The price of growth, increased safety needs
Anyone who reads the news, whether national or local, can recognize that over the last several years there have been changes in the ways crimes are occurring, their frequency and how law enforcement are being tasked with handling them.
Neither Birmingham nor Bloomfield Township are high-crime municipalities, especially when you look at the statistics. Both are attractive, high-end communities, with excellent school districts and a variety of styles and prices of homes, making them extremely desirable for homeowners – and often, for thieves. Neither community has a history of violent crime – murder, rape or violent assault – there have been occasional incidents over the years of all of them. What has been on the rapid increase, no different than in any other neighborhood around the country, have been car thefts, notably from unlocked cars, identity theft, fraud, burglaries and shoplifting.
Both communities were pioneers, along with Auburn Hills, in developing and instituting the CORE response teams, which involve law enforcement and mental health professionals working together to respond to calls for service. The model can – and has – reduced the number of arrests, hospitalizations and use of force. The police departments note it has not only benefited their work with the public, but themselves as well, as they are being given tools to help process what they are doing and how they are coping and managing.
However, the way police departments process inmates and need to provide security for the public has changed drastically over time – meaning the current spaces that the Birmingham and Bloomfield Township police departments inhabit are now functionally obsolete. Each community shares space in the municipal building which houses city hall (or township hall) and the police department. What was once efficient space planning is no longer workable. They were also built before ADA-compliability was required. Birmingham City Hall opened in 1928. It initially housed the fire department as well as the police station.
In 2022, the Birmingham City Commission approved a contract to assess the current state of Birmingham’s municipal building to create conceptual designs for a renovation or expansion, depending on their assessment. Some of the objectives of the report include analyzing safety and security, accessibility and operational efficiency. The report revealed that several police procedures such as gun storage, prisoner transport to and from the building, and the prisoner booking room all are visible to the public. Additionally, several city hall departments do not have emergency exits which require employees to leave the building through the public area. A recommendation was made at the time for a three-story addition to the south side of the current building that would house the police department. With the police department removed from the current building, additional room for renovations and updated security would be possible for the rest of the city hall departments.
To date, renovations to city hall and police department are on the to-do list, but have not been acted on.
In late January, the Bloomfield Township Board of Trustees reviewed a formal report regarding a possible replacement of Township Hall, which was first constructed in 1938, and has had numerous additions over the years for a total of 32,000 square feet. The report indicated that the township offices need 38,000 square feet, and the police require 58,800 square feet, with a new building a better option than trying to reconfigure the current one once again, at a cost of $500 a square foot.
That would cost a staggering $48.4 million. However, safety and security does not come cheap. Bloomfield Township and Birmingham have each grown exponentially since those buildings were first constructed, morphing from sleeping enclaves into dynamic communities that are highly sought after. Birmingham, with its vibrant downtown, and Bloomfield Township, with main communal arteries of Woodward and Telegraph, have police and security requirements that mandate police departments that have access to the most sophisticated law enforcement technology and physical specifications.
Both communities will have to face up to the need to address municipal space in the short-term future.
