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A Wayne County judge has rejected Detroit Thermal’s bid to shut down a lawsuit brought by residents of Detroit’s historic Lafayette Park neighborhood, keeping in place a court order that blocks the utility from running steam lines through the protected greenspace.
In a 22-page opinion, Wayne County Circuit Court Judge Annette Berry denied Detroit Thermal’s motion for summary disposition, ruling that the claims brought by the Mies van der Rohe-designed townhome cooperatives can proceed toward trial.
The ruling is a significant setback for Detroit Thermal and residents of the nearby 1300 Lafayette high-rise, where about 600 people could be left without a permanent heat source after the building’s aging boilers failed in 2022. The company has sought to reconnect the building to the city’s underground steam system by routing new infrastructure through the Lafayette Park townhomes’ shared greenspace.
Berry’s decision rejects Detroit Thermal’s main legal arguments, including its claim that decades-old utility easements give it the right to cross the private property and that the dispute belongs before state utility regulators rather than a court.
At the heart of the dispute is whether Detroit Thermal has a valid legal right to use easements originally granted to Detroit Edison in the 1950s, when the townhomes were still heated by steam.
Berry concluded that the easements were narrow in scope, granted for specific purposes, and explicitly described as licenses rather than permanent property rights. The opinion notes that the townhomes converted to natural gas heat in the 1980s and that the steam system went unused for decades, which are issues that support the plaintiffs’ argument that the easements were abandoned or automatically revoked when ownership of the land changed.
Under state law, the judge wrote, even a valid easement cannot be expanded to create a new or greater burden on private land than what was originally contemplated. Serving a different building outside the historic district could exceed the easements’ scope, the judge found.
Detroit Thermal also argued that the lawsuit should be dismissed because the claims were filed too late and because any alleged harm was speculative.
Berry rejected those arguments, finding that the residents adequately alleged Detroit Thermal entered the property without authorization after fencing off portions of the greenspace and bringing in heavy equipment earlier this year. If the easements are no longer valid, the judge wrote, entering the property and beginning work could constitute trespass.
The judge also declined to dismiss the residents’ nuisance claims and refused to send the case to the Michigan Public Service Commission, ruling that the agency regulates rates and service, not property ownership or quiet title disputes.
Detroit Thermal criticized the court’s rulings in a written statement, warning they could have far-reaching implications.
“In a series of puzzling orders, the Wayne County Circuit Court has prohibited the City of Detroit and Detroit Thermal from accessing or doing repair work to existing public utility pipes and other underground utility infrastructure within a utility easement on public land running through the Mies Van der Roh townhouses,” the company said. “If the rationale underlying these orders stands, it poses grave risks — not only to the residents of the 1300 Lafayette Coop who have received steam service through this utility corridor in the past and seek to reconnect to the Detroit Thermal steam distribution system, but to all residential, commercial and industrial users of any public utility service in this state.”
Townhome residents have countered that Detroit Thermal is mischaracterizing the case, arguing that the dispute involves private property rights and a nationally protected historic landscape, not routine utility maintenance on public land.
Berry previously issued a temporary restraining order in July barring Detroit Thermal from performing work on the private greenspace, finding that the residents were likely to prevail and that allowing construction could cause irreparable harm to the historic site.
That order remains in effect as the case moves forward. A jury trial is scheduled for July 2026.
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Steve Neavling
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