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Port Huron spoils for fight with Moroun family over use of paper mill site

Posted By: Detroit News on September 17, 2025.  For more information, please click here to read the source article

The head of the St. Clair River offers one of the most breathtaking vistas in Michigan.

With views of the river and Lake Huron, not to mention the Fort Gratiot Lighthouse and Blue Water Bridge, developers salivate about turning the waterfront area into a residential and commercial Shangri-La.

But two obstacles are looming: One is a hulking paper mill on the riverbank. The other is a hulking conglomerate controlled by the billionaire Moroun family.

The family, which owns one of the largest trucking companies in the U.S., is a prominent and sometimes controversial presence in Detroit, owning swaths of properties and such singular sites as the Ambassador Bridge.

Crown Enterprises, the Morouns’ commercial real estate firm, bought the vacant Dunn Paper plant in 2022 and wants to use the property to store aggregate, which consists of construction materials, such as sand, gravel and crushed stone.

Earlier this month, however, the Port Huron City Council approved the first reading of an ordinance that would block those plans by changing the zoning on the former paper mill property from industrial to mixed-use.

The action sets the stage for a battle between two entities known for their pugnaciousness: the Moroun business empire and Port Huron City Manager James Freed, who fought all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court about his right to delete comments and block a resident from his Facebook page.

Neither side appears willing to back down anytime soon.

“I can tell you, on God’s green earth, that will never happen,” Freed said about the proposed stone yard. “In the words of our governor, we will fight like hell.”

Crown Enterprises accused Freed of being openly hostile to the project.

The company said it was blindsided by the proposed rezoning, stonewalled in its attempts to talk to the city and confused by a zoning process it described as vague, rushed and illegal.

“This just came out of the blue,” Crown attorney Tom Schehr said during a Port Huron City Council meeting in August. “All of these issues suggest the city intends to commit a fundamental violation of Crown’s property rights.”

Schehr and other Crown representatives declined to talk further with The Detroit News.

But the company has found a border town ally in an unlikely place — the City Council.

Mayor Anita Ashford said she was impressed by the arguments Schehr and other Crown executives made at the August meeting as they outlined their grievances against the city. The mayor said she didn’t believe city administrators had negotiated in good faith with the company.

“I still have grave concerns about how it was transacted,” Ashford said at the Sept. 8 council meeting. “I can’t see why we can’t come together. I don’t understand why nobody is talking to each other. We should be bigger than that.”

Ashford has her own feud with Freed, further complicating the fight brewing between City Hall and the Morouns’ real estate arm. The mayor didn’t respond to emails or text messages requesting comment.

‘A gift from God’

Dunn Paper closed in 2022, and Crown Enterprises bought it a year later for $1.2 million, according to the St. Clair County Register of Deeds.

Crown liked that the site has both a dock and railroad tracks, one of its attorneys told the city in a series of August letters, which were contained in the agenda packet of a Port Huron Planning Commission meeting.

Access to the river and a railroad spur are critical for the company’s operations, wrote the lawyer, Alan Greene. He said the firm also was attracted by the size of the 13-acre plot and the fact that it was already zoned industrial.

“The property is uniquely suitable and valuable for the purposes for which Crown acquired the property,” Greene wrote in an Aug. 8 letter.

Crown Enterprises, based in Warren, hasn’t publicly divulged what it intends to do with the property, but filed an application for a site plan review last month that offered some details.

The application said the location would be used for material bulk storage and included a site plan drawing that contained circular figures identified as aggregate storage. Aggregate sites often receive gravel by ship or train, store it in stockpiles and deliver it by truck to local destinations.

While Crown was making arrangements to use its property, the city was eying it in a different way.

After Dunn Paper opened in 1924, residential neighborhoods sprouted around the mill. Their proximity encouraged Port Huron’s leaders to change the industrial zoning when the plant closed, city officials said.

The view of the St. Clair River and Lake Huron also makes it attractive for redevelopment, said City Council member Teri Lamb.

“The water views can be breathtaking,” Lamb said. “It’s a gift from God. There’s no other place like it.”

The new homes also could help the city deal with a housing shortage, the council member said. A housing study commissioned by the city last year described the Dunn site as a prime candidate for redevelopment.

‘This is our city’

On Sept. 2, the city planning commission recommended that Port Huron’s City Council change the zoning of the former Dunn property to planned unit development or PUD. Zoning normally restricts a property to a single use, such as homes, stores or parks, but a PUD allows all of them on a single site.

The council unanimously approved the rezoning during the Sept. 8 meeting. The second reading of the ordinance is scheduled for Sept. 22.

Both the council and planning commission meetings were attended by critics of the aggregate storage site proposed by Crown Enterprises. It wasn’t clear how they learned about the possible operation. The agendas of the two meetings mentioned only the planned unit development zoning.

Residents said they were worried about dust and noise from the proposed stone yard. Others were alarmed by the prospect of gravel trucks rumbling through their neighborhoods throughout the day.

During the council meeting, resident Brian Farquhar, 39, was standing at a podium when he turned around to face the Crown representatives in the audience.

“That may be your property, but this is our city. You’re not welcome here,” Farquhar yelled. “You’re going to have to kill me before you move it. So get your hitman out, or whatever you guys do.”

Several speakers also mentioned Crown’s owner, recounting the Moroun family’s sometimes contentious dealings in Detroit.

Resident Hilary Macatangay, 50, said she was concerned about how the Morouns allowed the Michigan Central Depot to languish for 22 years before selling it to Ford Motor Co. She acknowledged that family patriarch Manuel “Matty” Moroun had passed away, but was worried about the present stewardship by his son, Matthew.

“Sometimes the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree,” Macatangay said.

Crown decries ‘unconscionable’ city actions

Besides being the focus of ire, Crown Enterprises has some complaints of its own.

The company said it first learned about the proposed rezoning when it received a brief letter from the city planning commission saying the matter would be considered at its meeting in August.

One day before the Aug. 5 meeting, the commission said the item was being pulled from the agenda due to the absence of a member, and Crown would be notified when the issue was rescheduled, said Greene, the company attorney.

Three days later, however, the company learned on its own that the rezoning was being considered by the city council at its Aug. 11 meeting, Greene said.

The property owner discovered the fact by checking the council’s meeting agenda online, the attorney said.

Greene also criticized the city for not talking to Crown before proposing the rezoning and for ignoring its ongoing offers to sit down together.

“It’s unconscionable that the city would put forth a plan to rezone properties under single ownership without contacting the owner of the property,” Green wrote in an Aug. 1 letter.

Freed told The News that it wasn’t necessary for the city to meet with Crown. He said the company’s chance to discuss their views was at the public hearing held by the planning commission.

“We don’t owe them that,” Freed said. “We owe them due process.”

Crown also criticized what it described as a flimsy attempt to change the zoning of its property.

Greene said planned unit developments are a zoning tool that help a city or developer prepare for a project. He said this is the first time he has ever seen it used without a specific project in mind.

Green said the city also is violating rezoning rules by failing to have a site plan, a statement of proposed use and a review process.

Greene said the rezoning, which is the first planned unit development in the city, was simply an attempt to stop Crown from using the property the way it wants.

“This rushed attempt to deprive Crown of its property rights fails to even follow the basic procedural requirements of the zoning ordinance,” he wrote in the Aug. 1 letter.

Freed said planned unit developments have been done in other cities without a specific project, and that a site plan, statement of use and review process would be held once a project comes along.

Legal battle looms

When contacted by The News, most Port Huron City Council members declined to talk about the rezoning or were circumspect in their remarks.

Councilman Bob Mosurak said the members had decided not to discuss the issue for legal reasons. Asked if he was referring to a possible lawsuit, he declined to comment.

Indeed, the company’s letters to the city and the remarks of its representatives at council and planning commission meetings have been couched in legal language. During the council meeting on Sept. 8, a Crown lawyer submitted a protest letter, which often precedes a lawsuit.

In Detroit, the Moroun family and its companies have a long history of waging their battles in the courts, having spent years trying to stop construction of the publicly owned Gordie Howe International Bridge that will compete with its Ambassador Bridge for lucrative truck traffic next year when the new Detroit River span opens.

As Port Huron awaits a likely legal battle, it may first need to get its own house in order.

Ashford hasn’t been as shy as the rest of the council in discussing the rezoning.

During a radio interview on Sept. 9, she criticized the failure of city administrators to meet with Crown, which she said would avoid what she believes is a likely lawsuit. Ashford, who has frequently tussled with Freed since her election in November, didn’t mention the city manager by name.

“When Crown appeared before the council, there were lots of information in terms of what could have been done better in terms of communication,” she told WPHM-AM in Port Huron. “It’s almost like you’re in a courtroom and you’re part of a jury and there’s reasonable doubt that comes before you. I had a lot of reasonable doubts.”

Freed fired back at Her Honor.

“The mayor is woefully uninformed,” Freed told The News. “She has repeatedly failed to attend briefings offered to her.”

Asked if Ashford’s public comments could be used against the city in a possible lawsuit, Freed declined to comment.

During the Sept. 8 council meeting, Freed bristled when Ashford repeated earlier criticisms of the administration’s dealings with Crown, saying there were “holes” in the communication.

Freed interrupted her.

“Can we have City Attorney Al Francis come here and explain to the mayor that there were no holes in our process?” he asked.

Francis began to walk to the podium, but Ashford stopped him. Freed again asked the lawyer to speak.

“Wait a minute. This is my meeting,” Ashford said. “You heard me. This is my meeting.”

After a council member said he wanted to hear from Francis, the attorney took the lectern and, in response to questions from Freed, said he believed the city had been responsive in its communications with Crown by writing and notifying it about meetings where the rezoning would be discussed.

As Freed asked a series of queries, it seemed like he and Francis had switched roles, with Freed sounding like an attorney questioning a witness in a trial.