Quote:
Originally Posted by hudkina
That's the point of the grant. Essentially Wyandotte takes control of houses that have been foreclosed on or that owe back taxes and then spends the grant money on either renovating or demolishing the housing. It then sells the renovated housing at market rate. It doesn't necessarily have to turn a profit.
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This is not a new idea. In fact, this is the whole purpose of land banks. Ingham (2003) and Genesee (2004) counties a two of the more successful and notable ones. Land banks are only as strong as their county treasurers, though. They've got to want to be in the real estate business for them to work.
In the case of Detroit, the city was skeptical of the whole idea for years until very recently. It wasn't until literally this year that the Detroit Land Bank was formally empowered. I have very high hopes for it, however. Duggan really seems to get the potential for the land bank. And despite being years behind other counties in the state in effectively using these to stabilize cities and neighborhoods, Duggan has jumped into this head first. His use of the concept to start up Building Detroit, and just a few days ago using the concept to concentrate on snatching away drug houses from slumlords is a sign that he's going to be moving at warp speed. His first huge coup was getting Detroit to transfer 16,000 properties to the land bank back in May.
It's better late than never. Though, it is kind of disheartening to realize just how many neighborhoods could have been stabilized between 2005 and now. As we know, over that time period, there were blocks-upon-blocks in the city that were intact neighborhoods (if even teetering on the edge) that then completely collapsed within the matter of a few years. An example that comes to mind is the area around State Fair.