Local News
Linn County auditor wants to sell land to put property back on tax rolls
Posted on Nov 10, 2009 by Adam Belz.
Linn County Auditor Joel Miller wants the county to sell or give away 40 parcels of land to reduce its liability and get the property back on the tax rolls.
The county owns odds and ends all over, from downtown Cedar Rapids to drainage ditches in cornfields.
“When we started talking abatements and layoffs, this is part of my leaving no stone unturned,” Miller said. “Part of saving money is getting rid of excess property.”
The 40 parcels equal almost 18 acres, but many of them are in odd shapes or on useless land. Some parcels in the shape of triangles, some are shaped like Ls, most of them are long, thin rectangles.
“We can either give them away and get them on the tax rolls, or we can sell them,” Miller said.
Pending approval from their legal advisers, the supervisors could auction off the properties in the next few months, he said.
cure4pain
11. Nov, 2009
Now there is a great idea coming from an elected official for once. Good thinking Auditor Miller!
glorose
11. Nov, 2009
Many of these Parcels of land are to small to build on.
Many of these Parcels originally, before the City set limiters (on how wide and long a property had to be or how far from the property line and from the curb you had to be to build) on lot size you had to have before you could build homes on. Once the original building Burnt down / was destroyed they could not rebuild on that location.
On my block there is 7 – 8 more houses then could legally be built on it today.
Who wants a lot that is too small to build on.
So far as the drainage ditches I don't like the idea of tiling them out so you can build on them and sending the water down hill to those of us that are near the river. That practice of tiling out wet lands so you can build on them is part of the reason the flood of 08 was as bad as it was. They have been tiling them out all along the river, sending all that extra water down to the river.
I live outside of the 500 year flood plan and I got flooded 4 – 41/2 of water on my first floor. Were as we probably still would have had flooding in 2008 it probably wouldn't have gone much beyond the 100 year flood plain if they hadn't done all this tiling out.
I'll bet about half of these parcels have reasons why they can not or should not be built on.
shotfeel
11. Nov, 2009
Sounds like a good idea, but as glorose pointed out, there's probably a reason those bits of land aren't currently in use. Question is, how much would you have to pay people to take that land knowing its probably useless for anything but they'd have to pay taxes on it anyway?