resources for 30 years, citing the lease's lack of funding specifics. They also want jobs and contracts to go to Detroiters.
Under the agreement, the state would fund renovations and operations of Belle Isle rather than pay rent. Bing and the state have said the plan would save the city $6 million annually, and 36 employees who currently maintain Belle Isle would be deployed to other city parks. The state wants the City Council to consider the issue again this year.
A recent Detroit News poll of 800 Detroiters found that 51 percent strongly support the state plan and 15.5 percent somewhat support it.
Lockwood hopes to tap into the zeitgeist that Detroit must embrace major change to thrive again. Earlier this week, a vision for reviving the city was unveiled called Detroit Future City.
It was the product of two years and millions of dollars of consulting fees paid by the city and state, hundreds of hours of volunteers and months of community meetings.
It envisions a smaller city where the swaths of empty and blighted land become urban/green neighborhoods full of trees, ponds and urban farms. Detroit has 40 square miles of vacant land, according to city officials. That's close to the total land area of San Francisco.
"Even with all that vacant land, the wide open spaces of Belle Isle are unique. To decommission Belle Isle would be a great loss of a public purpose area," said John Mogk, a Wayne State University law professor who follows urban planning issues.
Here's the scenario for the Commonwealth of Belle Isle that Lockwood and others want to see: Private investors buy the island from a near-bankrupt Detroit for $1 billion. It then would secede from Michigan to become a semi-independent commonwealth like Puerto Rico and the Northern Mariana Islands.
Under the plan, it would become an economic and social laboratory where government is limited in scope and taxation is far different than the current U.S. system. There is no personal or corporate income tax. Much of the tax base would be provided by a different property tax one based on the value of the land and not the value of the property.
It would take $300,000 to become a "Belle Islander," though 20 percent of citizenships would be open for striving immigrants, starving artists and up-and-coming entrepreneurs who don't meet the financial requirement.
Among the citizenship requirements are a command of the English language, a good credit rating and no criminal record. Mogk adds that such a scenario would make the island "a drain of talent and resources" at the expense of Detroit.
