GRAND RAPIDS – Findings from an internal investigation by the Kent County Land Bank authority were released this week, and the study’s conclusions were welcome news to county officials.

“I’m just very pleased with the results of this, I have always felt good about the work that we do, and it’s really nice to have it validated,” Ken Parrish, the Kent County Treasurer and Kent County Land Bank Authority Board Chair said.

DETROIT—For the past year, Clement Wright has driven into the Marygrove neighborhood before and after his night shifts at Chrysler to reclaim a small piece of the city where he has spent his whole life. While his friends texted him sunny vacation pictures from the Florida Keys, Wright, 62, spent much of his non-working life tearing down walls, laying bricks, installing electrical outlets, sanding, tiling, nailing, molding and painting.

KALAMAZOO - The Kalamazoo County Land Bank is planning to raise $2.5 million for eight 600-1,000-square-foot, 1-2 bedroom homes on Foresman Avenue off East Michigan Avenue. After hosting multiple public open houses, draft designs are being put together in anticipation of a fundraising campaign and construction to begin in fall 2018.

Kalamazoo’s Eastside neighborhood has been economically challenged for years. Several condemned or blighted homes at the site of the planned development were demolished in the last decade. One was associated with meth activity.

BATTLE CREEK — The Calhoun County Land Bank Authority and Battle Creek Area Habitat for Humanity are partnering to rehabilitate a vacant house at 247 N. McKinley Ave. in Battle Creek.

“The Calhoun County Land Bank is excited to work with Habitat for Humanity to breathe life back into this house and build on the successful revitalization efforts in this neighborhood,” said Krista Trout-Edwards, Executive Director of the Calhoun County Land Bank. “Rehabilitation projects like this help stabilize property values, promote public safety, put houses back into productive use and get them back on the tax rolls.”

CALHOUN COUNTY - A group of Calhoun County teens are making a lasting impact on a Battle Creek neighborhood, one plank of wood at a time. The teens are building a house from the ground up to learn trade skills that could land them a job after high school. Newschannel 3 toured a home that the students are working on right now. We’re told that many of the students involved in these projects land construction or other vocational jobs right after high school.

KALAMAZOO - The Kalamazoo County Land Bank along with photographer and neighborhood resident Fran Dwight have brought this project to Kalamazoo’s diverse Edison Neighborhood in 2017 in an attempt to foster and deepen community connectedness by installing large scale portraits of neighborhood residents in highly visible public spaces. This project has simultaneously added beauty to the neighborhood and represented the array of individuals living there. This is a more public and visible way to showcase the beauty that exists here through the variety of ages, cultures and styles represented, and facilitate a collective neighborhood identity.

SAGINAW COUNTY - The Saginaw County Land Bank has teemed up with the Saginaw Basin Land Conservancy to create “pollinator plantations” on 10 vacant lots owned by the Land Bank. The project kicked off in June, and will include over 50 lots total in Saginaw County. They plan to create plots of wildflower plantings that support pollinators like bees and butterflies, while also saving on mowing and maintenance costs that are normally carried by the city and county.

GLADWIN COUNTY - Call it the marriage of opportunity and elbow grease. This is what happens when community needs meet community spirit.

The Clare-Gladwin Career & Technical Education Construction Trades students needed a project to improve their skills. The Gladwin County Land Bank Authority needed motivated, affordable skilled trades workers to help improve a Gladwin neighborhood.

KALAMAZOO - Over the course of the past year, the Kalamazoo County Land Bank led an effort to revitalize a historic, but blighted building in the Edison neighborhood, just southeast of downtown Kalamazoo. This competition, called Fare Games, identified a pair of local food entrepreneurs as the winner of the reduced rent and prize package of goods and services meant to help them launch their new venture, called Pho on the Block, in the vacant space.

KALAMAZOO - The Kalamazoo County Land Bank has worked over the past 3 years to revitalize the once-vibrant commercial corridor in Washington Square, in the Edison neighborhood of Kalamazoo. Their latest project in Washington Square has been the Fare Games competition.

BENZIE COUNTY - With an operating budget under $100,000, Benzie County Land Bank Authority’s pool of funding for demolition and site cleanup is a far cry from some of its larger land bank counterparts in the state. However, communities throughout Benzie County still struggle with blighted, vacant properties that need to be demolished and cleaned up prior to being put back to productive use. So, BCLBA works to drive down its demolition costs where possible to enable them to have an impact on key sites throughout the county. Through the years, BCLBA has used deconstruction and recycling partnerships to minimize their on-site demolition costs and reduce the amount of demolition waste going to the landfill.

BENZIE COUNTY - Driving on US-31 through northwest lower Michigan, the “Question Mark” building was an unmistakable landmark for residents and businesses alike in the heart of downtown Honor, MI. Adapted in the early 1990s, the two-story commercial building served as an artist community space called the “Wonderland” and its then-occupants erected the recognizable 12-foot question mark sign on the front of the building. Eventually the artist collective left the space and the building remained vacant for the next 20 plus years, each year resulting in further dilapidation and disrepair. This blighted commercial building, centered on Honor’s main street, served as a hulking eyesore for decades, finally falling into tax foreclosure in 2014.

CALHOUN COUNTY - To support local land stewardship and improve lot maintenance, the Calhoun County Land Bank Authority developed the Neighborhood Mow & Maintenance Program. Through this program, local community groups and nonprofits can apply to the land bank to mow and maintain lots in a particular neighborhood or block during the summer mowing season. In return, the land bank provides a $3,000 stipend for the organization.

Many land banks today are working to answer the question, what comes after demolition? While working to address that issue, the Calhoun County Land Bank Authority has found a unique use for land bank properties before demolition: donation to local fire departments. The land bank has provided properties to Battle Creek, Albion, and Sheridan for their fire departments to use for firefighter training

KALAMAZOO - Unlike many land banks in the country focusing strictly on residential properties, the Kalamazoo County Land Bank Authority has taken on commercial property revitalization since its founding in 2009, often using creative paths in revitalizing commercial parcels, as demonstrated by its work in Washington Square.

CALHOUN COUNTY - To kick off its first-ever side lot sale and get residents excited about the opportunity to expand their ownership footprint by purchasing adjacent lots, the Calhoun County Land Bank hosted a Spring Fling event. At this successful event, the Land Bank sold nearly 36 lots in its inventory. The land bank partnered with the City of Battle Creek to host the two-hour event on a Saturday in April to connect with residents living next door to or nearby vacant lots.

FLINT - The Genesee County Land Bank completed renovation of the Oak School in Flint two years ago this month. Originally a school built in 1856 and closed in 1976, the building was then used by Genesee County Community Mental Health for 20 years before becoming vacant and then part of the land bank’s inventory. The land bank partnered with HUD, MSHDA, LISC, the City of Flint, and neighborhood organizations to clean up the property, develop a site plan to transform the historic building into senior housing, and secure financing.

GOGEBIC COUNTY - Large and small communities across the state struggle with a similar problem—they need to address blighted buildings, but lack the funding to do so. While there is certainly a difference of scale in the number of buildings the city of Detroit must tackle versus a smaller city like Ironwood, Detroit and larger cities like it, have greater access to funding sources at the Federal level to help address blight.

MARQUETTE - The Marquette County Land Bank is partnering with Ishpeming High School’s Industrial Arts Program to renovate a formerly abandoned home across the street from the school. The land bank donated the property to the school last year, and starting this semester, students in the advanced construction classes will begin renovating the home as part of their curriculum.

KALAMAZOO - The Kalamazoo County Land Bank is partnering with the Kalamazoo County Treasurer and local municipalities to demolish blighted structures that have been foreclosed on by the county treasurer for delinquent property taxes and are endangering neighborhoods and residents.