Whats the Big Deal about "Urban Farms"

[Richard]

[QUOTE]

You're not removing the residential zoning nor is he asking for agricultural zoning.

The arig zoning is a tool in the cities box to move the lots there and elsewhere,its a technicality to make it more economically desirable.

The services were already moved back to the mainline along the street to code when the structure was demolished to make it a vacant lot to begin with. The mainlines still service the houses at the other end of the block. And if it had to be removed [[which makes absolutely no sense) the costs would be born by the service provider like DTE energy not the taxpayer.

And DTE would not pass the costs on to the taxpayer? They just received approval to sur charge the consumer for the costs of converting to smart meters.Power companies have a habit of recouping their costs.Which is why they are good for stock investments.

If residential taxes doesn't make sense for lumber planting, which you haven't proven with numbers yet, the game of speculating is losing money in short term on the belief of reaping huge rewards in the long term so it doesn't matter anyway.

The neighbors have been asking the city for use of the adjoining vacant lots for years ,it has been the city that has created the currant situation,they should have had a system in place that makes it economical to do this already not only for Hantz but for the residents also ,how do they justify charging full tax rates on a vacant lot that really requires no services.If tax rates were not the issue Hantz or the neighbors could have acquired the lots long ago and had no problem,it is the holding costs.Only now are they offering the lots at a reasonable price to the neighbors.

Criticisms #1 and #2 are irrelevant because they would be addressed by the "new city urban agriculture ordinance"

It is a discussion criticisms do not apply nor are intended.

The looking beyond part is nonsense. The city is bankrupt. The land only becomes worth more when investors start investing. If the area remains a landfill with urban blight, it doesn't automatically become worth more in the future. You have to get guys like Hantz Farms cleaning an area up first before you'll ever be able to reach that point because the city can't afford to do it and there are no better offers on the table.

If the lots have been vacant for as many years as some have posted the looking beyond aspect is most definitely not nonsense if one looked beyond 30 years ago this would be a non issue and the whole point is to start looking beyond.There were offers on the table by the currant residents the city made it feasible not to happen so to say once again it is an unknown that it sat all of these years because nobody wanted it,more so maybe nobody wanted to get rid of it bad enough.

I'll support you buying the Packard for $5 if you can provide proof of funds in the amount of $100m to rehab it any day of the week.

Wow,are we doing a hedge fund scam with it?Maybe suck some pension fund dry and walk away? Where are you getting those numbers ? and saying that is a reflection on why investors are not so quick to join up ,The city hall attitude of we wipe with gold plated toilet paper and if you want to invest in our city you have to prove that you are worthy of being welcomed into our dictatorship.It is not 1950 anymore and it is a big welcoming world out there.Can the city at the very least prove that they have an confident government in place before making left field demands on investors or potential investors?Everything else that they use as an excuse saying it drives investors away is Mott and workarounds.It took two years just for some to put a simple food truck on the road.

$100m ? This is what we did with $100m including an additional 350 homes and two lakes with lakefront housing starting at $750k and an entire 1/4 mile of commercial on the main road.Or maybe you were including rebuilding the entire 1 mile area that surrounds the plant if so I digress.Packard as a stand alone does not even come close to $100m.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Splendi..._%28Florida%29

But it is all good and well, I have a lot of faith that by next years elections a new Detroit will emerge and all of this will be history and non issue.

It is a discussion with opinions not a criticism and what is it with this big push of urban gardening anyways.I guess it has its advantages and disadvantages depending on where you sit on the tractor.