Alfred Johnson has lived in his Boston-Edison neighborhood home since 1969.
The Detroiter often took the bus to work, walking a route from his home on Edison Street to Woodward and, on the way, passing Voigt Park, a spacious open lawn with towering trees and shrubs. It’s an oasis he regards as calming and simplistic.
“It’s beautiful. It’s like being away from Detroit, but you’re right in the middle of Detroit,” the 86-year-old said. “It helped me through many days when I was depressed. I could go down there and take in all the beauty of nature.”
But come autumn, Voigt Park will look a little different. That’s when the Detroit Parks and Recreation Department plans to install paved concrete paths and some benches. Although the project has been in the works for a couple of years and has included extensive community engagement, some residents closest to the park are opposed to the changes. Others say the additions are modest and will make the space more inclusive for visitors.
The Voigt Park project is funded by the Wayne County park millage, which has directed multiple grants toward Detroit projects since 2019. The improvements are part of the Detroit Parks and Recreation Department’s 2023-2032 strategic plan to improve and maintain city parks to boost the quality of life for Detroiters and get them connected to nature.
Detroit’s Deputy Chief Parks Planner Juliana Fulton said the project goal is to ensure public access that allows families to walk the park and for people with limited mobility to sit and rest on the benches.
Johnson and other members of the Voigt Park Block Club want to protect the park’s existing design and worry about a potential increase in crime and loitering. The green space has been designated as an ornamental park since it was deeded to the city in 1908 by Edward Voigt, who developed homes around the park in the late 1800s. They believe any changes to the park need to adhere to the original historic design.
Fulton said that the city has worked with the Historic Boston-Edison Association and invited all of the 12 associated block clubs to a 2025 meeting on the plan.
“That included the Voigt Park Block Club that is immediately around the park and very vocal,” Fulton said. “But we want to make sure that it’s public access for everybody and that it’s representing all the residents within the park service area.”
Pierre L. Haden, president of the Historic Boston-Edison Association, said that about a year and a half was spent surveying the entire community on proposed enhancements for the park. While some felt strongly about maintaining the park as it is, about 85% to 90% of individuals who engaged in those conversations favored the project, he said.
Haden calls the project a “true community plan,” but acknowledged that “some people feel like nothing should ever go in the park.”
“Some don’t want to see anything developed in the park, and it’s their right,” said Haden, noting there are approximately 30 homes surrounding the park, but it’s a massive space that also hosts events and activities for the broader community.
He also views the changes as a restoration of sorts since Voight Park historically had a walking path, bandstand and other amenities in the early 1900s long before current residents came in.
“There will be a walking path for seniors who can’t walk and might want to roll in their wheelchairs and, if a mother is nursing and doesn’t want to sit on the grass, it’ll give her a bench,” he said. “The elderly need a path so they are not tripping and people need something to sit on.”
Ann Marie D’Anna has lived in the Boston-Edison neighborhood for more than 40 years and is a founding member of the Voigt Park Block Club, which has about 120 members. The overall Historic Boston-Edison Association encompasses more than 900 households within the boundary from Boston to Edison streets and from Woodward Avenue to Linwood Street.
D’Anna called the project an affront to the historic integrity of the park and the houses surrounding it and hasn’t felt that park officials have been sympathetic to the concerns that she and her neighbors have shared. D’Anna believes the new walkways will ruin the historic nature of Voigt Park and would rather see gravel in its place.
As for the benches, D’Anna argues it could present a security concern because people will be able to sit and watch packages being delivered to residents’ houses around the park and create an opportunity for theft. Over the years, D’Anna said she experienced a home break-in, a stolen car and, recently, a stolen catalytic converter.
“Yes, I would like a bench to sit in the park, but I think it’ll be a security issue,” she said. “We surround the park with our homes, we provide security. If the police came and were walking around the park, I’d say, ‘OK, let’s have some benches.’
Haden noted that the community has private security control and strong connections with neighborhood officers from Detroit’s 10th Police Precinct. The residents surrounding the park, however, say the police is not responsive enough.
Becoming a park project
In recent years, Voigt Park has seen a series of maintenance projects thanks to the Wayne County Parks millage. The millage, which was last renewed in 2024, funds operations, maintenance and upgrades across Wayne County’s 5,600-acre park system.
The millage is expected to generate $14.47 million this year. The levy, for just under a quarter mill, costs homeowners with a taxable value of $100,000, $24.42 per year on their winter tax bills.
A BridgeDetroit analysis of county budget reports found that Detroit taxpayers paid over $2 million into the county’s parks fund in the last fiscal year alone, which is the most tax revenue generated out of all 43 communities in Wayne County.
A status report on millage-funded projects shows that $900,000 contributed to the millage by Detroit taxpayers since 2021 has been invested in improvements in at least 15 city-owned parks, putting Detroiters at the top of the list for the most money put in and the most money returned. Some of the other parks that have been improved or will be in the future include Johnston, Sasser, Van Antwerp and Eliza Howell.
In 2021, Detroit City Council approved a 2019-2020 millage grant from Wayne County for $262,756, according to city documents. Of that funding, $25,000 went to Voigt Park for a tree maintenance project the following year, city spokesperson Megan Woods said. The 2021-22 and 2022-23 millage grants helped to fund a larger tree maintenance and planting project for a total of $50,000.
“What we heard from the community was tree health was the top priority,” added Fulton, the city’s parks planner. “So, we put in new trees, did tree trimming and addressed any tree concerns.”
Meanwhile, $83,000 of the 2023-24 and 2024-25 millage grants are funding the pathway and benches for Voigt Park, Woods said.
Since being appointed in 2021, Wayne County Commissioner Jonathan Kinloch has been designating the park millage grants to Detroit and other municipalities.
Kinloch said outside of allocating the grants, he leaves community engagement and resident concerns to the Detroit Parks and Recreation Department and the block clubs.
“I’m just hoping that whatever concerns they (the block clubs) have that they are able to work them out because we are all trying to work for the betterment of the entire Boston-Edison community in regards to retaining the integrity of the park,” Kinloch said.
Balancing old and new
Since the park is part of the Boston-Edison Historic District, this latest project had to be reviewed and approved by the Detroit Historic District Commission, Fulton said. She and her team went to two HDC meetings, one in 2023 for the benches and tree plantings and last October for the pathways.
Fulton said the parks and recreation department is planning to recreate some of the historic asphalt pathways that were a part of Voigt Park’s original design. The walkways, she said, gradually disappeared over the years as grass grew over them, and they were gone completely by the 1980s, according to a 2023 historic landscape report from the Voigt Park Block Club.
Among the suggestions from the Voigt block club was a request to make the pathways three feet wide, but Fulton said it doesn’t meet standards for the Americans with Disabilities Act. Instead, the walkways will be six feet, she said.
“This is above and beyond what we typically do for a small pathway and two benches, so that was really in response to the concerns and wanting to be responsive to those,” Fulton said of the multiple community discussions. “But it got to a point where the group’s (Voigt Park Block Club) is not getting what they were hoping to see, and they’re continuing to reach out, but we have to move forward with construction.”
Fulton said she also heard residents’ concerns about the benches and how they could attract “the wrong people,” according to Johnson. But Fulton said that the park is a large space and should be inclusive to everyone.
“Benches are really a basic city standard to provide in our parks,” she said.
While Johnson is unhappy about the park project, he hopes the beauty of Voigt Park remains intact. The Detroiter enjoys seeing slice-of-life moments, like families spending an afternoon in the park and people getting married there.
“The whole beauty of Voigt Park is the fact that it’s part of nature,” Johnson said. “It’s an oasis in the city of Detroit. Why would you destroy that?”