DETROIT (AP) - A Detroit real estate development group is planning to bid on a large area of the city’s northwest side that spans 24 neighborhoods.
The City Council’s corporate counsel is reviewing the proposal from Home Team Detroit and is expected to present a report in about two weeks, City Councilman George Cushingberry told the Detroit News (https://detne.ws/2nERRok ).
The group wants to buy thousands of properties in a 25-square-mile area, fix them up and offer tenants a path to become homeowners. The aim is to buy the properties before they end up at an annual tax foreclosure auction, said Home Team Detroit CEO David Prentice.
“The game plan is pretty simple,” said Prentice, who formed the development group last year. “You are going to have a quadrant of (Detroit) with properties that are primarily occupied.”
The plan has faced backlash from the Northwest Detroit Neighborhood Coalition, which has launched a petition drive to block the project. The group argues that such proposals don’t serve the needs of the Detroit neighborhoods.
“These bulk purchases only accelerate vacancy, blight and further erosion of our community,” the coalition said.
Cushingberry said the proposal was “comprehensive and takes into account that one of the issues that prevents home ownership is financial literacy.” Home Team Detroit’s proposal estimates that an average of 11,500 properties in Detroit end up at the auctions in each of the past four years.
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Information from: The Detroit News, https://detnews.com/
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