Creating a planning department that "starts with yes"
When Mayor Mike Duggan recruited Maurice Cox from New Orleans two years ago to become Detroit's new urban planner, the city planning department had six employees and was seen as a pass-through for developers.
"We hadn't had a world class planner in decades," Duggan said. "The planning department basically ran demolitions."
These days, Cox is focused on demolishing barriers in Detroit's Planning and Development Department. And he's pursuing a redevelopment strategy in the city's neighborhoods that reimagines vast tracts of vacant land where homes once stood.
In two years, Cox has hired 25 new planners and created teams with a city planner, urban designer, landscape architect and architectural historian to focus on four main regions in the city as well as big projects like the East Riverfront redevelopment and construction of Little Caesars Arena and the surrounding District Detroit.
Outside of the 7.2 square miles of downtown and Midtown, Cox is leading the charge for the development of "20 minute neighborhoods" where a resident can live, shop, dine and recreate within a 20-minute walk or bicycle ride from their house.
Cox's strategy is coming to fruition in the Fitzgerald neighborhood, where the city is attempting to string together vacant lots to build a quarter-mile greenway path connecting the University of Detroit Mercy with Marygrove College.
Instead of waiting for new construction of homes that may never get built, Cox is pursuing a strategy of infilling 192 vacant lots with a park-like landscape that he says "knits the fabric of a neighborhood back together."
Approximately 115 dilapidated homes in the Fitzgerald neighborhood will be rehabilitated. Vacant lots not used for the pathway or the new 2-acre Ella Fitzgerald Park will be converted to mini-parks or urban farming plots of land dotting the landscape.
"This is where the comeback will be tested," Cox said.
Downtown and Midtown Detroit are "humming along" with construction of new housing developments and high-rise buildings, Cox said.
"But ultimately, if we don't build neighborhoods that attract families and families with children, then the recovery will not be complete," Cox said.
Cox also is helping foster a culture change inside the Coleman A. Young Municipal Building — starting with the creation of an "Office of Yes," which does just what its title suggests.
"It comes from this notion that people don't expect City Hall to say yes," Cox said. "The city had a reputation of not being able to be very responsive. Our notion is we say yes until we have some reason that we can't get to yes. We start with yes."
Cox, who came to Detroit from the University of Tulane with an academic background, has used the Office of Yes to partner with the University of Michigan's Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning. Faculty and students at the college wanted to help the city develop planning strategies for building middle-density housing.
The U-M students provided "tens of thousands of dollars" worth of free consulting that the planning department can use as a guide for future neighborhood revitalization, Cox said.
"Being able to actually say 'Yes, we welcome your partnership,' has really been able to marshal those resources," he said.
As new construction projects have popped up in Midtown and downtown, Cox has challenged real estate developers to build housing, retail and office space differently with an eye toward building a more densely-designed city.
"He has absolutely pushed developers to step up their design game," said Sonya Mays, CEO of Develop Detroit, a nonprofit housing developer. "And as this process moves forward, it will continue to elevate the design aesthetic in Detroit. ... He's been pretty forthright about his expectations and his vision."