Dan Kildee Named to State Land Bank Fast Track Authority Board
April 1, 2005
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Dan Kildee - On the Fast Track
Daniel T. Kildee, the Genesee County Treasurer, the newest member Michigan Land Bank Fast Track Authority Board of Directors, is on the fast track to political success.
Mr. Kildee, of Flushing, a former Genesee County Commissioner, is the nephew of U.S. Rep. Dale Kildee, D-MI, who represents Flint and most of Bay County in Congress. But that's not his main claim to fame.
He has vaulted to leadership in a number of hot issue areas as Michigan strives to remake its economic base in the wake of auto industry contraction.
In 1987, Dan Kildee led the effort to form the Bishop International Airport Authority, laying the groundwork for one of the nation's fastest-growing airports.
In 1994 he was involved in leadership collaborating to bring a federal Job Corps Center to Flint.
Recently, Mr. Kildee has been involved in efforts to use land banking and related initiatives to revitalize downtown Flint and spread improvements in the greater Genesee County area.
A prominent Democrat like his uncle, Dan Kildee was chairperson of the Gen. Wesley Clark for President campaign last fall. U.S. Rep. Dale Kildee was one of Gen. Clark's early and most prominent supporters in the race for the Democratic Presidential nomination.
Dan Kildee was interviewed in 2002 for an article in Fortune Magazine on the "new economy." He is president of the Genesee County Land Reutilization Council (LRC), the largest owner of land in the county.
Before his election as treasurer in 1997, Kildee was a Genesee County Commissioner for 12 years and served as chairman for five of those years. At age 18 he was elected to the Flint Board of Education, becoming one of the nation's youngest-ever elected officials.Mr. Kildee was an influential member of Governor Granholms' Michigan Land Use Leadership Council last summer, as Genesee County Treasurer is advancing some of the Council's recommendations. Observers say he brings a fresh perspective to the issues of urban decline, suburban sprawl and economic revitalization.
The Land Bank Fast Track Authority, a new agency recommended by the Governor's Land Use Leadership Council, allows properties that have reverted to state ownership due to non-payment of property taxes to undergo an expedited title clearing process.
Through the Fast Track Authority, these tax reverted properties can be ready for sale and redevelopment in less than one year, reducing blight, eyesores, and unproductive and obsolete spaces in neighborhoods across the state. Prior to the Authority, properties could sit vacant and off the tax rolls for up to seven years before they were able to be redeveloped.
The board of directors elects the chair and vice-chair of the Authority. Mr. Kildee is appointed to a term expiring May 31, 2008.
The legislation reflects some of the recommendations made in August of 2003 by Governor Jennifer M. Granholm's Michigan Land Use Leadership Council. The Land Bank Fast Track Authority, allows people to acquire abandoned property more quickly. It also enables township, city, and county governments to assemble and redevelop large amounts of abandoned property.
Ironically, the authors of the fast track package of six bills, which Governor Granholm signed on Jan. 5, 2004, as Public Act 259, were not inner-city Democratic state lawmakers. They were rural Republicans — state Representatives David Robinson of Grand Blanc and Gene DeRossett of Manchester.
The bills allow land banks to do virtually everything private development companies can do: Borrow money or sell bonds to raise capital; buy land on the open market; assemble land into larger parcels of any size; demolish, rehabilitate, or build new structures on the property; sell the cleared-out, cleaned-up, rehabilitated property, complete with unclouded title; and collect half of the new owner's first five years of property taxes.
Two more things land banks can do that private owners cannot: Foreclose much more quickly on tax-delinquent properties; make sure titles are cleared more quickly.
"You have to find a way to ensure the sale," Representative Robertson explained. "But you can't even begin the process of making such properties available or demolishing an abandoned building until you resolve the legal problems."
The new law, he said, accomplishes exactly that.
Until the fast track act took effect, Michigan cities like Flint, Detroit, and others, werelargely stuck with their abandoned property.
Genesee County began working on land reclamation in Flint three years ago. County crews continue reclaiming long-abandoned properties, funded through the fines on tax-delinquent property.
But until the fast track legislation, not much happened after the properties were cleaned up. Investors and speculators could still buy the tax liens on such properties by paying their back taxes and then, quite often, spend years in court with the delinquent property owners and other tax lien buyers. Now speculators cannot buy the tax lien unless they buy the property, and local governments can foreclose quickly on delinquent properties and hand them over to a land bank for management. The land bank might demolish the house on the property; it might let a tenant buy it; or it might auction the house, together with the liens, to the highest bidder.
The new system is generating progress in Flint, which, according to the 2000 U.S. Census, had 5,100 abandoned lots, a city that has about 55,000 housing units. The program is also generating some badly needed funding; before, the county could only collect fines for late tax payments and had to allow lien buyers to keep whatever they could get back from owners. Now the county is doing the collecting after buying, restoring, and re-selling a property.
"Under the new system the money goes into a restricted fund that can only be spent to take care of the land that we end up getting stuck with through the tax foreclosure process, " according to Mr. Kildee.
Such self-financing makes the new program extremely appealing to local government administrators. Now property owners who owe back taxes have to pay the land bank an additional fee for being late; and now the land bank can actually sell the few nicer homes or buildings that it acquires and keep the profits. So the land bank spends most of its funds cleaning up homes and empty lots, transforming them into profitable parcels.
"There is no other system in the United States that pulls together the ability to quickly assemble property into single ownership by the county, the tools to manage it, and the financing tools to develop that property," Mr. Kildee said of the new fast-track law that his county is integrating into ongoing efforts. He added that eight other Michigan county treasurers have contacted Mr. Kildee to learn how they can start land banks.
Such widespread interest in the new approach does not surprise urban planner Rex LaMore, a professor at Michigan State University. Essentially, Mr. LaMore says, the county's land bank is stepping in where pure market forces have become destructive. That means that behind Flint's many difficulties — brought on byheavy de-industrialization and sprawling land use patterns — are some remarkable opportunities. Because the land bank owns 2,800 vacant properties, more than half of the city's inventory, Mr. LaMore says it could set an example that other municipalities can follow.
The new land bank program also has support among some of the area's private developers and landholders.
Terry Hanson, the current president of the Genesee Landlords Association, owns and manages 100 properties from his office, once a lumberyard. "Over the long term I think it's a good program," Mr. Hanson said. "They just need to move on it quick. You can't let the property sit vacant. Every day that you leave a house sit vacant the property gets trash dumped into the driveway. They steal aluminum siding. It's vandalized. The roof may be leaking and there is further damage."
Mr. Hanson says he doesn't know of any developer ready to invest in Flint on a major scale. But he does know other landlords who would like to buy some of the land bank's properties.###
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