PRESERVING THE PAST Historic Indian Village home renovation becomes couple’s labor of love

Kristin Cravens-Hutton looked forward to cooking her rst family meal in her new kitchen.

On the surface, that might not seem like a big deal. But it’s a signi cant milestone given that the Detroit resident hasn’t had a functional kitchen in the Indian Village home she’s owned for four years with her husband, David Hutton.

Yet it’s still just one milestone in what Cravens-Hutton, 53, said she expects will be a nearly 15-year project to fully restore the 5,600-square-foot Craftsman-style home that’s well over a century old and still lacks basics such as electricity in some rooms.

COURTS

New rules crack down on junkyards, auto shops

Residents’ complaints led to changes

ARIELLE KASS

Detroit residents’ concerns about a concentration of auto sales, repair shops and junkyards contributing to blight led to new rules that will severely reduce business owners’ ability to open new car-related facilities in the city.

e changes mean more distance between places with auto-related uses, more limits on where they can go in Detroit and heavier nes for illegal activity when those rules aren’t followed.

e new regulations went into effect March 8, but date back to a 2019 moratorium on new auto uses, said Jamie Murphy, a city planner. at moratorium limited new or expanded junkyards, towing yards, auto repair shops, auto sales, used tire sales and scrap tire processing as residents complained about the blighting inuence they had on neighborhoods across the city.

“For some reason, there are a lot of poorly operated ones in the city,” she said. “I can’t think of a nice junkyard.”

“ is house has taken over our lives in ways I would have never expected,” Cravens-Hutton told Crain’s in an interview and tour of the home on Burns Street, near the increasingly popular West Village neighborhood on Detroit’s east side.

Hutton is a Louisville native and Cravens-Hutton hails from Little Rock, Ark. e couple — who met in the U.S. Army — moved to metro Detroit for work in the defense sector in 2010, at the tail end of the Great Recession. At rst they settled in Royal Oak, but eventually found themselves drawn to Detroit.

While existing legal uses won’t have to change because of the new rules, those that are grandfathered in to areas where they wouldn’t be able to operate if they tried to open now won’t be able to expand their facilities. e businesses can be sold and continue to operate as-is, though, even with the new limits.

Among the changes are regulations that require at least 1,000 feet between car-related uses and more restrictions on what business zoning categories will allow for new automotive uses, New car lots are no longer allowed in what’s known as a local business district, also called B2 zoning, said Rory Bolger, a city planner/zoning specialist in Detroit.

Additionally, many of the automotive uses now have to be at least 100 feet away from a residentially zoned lot.