Businessman John Hantz is inching closer to a deal with the City of Detroit to commercially farm about 110 acres of city-owned vacant land on the city's east side.
Details remain under negotiation, and it was not clear how soon, or even if, a deal will be struck. Two people familiar with the negotiations say that the effort centers on about 110 acres of vacant city-owned parcels scattered within an area bordered by Jefferson Avenue on the south, Mack on north, Van Dyke on the west and Cadillac on the east. That extensive area includes the Indian Village district, where Hantz lives, as well as other populated neighborhoods, but the area also includes widespread vacancy.
Detroit already enjoys hundreds of nonprofit community, school and family gardens. But efforts to introduce commercial farming over the past 18 months have been slower to come to fruition because of the nontraditional nature of the land use.
Urban planners have estimated that Detroit contains between 30 and 40 square miles of vacant land, or more than 25,000 acres at the upper end of that range. The 110 acres would occupy less than one-half of 1% of the vacant land in the city.
Urban Farming is a small idea now but will be I think at the heart of the new food system
