DETROIT (AP) -- A new group aiming to tackle the growing problem of vacant and abandoned property in hurting urban centers says it can maintain its mission and keep its credibility from a perch in the nation's capital.
Dan Kildee promises his nonprofit organization, whose working title is the Center for Land Reform, will do so by remaining rooted in its home community of Flint.
The longtime Democratic politician, who helped create the Genesee County Land Bank in 2002, said the new center's Flint office appropriately will occupy space in a historic downtown hotel that the land bank helped bring back from the brink.
"The U.S. doesn't need another Washington-based think-tank," Kildee said. "We need to have our feet firmly planted in communities that are facing this problem head-on. Flint really is, as much as any other community (in) the country, a good place for us to be to continue to keep our work relevant."
That work includes providing government and nonprofit leaders with ideas, research, training and other forms of assistance on land use issues. One primary goal is to help craft a national response to property abandonment and neglect in many cities and put that land back into productive use.
Kildee said Michigan is a leader in the area of land use because of two key developments: The 1999 law that led to the creation of land banks and general changes to the tax foreclosure system that keep rampant commercial speculators in check. He said 31 of the state's 83 counties have at least taken steps to create a land bank, though not all are using it as a way to divert properties from speculators.
Flint's land bank is a public authority formed to help stabilize area neighborhoods by acquiring, managing or redeveloping foreclosed properties. It's taken ownership of about 7,000 vacant or abandoned lots. Of those, it's sold 1,774 and cleared an additional 1,022 lots for resale or redevelopment.
Still, the task ahead is monumental: Flint has about 18,000 abandoned properties, including 6,000 abandoned homes. The city has one of the highest unemployment rates in a state whose jobless rate tops the nation's.
"The (land bank) model is far preferable to the alternative," Kildee said. "It's also proven to be not a solution unto itself but a system that delivers better outcomes."
Among its success stories: downtown's Berridge Hotel, recently a rundown flophouse that the Land Bank acquired and transformed into 20 condominium units and first-floor commercial space.
The project was completed with the help of state tax credits and many other public and private sources.
The fully leased historic building will include among its tenants the new national land-use center. Kildee said he's still assembling his staff but envisions the Flint office will serve as the technical and business hub and Washington will serve as the policy center.
The center's primary funding comes from the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation and Ford Foundation.
After making Flint land reuse his "mission for the last 10 years" and gaining attention across the state and nation, Kildee, 51, said the timing was right to take his work to a larger stage. He's resigning effective Jan. 1 from his duties as county treasurer and chairman and chief executive of the land bank to lead the new center.
He seriously mulled a 2010 run for governor, but said this is a "far more certain" option and "the best way for me to make the change the country needs."
"The Genesee County Land Bank now is somewhat institutionalized, really operating without a lot of daily guidance from me," said Kildee, nephew of U.S. Rep. Dale Kildee, D-Flint.
"The whole country -- at least cities -- are in crisis right now, partly because of chronic abandonment and the meltdown of the housing market."
Branching out while keeping rooted is the right approach for the new venture, said David Hollister, economic development guru and president and CEO of the Lansing-based Prima Civitas Foundation, a nonprofit promoting economic development. It worked with Flint city officials this year on a budget balancing and deficit reduction plan.
The Land Bank "is a model that works," said Hollister, a former Democratic state lawmaker, Lansing mayor and director of the Michigan Department of Labor and Economic Growth and Labor, where he worked with Kildee on developing public land bank authorities.
"How can we use this crisis of abandoned homes, foreclosures, population exodus -- how can we use it to our advantage?" Hollister said. "This is a strategy. ... It works in Lansing and it works in Flint. It can work in other communities in other sections of the country."
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On the Net:
Genesee County Land Bank: www.thelandbank.org
