When Jaike SpottedWolf saw empty lots on Tillman Street she envisioned a sacred space for Detroit’s Indigenous community — a powwow ground, smokehouse, garden, church, and gathering place. The Thečhíȟila Collective, which she co-founded to support community needs, hoped to buy the land for its listed price of $7,000.

“Making sure there’s a space for native youth, native elders for them all to come together if they want, that isn’t gatekept. That doesn’t exist for us in the city,” she said of  the approximately 30,000 Native people living in metro Detroit. 

But months after the group expressed interest in 4751 Tillman, the Detroit Land Bank Authority raised the price of the parcel, which included seven lots, by nearly 2,000% to $136,500 — putting it far beyond the collective’s budget and raising questions about how land is valued and who gets access to it in a city with deep histories of displacement.

The collective first inquired about the property in early 2023, when it was listed at $7,000, a price that had remained unchanged since 2021, according to online records. In February 2024, the price jumped, even though the parcel sat vacant for years, surrounded by empty lots and abandoned buildings. For SpottedWolf, the timing felt impossible to ignore.

“Why the hell would you value this property [higher] knowing this lot has just sat there and all the lots around it?” SpottedWolf said. “It’s impossible for natives to get land, to get a little outcrop in an urban space. Not to say that other communities aren’t facing huge barriers, but our situation is one of being batted down.”

Land bank spokesperson Nicole Simmons told BridgeDetroit that the price adjustment was made independently of the collective’s inquiry, and the property was one of many across the city repriced recently. The land bank also made a counteroffer to the group of  20 parcels across the street for about $26,000.

“As part of the DLBA’s ongoing efforts to ensure our property listings remain current and reflective of market conditions, we regularly audit and re-evaluate pricing,” she said, based on factors like how long a property has been listed, pending DLBA transactions and surrounding neighborhood development. 

Detroit sits on land originally stewarded by Indigenous peoples — the Anishinaabe nations — before it was taken through colonization. A 2020 Detroit News investigation found that land was taken again through force by illegal overtaxation, resulting in foreclosures that largely displaced longtime Black residents. Today, efforts to reclaim and redistribute land face ongoing barriers, including struggles with the land bank. Residents, neighborhood groups, law advocates and other community members say opaque processes, questionable practices and preferential prioritization of developers make accessing land difficult for historically disadvantaged communities.

The Tillman property is in an area being held by the land bank for “jobs and amenities,” a category where publicly-owned vacant lots account for a third or more of all parcels and could create opportunities for the development of large-scale public or private revitalization projects. Across the city, the land bank had 16,083 lots reserved for “jobs and amenities” development as of June 2024. 

Higher property values

In adjacent Core City, the housing market activity has increased significantly in recent years.

The area saw the highest increase of housing sales and the second-highest increase of median house sale prices from 2012-13 to 2020-21, according to a Detroit Future City report. Median sale prices rose from $3,000 to $70,000 in that period. This year, the median sale price of a home in Core City is up 33.6% compared to last year, according to real estate company Redfin. 

Simmons said the sale to the Thečhíȟila Collective didn’t move forward due to a lack of funds. Two other nearby transactions are pending for other buyers – $29,000 for four lots and $138,000 for six.

“During our conversations (with the collective), we expressed that the 4751 Tillman lots may not be the most suitable option for their project due to several factors: the price point, the number of lots, the presence of a structure requiring significant renovation costs etc.,” she said in an email. While the collective submitted “some of the initial documentation for their application,” they hadn’t shown proof of funds beyond a $10,000 grant, she said.

SpottedWolf countered that the collective was under the impression it had all of the required documents in order, but had not heard from the land bank in months, and then the price was raised. Then, earlier this year, the real estate agent for the property gave the collective a $60,000 quote for demolition of the single upright structure on the seven properties, putting the parcels outside the collective’s budget. But SpottedWolf said she didn’t anticipate it would be that high of a cost due to volunteers.

“We have enough comrades that would be invested enough to come and tear that building down, etc., enough for the land bank to not take the land away,” she said. About 50 volunteers spent a day helping the Thečhíȟila Collective clean up four lots that Arboretum Detroit purchased from the land bank to donate to the collective. 

The land bank declined to answer additional questions about agreements it has with other developers in Core City and whether the land bank’s holds in the area for jobs and amenities affected the potential sale.

After purchasing a land bank property, owners have six months to complete renovations and bring the property into compliance.

Vacant land bank structures are supposed to be boarded and secured, but the Tillman building is exposed without windows or doors and has a collapsed second structure, BridgeDetroit observed during a May site visit. 

SpottedWolf said the land bank’s alternative proposal for the group to buy 20 across-the-street lots is a “bad deal,” lacking a water and electrical connection and foundation. 

It costs between $6,500 – $30,000 to connect utilities to land, according to thousands of real estate projects analyzed by the home services platform Angi. 

Even though it’s not what the collective wants, SpottedWolf said in an attempt to get any land, the four-person collective bid in March for theon the alternative lots. The land bank and collective have been going back and forth in the application process, but nothing has been finalized yet.

Criticism of the land bank

The collective’s experience reflects broader criticism of the land bank, which has faced scrutiny over a perceived lack of transparency and accusations of preferential treatment toward large developers. The authority has spent the last year and a half operating under the terms of an expired Memorandum of Understanding with the city. In April, Detroit City Council voted to eliminate its $10.5 million subsidy to the land bank for the 2025-26 budget, citing the authority’s financial surplus, while elected officials raised questions about the bank’s future, like a restructuring that would shift some of its programs back to the city. The collective joins other Detroiters entangled in complicated land acquisition battles with the land bank. 

Last year, lifelong Detroiter Jeremy Orr signed a purchase agreement with the land bank for two vacant lots near his family home and paid a $700 deposit. Then, he said, the land bank tried to back out. 

“They decided that they would only sell me the lots if I purchased additional lots that were connected to it,” he said. Orr said he declined, citing the cost to clean up the “hazardous” additional lots, overrun with weeds, debris, and dumping.

After weeks of debate, the land bank told Orr, who is a lawyer, the deposit was nonrefundable. He said he reminded the agency of the signed, enforceable contract and they reversed course within a day. 

“The only reason they probably gave me my money back was because I was an attorney,” he said. “Most Detroiters aren’t going to have access to an attorney who understands land use or municipal law.” 

Another issue: the two lots he wanted weren’t listed in the land bank’s online inventory, something other residents have also experienced. Orr pointed out how difficult it is for most people to navigate these problems.

 “They’ve come a long way in creating programs that allow people in the communities and neighborhoods to access these lots, to actually put their own community to use in utilizing vacant lots, but the bigger issue is that it still doesn’t feel equitable,” he said. 

Orr, who specializes in environmental justice and land use in his law work, supports limited land bank holds but criticizes the authority for widespread land holds. 

“The [land bank] probably shouldn’t even own much of this land that they have,” he said. “We’re not even getting into the idea of how much of this land was foreclosed on illegally.”

Between 2010 and 2016, the city of Detroit overtaxed homeowners by at least $600 million, leading to tens of thousands of foreclosed homes and lots that ended up in the hands of the land bank. Others allege the land bank continues to seize homes through its Nuisance Abatement Program without properly compensating the original property owners, and in February, a federal class action lawsuit was filed. 

Greg Willerer, co-owner of Corktown urban farm Brother Nature Produce, was tapped a month ago to help plow the ground at a  lot gifted to the Indigenous collective by Arboretum Detroit. 

He’s had his own challenges with buying multiple lots from the land bank to grow his farm. The process took 13 years but the land bank honored the original listed price. Willerer believes the land bank should do the same thing for the Thečhíȟila Collective and recognize its community work. But instead of arguing about price, he said the land bank should just give the collective the land. 

“You have a group of native people who are trying to do good community work, why… would you get in their way? 

Recently the city did “just give” Indigenous tribes land.

Earlier this month, the City Council transferred the deed of a 0.58-acre site to the Nottawaseppi Huron Band of the Potawatomi for $1 for a sacred burial mound at Historic Fort Wayne dating back more than 1,000 years. 

Urban farmer, seed keeper and member of the Tlingit Nation Kirsten Kirby-Shoote is a member of the Thečhíȟila Collective. She said that the Detroit Black Farmer Land Fund, a grassroots fundraising initiative, helped set a precedent for “giving land back” to groups of people it was wrongfully taken from in the city. Since 2020, the Detroit Black Farmer Land Fund has given out 239 financial awards to Black farmers to collectively purchase nearly 20 acres of city land. 

“I think it’s not far-fetched here to get a little land back for the Native folks in the city,” Kirby-Shoote said.

The land bank is still trying to find a solution, Simmons said. 

“…despite all of this, we have continued to try to find a path forward for the applicant through other DLBA pipelines that are better suited for their project,” Simmons said by email. 

Willerer isn’t holding his breath for the Tillman lots to be used for jobs and amenities. 

For now, the lots sit empty.

“Maybe 50 years from now, someone is going to do what they’re hoping to do with the lot,” Willerer said.