Follow Procedures Prior to Acquiring Property for Redevelopment

<p>The Town of Renewville has ambitious redevelopment plans for several key—but tired and/or underdeveloped—properties along its Main Street. As we know from a prior post examining the limited situations in which a local government may discuss property acquisition in closed session, the Renewville town council intends to kick-start the redevelopment process by acquiring several of those key properties directly. After acquiring the properties, the council intends to engage development finance experts to conduct predevelopment analysis, and then it will sell the property to a private developer through a Request for Proposals (RFP) process, similar to the process completed by other North Carolina communities as described here and here.</p> <p>However, a threshold determination must first be made. Is it necessary for the town to comply with any procedural requirements prior to acquiring the property? After all, local governments typically don’t comply with any particular procedural requirements when they acquire property. In this case, however, the answer is “yes”—certain procedures must be followed if the town wishes to convey the property to private developers selected through its RFP process. The answer is the same for a county, too. This post explains why it is advisable to issue notice and hold a public hearing prior to acquiring property for redevelopment and discusses risk mitigation for local governments that fail to do so.</p> <p>Start with the end in mind</p> <p>The key to understanding why the town needs to hold a properly-noticed public hearing prior to acquisition, is knowing the end result desired by the town. Ultimately, the town hopes to sell each [...]</p>