State Watch

House owned by Michigan state rep mysteriously demolished

A Detroit house owned by a Michigan state representative was mysteriously demolished, and city officials don’t have any record of who knocked it down.

Michigan state Rep. Sherry Gay-Dagnogo (D) told the Detroit Free Press that a house she was renovating was torn down two weeks ago. Gay-Dagnogo did not reside in the house but was intending to give it to a family in need or change it to affordable housing.

{mosads}”I have a lot of questions,” Gay-Dagnogo told the Detroit Free Press. “There’s no record at all at the city, from what they can find so far, that has anything about my house being torn down. They have no idea. It’s a mystery. I’m just taken aback and trying to process this.”

The Detroit Free Press looked at the city’s Open Data Portal that’s supposed to include all planned city or Detroit Land Bank Authority-contracted demolitions and found no record for the property.

“There also was no permit pulled by any private individuals for the demolition of this property,” Detroit Building Authority Director Tyrone Clifton told The Hill in a statement.

“This is now being handled as a criminal investigation by the Detroit Police Department.”

The house next door to Gay-Dagnogo’s was damaged in a previous fire and was knocked down in July by the contracting company Adamo Group, Inc. Adamo had previously been suspended for demolishing the wrong home in May 2018, according to the Free Press.

Adamo’s attorney Christian Hauser told the newspaper the company “had absolutely nothing to do with the demolition.”

Gay-Dagnogo told The Hill she was shocked when she found out her house was demolished. She is working directly to investigate what happened to the building.

 
“No one  is stepping forward to take responsibility for a huge hole in the ground,” she said.
 
The state representative said she wants to put legislation in place to ensure there will be accountability for companies that perform demolitions. 
 
Before this incident, she said she drafted a resolution to improve the city’s demolition program on Aug. 15.
 
“It’s ironic that it’s an issue that I have spoke out against,” she said. “I don’t believe it was intentional, but I won’t rule it out.”

The Hill has reached out to Adamo for comment.

Updated at 6:20 p.m.