Every once in a while someone I don’t know hands me something and asks me to publish it on this site. Until today, however, I don’t think that I’ve actually ever done it. I’ve never taken something that I’ve found scrawled on a piece of paper and stuck in my mailbox, and posted it. An article was left on my doorstep this morning, however, has made me reconsider my “thanks but no thanks” policy. The unsolicited article I received today, which you can read below, was not only coherent and well thought out, but it seemed to me like something that people in Ypsilanti should really know about. So, here it is… the story of a woman on Bell Street who just discovered that, due to recent rezoning, she may not be able to sell her home, which you can see here, just to the left of the former Vistion plant’s parking lot.

This is the story of an Ypsilanti neighborhood that’s been around since 1837. This small strip of older homes on Bell Street sits on the edge of the city’s former landfill, nestled against a wooded area near Huron Street and Spring Street.

Over the years, the landfill contamination has spread, seeping closer to these neighborhood homes — so close, in fact, that the city officials sent letters to Bell Street residents in 2013 letting them know about the pollution’s migration.

[The 2013 letter from the city of Ypsilanti included a picture showing the boundaries of the former landfill site. The circles are the places they took contamination samples.]

At the time, Bell Street homeowner Erin Snyder wasn’t overly worried. “I was concerned, yes, but none of the [polluted] samples were taken from my property,” she says. “Since we have municipal water services, and fill dirt was brought in to re-grade my property during building—and later, to expand my yard area—I figured my risk was probably minimal.”

Snyder tucked the letter and the information away until two years later, when she got yet another letter from the city in 2015.

This time, in response to the pollution, the city had rezoned Snyder’s home and a handful of others on the street to “PMD” (Production, Manufacturing, Distribution). Again, Snyder thought it wasn’t a huge deal.

That is, until she went to put her home on the market last week.

“As my realtor was pulling together information to prepare the listing, she noted the PMD zoning designation and became concerned,” Snyder says. After speaking with a member of in Ypsi’s Planning and Development Department (which handles zoning), she was told that if the home was destroyed, it could not be rebuilt.

In other words, if the home is damaged or burned or anything happens to it, that’s it. The owner can’t do anything about it. That investment? Gone for good.

Snyder was devastated. She wanted to sell, but why would anyone buy a home that, if damaged, could never be fixed? And even if she could find a potential buyer, Snyder says she soon discovered lending companies wouldn’t make it easy.

Snyder, who works in a title company, called a local loan officer and discovered that a potential buyer would have to get a letter from the city saying they could build a “non-conforming structure” in the neighborhood.

“While it may be possible for a potential buyer to get a conventional loan, the re-zoning has severely limited a buyer’s financing options,” Snyder says.

Desperate to figure out a solution that would enable her to sell her home, Snyder reached out to city planner Bonnie Wessler. They met in Wessler’s office in City Hall on May 6th to talk about the situation.

“Bonnie was sympathetic, she said my situation was a ‘tough one,’ but said there was nothing the city could do,” Snyder says. “[Bonnie] said the area was re-zoned in part because the surrounding area is largely commercial in nature, and in part due to environmental concerns stemming from the spreading contamination at the old city landfill.”

Snyder could apply for re-zoning, but the fee is steep: $1,000. And Wessler discouraged it, saying Snyder didn’t meet the criteria.

Snyder’s options were reduced to either finding a cash purchaser, or using the property as a rental. But any difficulties with getting a loan on the property couldn’t be resolved.

What Environmental Injustice Looks Like

Snyder is white, but the majority of her neighbors on Bell Street are lower-to-middle income minority residents. One house on Bell Street is even a Habitat for Humanity house.

Countless studies show that minorities are at a significantly greater risk for exposure to environmental hazards. An Associated Press analysis in 2005 showed that African Americans are 79 percent more likely than whites to live in neighborhoods where industrial pollution is suspected of posing the greatest health danger.

But the effects of pollution aren’t just related to health. “Many studies have found that as pollution increases, property values go down,” writes the author of a 2004 paper by the Global Development And Environment Institute at Tufts University.

No one wants to live in an area affected by pollution. But the city of Ypsilanti has made it difficult for the Bell Street residents not to. And, worse, the city has negated the largest investment — in some cases the only investment — these residents have made, in the form of their homes.

In sum, the city is punishing the residents for living in a toxic area, which was the city’s responsibility to begin with. The residents didn’t put the landfill there, after all.

Snyder says it’s worth noting that the entirety of Bell Street was not rezoned PMD.

“The northernmost parcels, which abut Spring and Harriet Streets, are zoned ‘Neighborhood Corridor.’ One of those parcels is property owned by the Ypsilanti Housing Commission. Property immediately to the west of Bell Street, which is directly to the north of the former city landfill parcel, is zoned ‘General Corridor.’” She says that both designations allow residential uses, although single-family residences are not included.

How and why the decision was made to zone specific parcels different ways wasn’t ever illuminated to Bell Street residents. The city’s 2015 rezoning letter wasn’t the beginning of a conversation. It wasn’t a proposal or a dialogue. In 2015, it was simply a decree.

And the price that Snyder and others on her street will pay is a steep one. She’ll continue to pay a mortgage on a structure she’ll probably never sell.

Financially, she says it’s a blow that will wound her, but she’s young enough that she can possibly absorb it. She has a decent job and other prospects, after all. She’s not so sure about her neighbors, though. She doubts they’ll be so lucky. And worse, they probably don’t even know the reality of their situation yet. They might not uncover it until they, like her, go to sell.

Currently, Snyder is waiting for a realtor to pull comps and tell her what her home could possibly list for. She’s been waiting for a few days now, which Snyder chocks up to the house “not being worth shit,” and the realtor dreading the conversation.

In the meantime, Snyder is investigating whether she has a fair housing case, and if she can pursue a Freedom of Information Act for documents that would tell her if the city knew about her pollution when they issued building permits for her home in 2004.