Business Incentives
There are many opportunities to assist your business development with incentives.
Opportunity Zone
A portion of downtown Manistee has been designated as an Opportunity Zone, allowing investors to invest in business creation and development while sheltering capital gains.
Manistee County Land Bank
The Manistee County Land Bank can be a resource for developers on sites throughout the county.
Redevelopment Ready Sites
The City of Manistee is certified as a Redevelopment Ready Community and has priority sites ready for redevelopment.
Brownfield Authority
The County and City of Manistee both utilize brownfield authority legislation. Brownfields can be used to capture tax increment financing to reimburse for investments.
The City of Manistee can utilize several tax abatement initiatives to assist with redevelopment sites:
The Obsolete Property Rehabilitation Act has been utilized in Manistee and begins with an application to the City Clerk.
Other Programs
You may find assistance attracting, training, and retaining workers by utilizing the Go Pro Talent Fund.
Financing beyond traditional banks and credit unions can also be used, particularly for gap financing on projects: Venture North Funding.
How Programs Benefit the Community and a Project
There are a lot of misperceptions about how an abatement program works. One common misperception is that abatements collect taxes from residents, then write a developer a check. This is not how these abatements work.
![Samantha Seimer, (Sep. 19, 2022), MEDA Real Estate Development and Reuse [PowerPoint Slides].](https://growthzonecmsprodeastus.azureedge.net/sites/1739/2022/10/Manistee-Area-Chamber-of-Commerce-Housing-Summit-1-41d337ab-240c-4c94-bc8a-9bdefa1d6d2d.png "Manistee Area Chamber of Commerce Housing Summit (1)")
Many programs are structured in the way visualized in this graph. Long-term, abatements are a benefit to the community that invests in the project. The process is as follows:
- The owner of a blighted or vacant parcel pays the base property value for that parcel.
- An abatement holds or freezes the property taxes that are received by the local government at that base level.
- Following construction, the developer pays the increased property taxes for the new value of the property.
The additional new taxes are set aside to pay the developer back for eligible expenses, or to pay for public improvements.
Covering certain costs can close the gap in financing by paying for parking improvements, utility hookups, or environmental cleanup costs. Recently, some of this money was used to close a water main loop for a project and surrounding homeowners.
After the term of the abatement program ends, the property taxes go back into the general fund at their full value. This is usually from 5 to 12 years.