The Senate today passed several bills dealing creating a Detroit-Wayne County Redevelopment Authority and amending land bank powers. The Detroit-Wayne County bills allow those two entities to create their own land bank-style authority if they choose. The League did not weigh in on those bills as these are specific to Detroit and Wayne County.
Certain bills in the package, though, also included language regarding land banks (SB 1017 (S-2), SB 1025). The original intention was to allow land banks to move up in the property capture order, in front of the “scavenger” auctions where people purchase property for the lowest price and hold it for speculation. The bills, though, had technical problems where they allowed land banks to jump municipalities in the order of who gets tax reverted properties. After working with Sen. Allen and Sen. George on these bills, language was crafted that put land banks on par with municipalities in terms of acquiring land, and continued to allow municipalities to purchase this land before land banks.
The League will be supportive of these bills because they continue to allow municipalities to capture the land first, and because it is a good idea for the land banks to be able to capture and redevelop this land instead of allowing speculators to hold the land and not redevelop it. The bills also allow land banks an additional year of tax capture from local units, as long as the local unit approves that tax extra year of tax capture (with the Detroit-Wayne County Redevelopment Authority granted an additional 3 years).
Andy Schor is the Assistant Director of State Affairs for the Michigan Municipal League. Contact him at (517) 908-0300 or by email at aschor@mml.org.
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