Detroit extends watch on recycling facilities

Detroit Mayor Michael E. Duggan has extended a moratorium on the establishment or expansion of “junk yards, scrap tire processing and recycling facilities” in Detroit through the end of 2022. The moratorium first took effect April 1, 2019.

A negative view of recycling facilities has evolved with the “environmental justice” movement in the past several years, with shredding and processing operations viewed by residents and outside groups as harmful to air quality in neighborhoods hosting recycling facilities.

According to Duggan’s office, subsequent executive orders have extended the moratorium imposed by the original executive order until Aug. 30, and have added used tire sales and service and towing service storage yards to its scope.

Under Chapter 50 of the 2019 Detroit City Code, the term "junkyard” includes “junk dealers, scrap iron and metal processors and automobile dismantling and wrecking yards.”

The mayor’s office states, “Regulation and enforcement of these businesses has been a challenge for the City of Detroit due to an overconcentration of such uses and lack of compliance with zoning, property maintenance and licensing standards, in addition to evidence of criminal activity furthered or condoned by some of these operations.”

Last year, the Washington-based Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries (ISRI) released an updated position on environmental justice that supports, in part, “contributing positively to the communities in which members operate, including the opportunity to be heard.”

In Detroit, the mayor’s office states in its most recent executive order, “Even if permitted, some of these businesses have illegally intensified the services offered such as presenting more used cars for sale than allowed or expanded a business onto neighboring property without permission.”

The city of Detroit says it is working on revisions to its laws that “will include legislative corrections and new regulations to limit overconcentration, increase compliance with property maintenance, zoning, and licensing standards, decrease crime, eradicate visual blight, and curtail illegal business operations.”

In the meantime, the mayor says, “No city department may accept an application for a new permit, license or to appeal a denied application to establish or expand a junkyard, scrap tire processing and recycling facility, scrap tire storage facility, minor or major motor vehicle repair, used car sales lot, used tire sales and service, or a towing service storage yard to give the city the continued opportunity to implement its compliance strategy with newly available resources and to review draft language, hold the required public hearings and enact improved regulations for such land uses in the city.”

The full text of the executive order can be found here.