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Property position

Negaunee City Council discusses ways to market, sell unused city land

Negaunee City Manager Jeff Thornton, standing at left, discusses a map of the city with owned property depicted in red as City Attorney Bruce Houghton, seated, left, Mayor Don Gladwell, standing, right and Secretary to the City Manager Ann Ducoli look on. Members of the council asked the manager to identify city properties that could be eligible for sale at the council's regular meeting on Wednesday. (Journal photo by Lisa Bowers)

NEGAUNEE — Members of the Negaunee City Council started a conversation about selling city-owned property as a first step to economic growth at its regular meeting on Thursday.

Council member Nick Visser said he would like to see the city move forward in cataloging and selling its unused property.

City Manager Jeff Thornton said he compiled a list of city owned property after Visser presented the idea on Monday.

At Thornton’s request the Marquette County Equalization Department put the parcels on a map using a geographic information system.

Thornton said he would send a PDF version of the map with the city-owned parcels highlighted to each council member.

The map will also be uploaded onto the city website sometime in the near future, Thornton said.

Along with a PDF version of the map, Council member Toby Smith suggested that a form be made available to buyers interested in acquiring city land on the website.

“That would streamline the process somewhat,” Smith said.

Visser said getting a visual representation of what city-owned parcels might be available on the city website should raise public awareness, and possibly allow the city to get some of the parcels in the hands of residents or developers and back on the tax rolls.

“I think having the properties on the website would be an easy and a cheap way to advertise,” Visser said.

Council member Toby Smith suggested the Lake Superior Community Partnership be utilized for marketing the properties to potential developers if at all possible.

“It is a listing they can promote, they have a lot of contacts and they have a lot of people looking for property in Marquette County,” Smith said. “If the agreement with the Lake Superior Partnership costs us $3,000 a year and they help us sell two properties in a year, that’s way less than it would cost to pay a Realtor to list those properties.”

Mayor Don Gladwell said he would research the services that LSCP could offer the city in terms of marketing the properties.

“I will look into that and get back to you at our next meeting,” Gladwell said. “I will also clarify what the yearly fee covers.”

Thornton said marketing the properties would allow city staff to catagorize parcels based on how they are zoned and compile a history of the land it owns.

“If we start identifying pieces of land, we can start doing a deep study on them one parcel at a time,” Thornton said. “We really need to go through and figure out what are we using all of these properties for.”

Rather than market each parcel of land individually, the city works through a process with each potential buyer to determine that person’s needs.

“People will come to us and say what do you have — but we have to say to them — we have a lot of property,” Thornton said. “We have to ask, ‘What do you need?'”

Thornton said anyone that wants to purchase assets or real property owned by the city is first required to put their request — including what they want to use the land for — in writing.

“We then forward the request out to all departments and ask — does this property have any function to the city,” Thornton said. “Then we also look for the history of the property, why did we acquire it, for what reason and do we still need it?”

Thornton said once the request has been looked at by the city departments, then it moves on to the planning commission.

“The planning commission will look at the master plan as well as the city’s land reuse plan,” Thornton said. “Anyone who has come with a serious inquiry, we put it through the process and if it doesn’t make it through the process it probably means the city still needs that property for some reason.”

Visser said while there may have been legitimate roadblocks to buyers in the past, he would like to see the process become more transparent for all parties involved.

“The council should know that there has been an inquiry,” Visser said. “Just so that we know what is going on if a resident asks us.”

Thornton said anyone interested in purchasing land from the city should contact city hall.

“In the meantime if there is any group or individual interested in acquiring property please send them to us,” Thornton said. “We have different areas and it depends what they are looking for.”

Lisa Bowers can be reached at 906-228-2500, ext. 242. Her email address is lbowers@miningjournal.net.

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