City of Detroit shuts down illegal skate park

DETROIT (WJBK) - A new skate park in the city of Detroit is driving some neighbors up a wall.

It turns out the skaters installed the park themselves illegally by busting up city property without any permits.

A couple weeks ago, Jason Horne was surprised to see a skate park being built next to his place at the Milwaukee Park Lofts off East Grand Boulevard. He says the noise is unbearable.

"When they're out here playing and building I'm trying to sleep," he said.

He let it go for a while, then confronted the builders.

"They said there's nothing you can do about it, we're doing it anyway," he said. "I've talked to about 10 or 15 of my neighbors. Nobody's called us."

The city says there were no permits issued to build here and they are looking into who the builders are and what they were up to.

"Obviously just going up and tearing up our concrete and setting up ramps is not the right way to do it," said Richard Doherty, city of Detroit engineer.

Doherty says people frequently take liberties with Detroit property, without getting the proper permits first. Tax payers are left to pick up the tab.

"We'll work with anybody if they want to do it the right way," he said.

Jason snapped pictures of the trespassing skateboarders license plates. We tracked them to a house in Hamtramck.

Over the phone the skaters declined interview, but their roommate wanted to shed some light.

"There's a big group of them they're all really good and they spend every day skating," he said. "He doesn't want problems he just wanted a place to skate."

City officials say the ramps and scraps will be cleared out in the next few days - and most of all, Horne is grateful for the city's response.