Zoning Vote Could Limit Kronos Concrete Plant to Its Current 160 Lots

Detroit officials are moving to draw a line around the Kronos concrete plant, which sits in the middle of Cadillac Heights, a neighborhood of working-class houses where residents have logged about 80 complaints about dust with city and state environmental offices.

The City Planning Commission voted Oct. 22 to recommend rezoning some lots near the plant from heavy industrial to light industrial, which allows warehouses but bars concrete plants. Other lots would be rezoned for residential and commercial use. The plant at its present size could keep running. The City Council holds a public hearing on Nov. 19 and will cast the deciding vote.

The vote followed an investigation this year by BridgeDetroit and ProPublica into how the city helped Crown Enterprises, the real estate company owned by the Moroun family, assemble land in Cadillac Heights and later gave the company latitude when Kronos broke environmental rules. The neighborhood has carried heavy industrial zoning since the 1940s, when a rail line ran there.

Crown has threatened to sue if the zoning changes. In letters sent in mid-September and Oct. 22, attorney Melvin Butch Hollowell wrote that a change would cut property values and create uncertainty about future development. A Crown spokesperson, Kenneth Dobson, said the company invested more than $10 million in the concrete operation "on the City's promises and actions of approving our plans for this facility" and would drop promised improvements such as new sidewalks and landscaping if the zoning shifts. City planning staff say those improvements remain permitted.

Since a May 2019 land swap with the city, Crown has acquired more than 160 lots in Cadillac Heights, most of them empty. That deal let Crown take parcels in the neighborhood in exchange for property elsewhere in Detroit, which enabled Stellantis to build its first new car plant in the city in three decades. City officials said at the time they did not know Crown's plans included a concrete facility.

Sharon Buttry, who organized residents to protest Kronos, said she supports rezoning the lots but worries the current recommendation would make it easier for Crown to expand later. "We still want them to shut down or move," she said. Council member Scott Benson, who represents Cadillac Heights, asked the planning commission in 2023 to review industrial zoning along the Joe Louis Greenway, a walking and biking trail under construction. He said community input then shifted the request toward the area around Kronos. "That did play a role here," Benson said.

The city has issued Kronos several tickets under its 2024 fugitive dust ordinance, which requires concrete plants to file plans for keeping dust from spreading. On Oct. 7, an inspector found dust in the neighborhood and material piles that should have been screened from view, according to city spokesperson Georgette Johnson; Kronos swept and watered the streets and lowered the piles, and Johnson said Crown corrected the problems. Terrell Daniel, identified in meeting minutes as a Kronos employee, urged the commission on Oct. 1 to keep industry in the area. "It's bringing back the backbone of Detroit," he said.