Hantz Farms Detroit, Hantz Woodlands: The business of urban agriculture on the cutting edge

On a cool spring afternoon last week, Adam Hollier, vice president of Hantz Woodlands, an enterprise of Hantz Farms Detroit, stood near his parked pickup truck on Belvidere and Goethe streets on the city's lower east side. From the vehicle, he strategically eyed multiple parcels of cleared land that once were blighted with abandoned homes, overgrown weeds, and littered with unmeasurable debris.

Hollier was in the final stages of preparing for the influx of approximately 900 volunteers to participate in the Hantz Farms Planting Day.

Exceeding his expectations, on Saturday morning, May 17, close to 1,200 people convened at Belvidere and Goethe for Hantz Farms Planting Day to help plant 15,000 trees in the immediate area. On land once owned by the City of Detroit but now under the ownership of the for-profit Hantz Farms Detroit, volunteers fanned out to plant such trees as sugar maple, white birch, bur oaks, and flowering dogwoods.

"These trees are going to grow big and strong and straight," said Hollier, who once served as a legislative liaison for Mayor Dave Bing's administration. "There's no doubt that the trees will have a positive environmental impact while giving the area a beautiful and clean look. Next year, we will plant another 15,000 trees."

This year's endeavor represented one of the most expansive tree planting initiatives in recent city history, and is being called one of the largest urban reforestation projects in America. Hollier explained that the mission of Hantz Woodlands is to help contribute to more livable Detroit neighborhoods.

"Within our development zone, we want to help strengthen the city's tax base and reduce city operating expenses," said Hollier. "We also really want to establish and maintain cleaner and safer neighborhoods."

Hollier said the urban-agricultural project is the brainchild of John R. Hantz, president and CEO of Southfield-based Hantz Group, Inc.John Hantz is nationally recognized in the financial community and is the creative source for such entities bearing his name, including Hantz Farms Detroit, Hantz Financial Services, Hantz Bank, Hantz Software, Hantz Real Estate Ventures, Hantz Technology, Hantz Commercial Insurance Agency and more.

Hantz has put his money where his mouth is.

"John has made a commitment to invest millions and millions of this own money in Hantz Farms' projects," said Hollier. "He loves Detroit and has lived in Indian Village for 20 years. Through Hantz Bank, he has lent up to $5,000 in unsecured loans to homeowners in this development zone who want to fix up and stay, versus packing up to move."

Hollier, who has a bachelor's degree in industrial and labor relations from Cornell University and a master's degree in urban planning from the University of Michigan, continued, "What John Hantz sees is that once we clean out various properties that we own, people in the area want to invest. The problem they had was that no one was going to lend them money to put into fixing up their homes."

While Saturday's event represented a major urban victory for the company, the journey to success has included some controversy. Over the last five years, there were individuals and advocate groups that opposed Hantz Farms' plans, calling the principal owners of the organization "land grabbers."

However, after years of back-and-forth debates and garnering support in the neighborhood, Hantz Farms won a City Council vote in 2012 that allowed the sale of the city-owned property on the lower east side. To date, Hantz Farms has titles for close to 1,300 parcels of land in the aforementioned sector of the city, which is bordered by Van Dyke and St. Jean streets, and Mack and Jefferson avenues. Overall, the parcels of land acquired equate to almost 150 acres.

"When we were on the front end of our work, we went door-to-door in the area where the work was going to take place," Mike Score, Hantz Farms' president, told several media outlets. "We had over 94 percent of the residents in the development area support our planned work. They signed a petition stating that they would welcome us into the community because we were focused on cutting weeds, removing brush, picking up trash, and keeping properties nice.

"They approved of us investing in the neighborhood that they felt good living in because they wanted a place that was not only livable again, but would be a special place in the network of Detroit neighborhoods."

While the agreement that allowed Hantz Farms to acquire the land from the city does not permit the company to sell products harvested from the land, there is huge economic potential if the agreement is amended. Urban-agricultural project executives believe that Detroit's economy could greatly improve when the planted trees mature many years from now that could produce timber for sale.

In a shorter time frame, maple trees could produce maple syrup for entrepreneurs. Additionally, the creation of an annual maple festival in the area and bringing global tourism to the transformation zone could have a positive economic impact. In addition, future ventures in the neighborhood could include ways to harvest wind energy and utilize geothermal heat and biomass fuel from recycling compost.

"Hantz Farms will continue to be innovative and transform this area into a viable, beautiful and sustainable area that will serve the community, increase the tax base and create jobs," Hantz said. "We want to greatly improve the quality of life in an area that has experienced a severe decline in population."

Whatever the future brings with Hantz Farms Detroit, Hollier is optimistic that Detroiters, specifically the ones living in the east side development zone, will benefit.

"What we are doing is not only changing and transforming neighborhoods, we are changing and transforming the lives of people who want to stay here," he said. "One of our main goals is for other individuals and organizations to see what we are doing over here and decide to do it in other neighborhoods across the city.

"Our goal is to make investing in neighborhoods make business sense. Just like people are investing their money in downtown, John Hantz is investing his money into Hantz Farms Detroit, and because of that this neighborhood will greatly benefit."