Developers Belted In Ann Arbor

"By a 2-to-1 margin, [Ann Arbor voters] approved a tax to pay for buying land outside the city limits...The greenbelt millage -- which replaces an expiring tax that acquired parkland inside the city -- is expected to raise $84 million over 30 years and $1.9 million in its very first year. Two-thirds of that will be used to buy land or to buy the development rights to existing farm land...The Ann Arbor tax lobbed a direct hit at real estate developers, who had mounted an expensive campaign to defeat the proposal...[the millage] won't seize property from legal owners. It respects property rights -- and the need for people to have forests and cornfields and parks around them."

Thanks to David Gest